Monday Morning Music Ministry

11-27-23

We in the United States have celebrated, if not observed, another Thanksgiving. Like other holy days… holidays… long weekends, it has begun to endure the onslaught of secularization. No longer are there widespread expressions of thanks to Almighty God in schools, from the White House, and, yes, even in churches.

It is beneficial for us to remember that Thanksgiving, as a holiday, is not really traced to the Pilgrims, as thankful as they were “24/7,” in many ways formal and informal. It was a lowly politician – in proper view, the closest we have had to a saint in Washington, President Abraham Lincoln – who conceived the idea of setting apart a day for government and citizenry to beseech God for mercy and forgiveness, and literally count our blessings.

His Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1863 began a tradition that held, until recently. He wrote in part after enumerating some of the gifts God bestowed upon America:

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens… to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them… ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings….

We can fast-forward to now, when a supposedly Catholic president dutifully issued a proclamation, but included no mention of God. Even simple logic, if not religion, should have suggested to Biden that if you urge people to be thankful, you should mention to Whom they should be thankful. His 2023 proclamation instead distorted history and denigrated faith by claiming the Pilgrims merely “honored the harvest” and expressed gratitude for the “Wampanoag people who made it possible.”

The current president then stated that Americans would gather this year to “celebrate the love they share and the traditions they built together… grateful for our Nation and the incredible soul of America…. I encourage the people of the United States of America to join together and give thanks for the friends, neighbors, family members, and strangers who have supported each other over the past year in a reflection of goodwill and unity.”

The current White House surely knows how to pinpoint things it advocates or hates. But “being thankful,” a passive, neutered term – instead of giving thanks – is a willful avoidance of a worldview that acknowledges God and His role in our national heritage and current affairs. When Biden gives thanks for “Friends,” he might well be talking about the episode where Joey gave Chandler a goat.

This is a symptom, of course, of the country at large; certainly the popular culture. But also of the Party in power. That party and its allies would be suing or censoring Abraham Lincoln for engaging in “hate speech” in the Proclamation.

This New Ingratitude trickles down to everyday speech and social interaction. Take note, this coming week, to how people express and receive Thanks. Remembering that words mean things and are significant, listen in stores, food counters, and dialogue on TV programs. “Thank you” is still uttered, but usually “Thanks” is the grandest form of sincerity.

Moreover, these days “You’re Welcome” is a virtually obsolete phrase. The response, rather, often is something like: Sure… You bet… No problem, or No prob… You got it… Sure thing… Back atcha…

Words have consequences. To paraphrase William Butler Yeats, we are slouching toward a society of ingratitude, or, worse, indifference. Americans – and I include much of the church – know how to complain; what to hate; whom to resent; when to lose patience. But we have lost the capacity to be grateful; to acknowledge good happenings; to share credit; to… thank God, not just our own work or luck, for blessings.

Almighty God does not demand gratitude and thanks from us… Well, yes, He does, actually. He is a “jealous God” and through the Bible we are told, by Him and His prophets, that gratitude and thanks are due Him. Our worship liturgies remind us that it is “meet, right, and salutary that at all times and in all places we give thanks to Him”… “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever”… “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”… “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name”…

At one time we were a people who knew that God was the source of good things, and that He was worthy of praise and thanks. Now we are a people routinely expecting entitlements.

I want to view the Lord and Thanks-giving in one more way. It is proper that we have an attitude of gratitude. But through the Bible, God does not only demand our thanks, praise, and obligation. We should also recognize that Christianity is a two-way street, so to speak.

What I mean is this: God thanks us, too. His blessings are “thanks” for our faithfulness. His amazing Creation was given, a gift, to humankind. Answered prayers are “thanks” for our devotion and supplications. The Gifts of the Spirit surely are His reaching down to bless us. The very fact that He became incarnate flesh to dwell among us and offer a plan of salvation is a manner of advance-thanks.

God demonstrated His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

Was there ever a more heartfelt “Thank You”? The Lord considers us worthy of thanks, this verse says, before we would even deserve it. Thanks for believing on Him; loving Him; serving Him. The challenge to Christians is how we return thanks, how we give life to “You’re Welcome, Lord.”

But respond we must, with sincerity and purpose. Gratitude. And a spirit of giving Thanks.

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Click: Thank You

11-20-23

Our post-Christian culture has become, rather, so anti-Christian that it sometimes has to distort the past to justify the brave new world. Here are examples of notable figures from history whose relationships to Christ have been suppressed, and will surprise some people.

Vincent van Gogh is generally regarded as the greatest of artists, or among the few supernal geniuses who put brush to canvas. His works are respected and valued, yet his private life often is viewed as sad and twisted; that he was a disturbed figure to be pitied; that cutting his ear and committing suicide are evidences of an unbalanced mind.

Vincent’s life was troubled, certainly. Of many hundreds of paintings, he sold only two in his lifetime. He continually relied on friends and his brother for money. Once when especially despondent, he drank too much and was almost institutionalized.

Yet. Vincent was the son of a pastor, and brother of another. He aspired to be a minister himself, but was turned down by a seminary. He visited missions and charity halls, even once traveling to London to minister to the poor. He was almost as beset by what he felt as his inadequate service to Christ, as by his paintings’ lack of acceptance. I have just finished his Complete Letters – three massive volumes; how did he find time to write so much and paint so much? – and they are filled with Christian references. Until recently his Biblical-themed paintings were sublimated, but there are many, and they reveal his profound faith.

His brother Theo was the recipient of most of Vincent’s letters. In one typical example he wrote of his heart and his art: to paint men and women with that something of the Eternal which the halo used to symbolize, and which we seek to convey by the actual radiance and vibration of our coloring. Among Biblical scenes he painted, many people see allegorical compositions in paintings like “Cafe Terrace at Night,” elements of which echo the Last Supper.

To much of the world today, van Gogh is thought of as a crazy man who cut off his ear. Modern studies have concluded that he did not commit suicide but was killed by a stray bullet. But a genius who was passionate about Jesus and wanted to reflect God’s glory in his art? Our age does not want to know that van Gogh!

Another figure from history whose persona is firmly established is Oscar Wilde. Playwright, poet, aesthete, epigramist, he also shocked Victorian England as a homosexual and proud pedophile. Only after the father of Wilde’s most consistent lover grew enraged, was the writer lambasted in public and convicted under Victorian statutes against immorality. Subsequent to a colorful public prosecution, Wilde was thrown in jail.

There (in Reading Jail, or Gaol as the Brits spell it) he might have rotted. Well, in fact he very nearly did rot. But he did not buck the system nor shake his fist at the bench or the heavens. In books like The Ballad of Reading Gaol and De Profundis he reflected a recognition of his sins – personal and social – and evinced a respect for Jesus Christ. He sought out clergy; he expressed his need for absolution.

Wilde wrote, near the end of his life: That is the charm about Christ, when all is said: He is just like a work of art…The little supper with His companions, one of whom has already sold Him for a price; the anguish in the quiet moon-lit garden; the false friend coming close to Him so as to betray Him with a kiss; the friend who still believed in Him, and on whom as on a rock he had hoped to build a house of refuge for Man, denying Him as the bird cried to the dawn; His own utter loneliness, His submission, His acceptance of everything… the crucifixion of the Innocent One before the eyes of His mother… the terrible death by which He gave the world its most eternal symbol; and His final burial in the tomb of the rich man, His body swathed in Egyptian linen with costly spices and perfumes as though He had been a king’s son.

Oscar spent his last days in exile in Paris, destitute and sick. He had not lost his trademark wit, even self-deprecatory. He complained of the cheap boarding-house room in which he lived: “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.” Modern studies have focused on Wilde’s earlier aggressive iconoclasm and flamboyant homosexuality, but not much on his embrace of the Savior. Oh, not in these times.

I nominate a third person, or people, who can be in the category of “those we didn’t know were Christians.” Myself. I will explain:

I was at a party a number of years ago. Cartoonists and writers, folks I knew fairly well, but I was chatting with a friend’s wife I barely knew. The subject of a recent project was raised, and she said, startled, “Oh! You’re a Christian? I didn’t know!” Now: she was a committed believer too; and the statement was in the mode of “Oh! You’re left-handed?” or “You’re a vegetarian? I didn’t know that!”

I am neither one of those people; however the point is relevant – I immediately was “convicted,” a truth brought home to me. She knew the professional-Rick but not the Christian-Rick… and there should be no difference. Van Gogh and Oscar were, respectively, celebrities wrapped in eccentricities or end-of-life controversies; and whose reputations were “protected” by those who cared little about publicizing their spiritual rebirths.

You and I, on the other hand, are – I hope and assume – alive and kicking. If we are Christians, that fact should not take anybody by surprise. “They’ll know we are Christians by our love,” a song goes. We don’t wear signs around our necks, and should not have to wear jewelry or lapel pins to announce or prove our faith-commitments to anyone.

We must not be ashamed of the Gospel. We can show love. We can forgive. We can share the words of Christ. We can serve the needy and the sick, the broken and hurting. We can – first of all – confess Jesus as the Son of God; believe that He rose from the dead after sacrificing Himself, taking our sins upon Him. The Holy Spirit will then see that we bear fruit as Jesus intended.

… And soon we will be saying to each other: “Oh! You’re a Christian too? I knew it!”

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Click: Vincent – Starry, Starry Night

11-13-23

I was talking with a new friend this week about worship – how it has changed in the church; radically changed, even in our lifetimes, but also radically through the centuries. Does worship follow the culture… and should it? should it readily conform to contemporary trends? There is the legitimate caution that if a worship style slavishly follows styles of music and communication and – dare I say it? – entertainment, then a church risks alienating as many people as it attracts.

Is the function of worship music to attract worshipers? Or is it the role of worshipers to gather, and seek God, and praise Him, and celebrate His worth-ship (a theory about the word-origin)?

I have long been tempted to wonder if contemporary worship music is scarcely neither worship nor music. That extreme view can be found in the virtual book, Rick’s Epistle to the Curmudgeons. But I am far from alone. My late wife and I were… well, literally late for a service at a church we attended in San Diego. As we passed through the lobby, we saw an elderly lady sitting alone on a bench with her walker. We asked if she need assistance to enter the service, which was loud enough to indicate it had begun.

“No,” she said. “Every week I wait out here until the music is finished. It is too loud; I can’t understand the words; and the leader always insists we clap and jump. I cannot manage.”

This poor lady was robbed of a worship experience because she was, frankly, made to feel unwelcome for a part of the service. Alone, in fact. And she was alone. Was she, in a way, outnumbered, or out-voted? I began to notice that many people in the congregation (there and at many churches I subsequently visited) seem uncomfortable with reading from screens, jumping on cue, smiling when the worship leader says, “Good morning! Say it louder, like you mean it!!!”

There was a time in church history when people gathered to worship in diverse ways. Sometimes believers gather to “be still and know that I am God.” Sometimes to bow heads, or lie prostrate before the Lord, and not jump or wave. Sometimes to cry; not always to laugh.

How many people, in churches today, are more focused on the worship than the One who should be worshiped? Or respond to the music – the instrumental riffs, the drum beats – more than the message? Or who regard the entire service as entertainment? – how many leaders, not only the “audience” – feel that way?

I think what is at play is that the contemporary church recognizes a pervasive problem in modern life – let us categorize it as alienation – but reacts in a completely inappropriate way. Megachurches, “big box” churches, mass worship are superficial attempts to draw people together… have them share experiences… bond with each other. Yet, largely, these types of gatherings merely assemble strangers as at a pep rally – prompted to cheer, respond in unison, be audiences and not congregations, and applaud when the show is over.

Contemporary worship accelerates the problem, instead of solving it. And it is a problem. The church should resist these tendencies, not perpetuate them. These church services often can be gatherings of people who gather “as one”; but many of them are rooms full of people who feel terribly alone, even sandwiched in the seats. Worse: feeling as alone when they leave, as when they arrived.

Alone. Ironic in busy churches. Ironic in a mass culture. Ironic in crowded cities and neighborhoods, schools and offices. It is recorded and reflected in statistics: More and more people seek counseling because they feel unconnected. Murderers and criminals invariably are ID’d in press reports and police statements as “loners.” We jostle people on city sidewalks and packed lunchrooms, yet unprecedented numbers of folks desperately turn to internet dating sites, or “virtual” web friends, looking for fellow strangers… other lonely people.

The answers surely are explained by psychoses, not demographics. When the landscapes were sparsely settled, and before towns became teeming cities, people are recorded in history as being relatively alone, but not lonely. Folks dealt well with distant neighbors. It was only in the Twentieth century that social scientists began to recognize the “Lost Generation” and “Disillusioned Youth”; pervasive cynicism, ennui, and resignation. Then, the “Beat Generation”; radicalization; the secularization of society. How many people today really know their close neighbors? Or want to?

I think it is all a symptom of the condition that Contemporary Man simply does not like himself. And the church neither recognizes it, nor tries to solve it, except by superficial and futile means.

My friend told me about her church which institutionally encourages neighborhood groups that meet for fellowship, study, and… worship. Meeting regularly, in small groups, arranged by interests, professions, personal challenges, geography, whatever. But common care is visceral; bonding happens, and fellowship is genuine.

This was a paradigm of the First Century church. It was real. It was precious. Did it “work,” as church leaders today would calculate the numbers of “people in the pews”? Oh, yes. Christianity grew and spread, People wanted what it had.

Let’s pray, church friends, for common sense. If feeling alone is today’s deep-seated cultural problem – how is that best overcome? In a mass setting where people are instructed to worship like robots… or in circles of friends who develop authentic, intimate relationships?

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Click: No, Never Alone

11-6-23

Christianity was berthed in Jerusalem as a vibrant, living body of believers. It moved to Greece and became a philosophy. It moved to Rome and became an institution. It moved to Europe and became a culture. It moved to America and became a business.

Somewhere in there, Christianity the Religion was corrupted and became synonymous with the Established Order. “Be ye in the world, but not of the world,” a command of Jesus Christ, has become obsolete in the post-Christian West. This week was the observance – scarcely observed any more, actually – of Reformation Day. It has caused me to wonder how many steps forward Christianity has made since Martin Luther’s day… and how many steps back.

In his times, Luther was not the first Christian to dissent from practices, corruption, and wayward theology in the Church. For more than a hundred years, believers had been tortured, imprisoned, and burned alive for questioning doctrinal inventions of Rome, and daring to translate Scripture into languages of the people. Luther, a monk, nailed a list of his complaints to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. He too was persecuted, excommunicated, chased, went into hiding… and translated the Bible into the language of his people, the Germans.

“Reform” became the Reformation. “Protest” became Protestantism. But what have the movements since become?

Luther sought reform, not revolution, yet revolution occurred: half of Europe caught fire with the belief that faith alone, by God’s grace, actuated salvation; and that people needed no intercessor with God except Christ; not saints (many of whom were fictional inventions), not Marys, not purchased “indulgences.” As doctrines, “Faith Alone,” “Scripture Alone,” “Christ Alone,” and “Grace Alone” were themselves resurrected.

The Reformation finally caught fire after the accumulation of martyrs. Other Reform denominations were founded. Luther, who never intended to break with the Church much less see a denomination established with his name, had to rein in his followers, the radical among whom had begun to destroy statues and Christian art. At the other extreme, Luther rode the wave, often manifested in secular art, of the Renaissance. Because his Reformation respected literacy and inquiry, local ecclesiastical and political control, and the dignity of the individual, the whirlwind he unleashed effectively led to the printing press, the Enlightenment, and Western democracy.

(For another essay we must examine the seeming contradictions in Luther’s rejection of Modernism – he can be seen as the last of the Medievalists – and remember his dictum that “Reason is the enemy of faith.”)

But, for those of us who commemorate the “birth” of the Reformation, let us think about the denominational movements, collectively called Protestant. Historians know what was protested 500 years ago. What do they protest against today? “Christendom” – the Western Church, certainly the American church in virtually all its corners — is in dire need of reformation again.

Many Protestant churches have become as secularized, money-oriented, and social, as the offending Roman churches were 500 years ago.

Many Protestant churches emphasize “works” – rewards, incentives, trying to please God through good deeds – no less than the Papacy did when Luther was disgusted by it all.

Many Protestant churches ignore the tenets of the faith, deny the Divinity of Christ, and question essential doctrines of the faith… to an extent worse than Luther beheld in Rome.

Christians must live in this world protesting – that is, not accepting the world’s standards, not conforming to the ways of the world. We must either offend the world-system or be a sweet savor; but NOT become like the world. Jesus did not “go along”! What does Protestantism protest against any more?

The Reformation succeeded in part because the larger culture enthusiastically embraced, for a time, the melding of Christian and social, civic lifestyles. But now, upon the altars of inclusion, pluralism, and multi-culturalism, Western societies increasingly eschew even mentions of Christianity and its standards, much less respect them.

Martin Luther accepted martyrdom for his beliefs, even to the point of his rescue. A letter on display at the Museum of the Bible, written the night before his trial, displays how accepting he was of his fate… and how ready to defend his conscience, to die for His Lord. He said when he was called on trial to recant his beliefs and writings (under the threat of death), Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can not and will not retract [my writings]. For it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.

The time is coming in this contemporary world when Christians will have it demanded of them to renounce their faith; in fact, it has begun. That this is already a time of anti-Christian persecution is abundantly clear. Not only in pagan and Communist lands, but our own. Believers daily suffer indignities and are asked to compromise their principles and forced to sublimate their voices.

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

We must, like Martin Luther, embrace our faith and moral integrity, at all costs; and find the spiritual strength to say:

It is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other.

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A clip of Niall MacGinnis’s iconic portrayal of Martin Luther:

Click: Here I Stand

10-30-23a

I recently have had cause to “describe what I do.” Because of a flurry of interviews and articles, I am being asked to list the activities and high points, such as they might be, of my career.

Some books, various jobs, a few awards, and lengthy prison terms (= three truths and a lie) routinely have been accepted, but I have had “pushback,” occasionally, about activities I label as “Christian apologetics.” Apologetics is something that has been exercised since the Resurrection of Jesus, and this blog site’s fare – my 14 years or so of sharing these thoughts every week – is an example of the form.

Some people evidently misunderstand the term, which infrequently is used except in the religious context; and less often even in that case. Because of similarity to “apology,” the word can carry the connotation of being defensive about our faith. Or whining about elements of theology. Or making excuses for Christians who commit offenses. No.

Christian apologetics is derived from the Greek word apologia, which simply means offering an explanation or a defense. In other words, it is a method of presenting the Gospel. One might think that all sermons or religious writing does that, yet that is hardly the case. Since the Disciples’ time (“the Apostolic Age”) and down through the centuries, writers and speakers also (or alternatively) have concentrated on teaching, or exhortations, or correction, or evangelism, or social action, or…

I have chosen in several books and these blog messages to know Christ and to make Him known, in the words of the motto of a church in which I worshiped years ago in Connecticut. This “calling” motivates me perhaps because that is what I needed most at points in my life – and still, often today. That is why in these essays I share my thoughts more than preach from a platform. I sometimes am encouraged to collect some of these essays in a book, and I would title that book Eavesdropping on God, because I have learned His truths by paying attention when He acts; and then sharing (“experiential apologetics,” to be precise).

Beyond the basics, no form of sharing the Gospel (“Good News”) is superior to the others – their utility and efficacy depend more upon the hearer than the speaker. Yet some of the great giants of the faith over 2000 years have been apologists: St Paul at times; early saints of the church, cited by the amazing historian Eusebius, who defended the faith during days of Roman persecution; Justin Martyr; Origen; Augustine of course; Anselm. History tends to persuade people today that philosophers and scientists of the Enlightenment were “enlightened” because they developed intellectual arguments against Christianity, but the opposite was true: they largely discovered scientific proofs and arguments for the truth of the Gospel.

The philosopher, scientist, and essayist Blaise Pascal was one who defended the form of apologetics when he wrote: Men despise religion; they hate it [because they] fear it is true. To remedy this, we must begin by showing that religion is not contrary to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for it; then we must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally, we must prove it is true.

In our day, perhaps because the world is desperate for it, many have chosen to help people know Jesus by adopting methods of apologetics. C S Lewis, most powerfully; G K Chesterton; Francis Schaeffer; my old friend Mike Yaconelli; Josh McDowell; John MacArthur; R C Sproul; Father Robert Barron; Jimmy Swaggart; and of course Billy and Franklin Graham.

Having explained the explainers and explanation, however, there are some who wonder why God Almighty does not make Himself known more directly. I have a friend who is a fervent Christian, but going through some personal crises. She cries out – as we all have in certain moments – why God does not make Himself appear to us, perhaps physically or audibly. Why faith is required when, for instance, the Disciples could see and talk to Jesus. “The Gospel of Jesus is easy to understand; but the person of Jesus sometimes is hard to know…”

Sharing the Gospel, employing apologetics, is the challenge and the privilege afforded to those of us who serve Him when dealing with such “assignments.”

• One reason I cherish story is because we can only “explain” and “defend” so much; ultimately the person of Christ, has to be met, not only described. We try, but there is no substitution.
• Do you yearn to see a physical Jesus? His Disciples walked with Him for three and a half years, yet when things got dicey, they denied knowing Him, and scattered. Would we be any different, in the midst of our problems?
• Thomas literally could not believe his eyes when the risen Savior approached him. When he beheld the wounds, Jesus said, “You believe because you see. But blessed are those who believe in me but who have not seen.”
• I employ apologetics when I bypass theological arguments and fire-and-brimstone, and simply explain to people that “I know that I know that I know.” We all can identify with such inner assurances. I have met Him – no; He has met me – in times of trouble and crisis. And no less in times of confusion and anguish. And joy. A difference between head-knowledge and heart-knowledge.
• I have witnessed miracles. And for all the glorious physical mysteries I cannot explain, least of all can I explain what He brings – “the peace that passeth all understanding.” The world can’t give that; the world can’t take it away.

So I bring no apologies for bringing apologetics to you. I can attempt the methods of historicity and theology and teleology and familiar threats of eternal damnation and promises of eternal life in Paradise – all courses of the same meal, as it were. But I have chosen to know Jesus and make Him known by sharing what He shows me, and what He has done in my life, and what I see He does in the lives of others.

Can I introduce you to my best friend? I’ve got a story or two to tell you…

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Click: Do You Know My Jesus?

10-23-23

Two weeks in a row, a “life story” with a practical message and a spiritual meaning. This one obviously is personal, so I should get it right, despite being barely conscious during some of it.

Some of you know that I write more than a weekly blog. Other blogs; roughly one magazine article a month; newspaper columns and op-eds; and books. It was my seventy-fifth published book that took me to New York last week. I have been doing interviews, recently the Charlie Kirk and Rita Cosby national radio shows / podcasts. The semi-official Book Launch of The Most Interesting American, Post Hill Press, my third book on Theodore Roosevelt, was scheduled on the campus of Long Island University / C W Post College. Close to Sagamore Hill, the Oyster Bay home of TR.

In addition to LIU, the events – press conference, reception, book signing, speech, public Q&A – was to be covered by C-SPAN for broadcast on its Presidential Books series. The events were co-sponsored by Theodore’s Books, the terrific Oyster Bay shop run by former congressman Steve Israel. For all the resourceful people involved, the real angel was Bernadette Castro, one of the nation’s great natural resources – furniture heiress; onetime New York candidate for the US Senate; 12 years the New York State Parks Commissioner in charge of historic preservation; and an amazing role-model of civic virtue and activism.

In short: I woke up woozy the morning of the events (forgive the technical and medical terms), but I had not eaten much in several days except for a grand dinner the previous evening; I had flown a hurried trip the week before; deadlines plagued me… who knows. It could not have been “stress” about my speech, because I have always said that I could talk about Theodore Roosevelt in my sleep. Inadvertently, here was to be my chance.

At the event, I stumbled in late; I half-realized I was signing my name one and a half times, or just scribbling; I needed help getting to the dining room. It was all a strange sensation, but more so for those who beheld this, ahem, esteemed author. I am sure that the guests (many and distinguished) thought I was drunk or having a stroke. Bernadette assured them that I was quite sober, and if I were sentient I could have assured them… well, in fact, I was not sentient. Medics arrived; then an ambulance; and I blinked back to consciousness in the loving arms of St Francis (the wonderful hospital bearing his name in Port Washington, NY).

When the dust had settled, so to speak, the consensus was not demon rum (I scarcely drink) nor a stroke but a “simple” case of hypoglycemia. My blood-sugar level had dropped to 37. I am on two meds as a pre-diabetic (“pre”? I am never early for anything) and maybe the disruptions of the previous days put those meds into overdrive.

(I only had problems with hypoglycemia once before, but that was in a spelling bee in sixth grade. Seriously, my late wife had diabetes since age 13, so I should be aware of some of the collateral issues. I am more aware, again. I am dropping jokes here as often as nurses who wake you up to ask if you are asleep… but for the first time in my life I thought I was going to die.)

Several days in the hospital; canceled appointments to see old friends and hoped-for business partners; and, having been rushed from my events, no books or papers or laptop or even a phone-charger. But the word had gotten out, and almost 700 well-wishers reached out, between phone calls and texts and e-mails I eventually received. In my case, “well-wisher” usually means people who wish I would fall down a well; but this was very special, really touching.

Among all the outreach, my daughter Emily called from Ireland, once for 45 minutes. And my son Ted drove up from Washington DC, where he is a TV news producer, to “hang with Pop,” and drive me to the airport after a day in Manhattan, just like old times.

To the impatient reader who wonders where is the “practical message, the spiritual meaning,” it is here, thicker than a dose of glucose syrup. Jesus was real to me through this. Not only my faith and grounding, nor that I was in a Catholic hospital. He truly was present in myriad ways.

I had a friend who was a professional skeptic (a.k.a. wiseguy) who once challenged me after some troubles I had. He said, “You keep giving Jesus the credit for the help you got. That wasn’t Him… it was all your friends! Wake up!”

OK. Chapter 2: For all of our conversations about politics and TR, and common work on causes like fighting the attack on historic statues… my greatest bond with Bernadette Castro is when we share personal stories, frequently centering on faith. She showed her character again this week.

This week could have been National Anti-Cliché week, because many of those messages and e-mails were from people who left fervent prayers and shared encouraging verses… as we all are to do, sincerely; not throw off Hallmark-like “Feel Betters” in circumstances like these.

A new friend in Michigan had volunteered to drive me to and from the airport (of course not knowing these things would transpire), saving me parking fees for a week and – surely – a shaky solo drive home, otherwise. A blessing. A friend from another state, who had sent a “love offering” to help with expenses… could not have known how useful that card would be. A blessing.

The hospital staff… well, ‘nuff said. I had interaction with so many people those days who showed Jesus, it was a reinforcement about the Healer, our Ever-Present Help in times of trouble. The Holy Spirit, you see, is the means and the motivator when we share the Jesus who lives within us.

So, Chapter 3. To skeptics like my old friend who said it was not Jesus but merely nice friends who show themselves in such crises (and as he, sadly, must have learned by now) –

It is Jesus who “works” in these situations. The Savior often chooses to work through His people. What better way? – win-win for everyone who is touched. I was ministered to; friends yielded themselves to share Christ’s love; and – I pray – others who hear this Gospel message may be blessed.

Yes. Let’s “wake up!” indeed.

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Click: Where No One Stands Alone

10-16-23

This following is not a parable; not at all. It is a true story I heard and pass along with names changed to protect the innocent, and blessed, parties.

I will call the principal figure Charlie, who just observed his 50^th anniversary with his wife Sally, as we will call her. Their sons threw an elaborate and surprise anniversary party. There were guests old and young, from old times and recent, attending from far and wide. There was a lot of love in the restaurant room.

This story – remember where you are reading this – has a spiritual component. This aspect was not planned, nor even noticed by all the guests. But it is an example of how God does not always shout – He often whispers. The Holy Spirit can virtually shove us sometimes! But He can also tenderly, gently tug at our hearts.

Charlie and one of the “farthest drive” guests were college roommates all those years ago, and were not particularly religious. At the party they shared some of the fun times, funny stories, and practical jokes. In the subsequent years Charlie’s friend Rich as we shall call him, has grown in his faith and sometimes shares encouraging messages with people.

Among the memories that popped up was a recollection from those college days about another friend named David, let us say, who in intervening years experienced a crisis; and that Charlie suggested that Rich talk and pray with David. It seems this was an uncharacteristic thing for Charlie to do, at least back in the day. But evidently those prayers had some impact, and since then David has been following Rich’s occasional encouraging messages. Now they are brothers in Christ.

Charlie had, and has, a real brother who could be called George and is known as an impressive brainiac, sharing the love but not the politics nor faith of Charlie. Nevertheless, as Rich learned in surprise, Charlie has been forwarding his messages in those two areas… and George made a point, at this party, of expressing his appreciation and discussing some thoughts. Charlie the evangelist? Some would be surprised.

In another story, or backstory, Charlie and Rich had never met each other’s children through the years. Yet Charlie was so upset at the rupture in the relationship of Rich and one of his daughters that he often volunteered to call her out of the blue and try to heal the situation. Which eventually he did.

That is not the most surprising aspect of that particular story. Charlie’s niece, who could be called Connie, is one of the most active Christians in that family. She works, through her church, with missionaries. Making friends with Rich, she spoke of a concern for Uncle Charlie’s faith. But she was surprised to hear the story of his intervention in the father-daughter problem… and especially her uncle’s reassurance, through the years to Rich, that he “prays for them every night and for their heartache.”

To the extent that Connie was surprised is the main reason I am sharing this story.

Friendships endure, or grow cold. Families grow closer, or drift apart. Seeds of faith are planted, and sometimes sprout and grow; in fact that often happens – no surprise. But as all this – for the lack of a better term and for the sake of this story, let us call it life – happens, deepening faith and learning to share Christian love, gets manifested in myriad ways.

This Charlie fellow is not like the cousin of a friend of mine whose own faith has been growing despite (or because?) of a great crisis with her son. My friend’s cousin is a Christian of comfortable means, and gives greatly to charity. How do we know that? He brags about it. Oh, it comes out in small talk, or anecdotes, or references to details… but everyone knows how “good” he is.

The Bible – our Lord Himself – firmly tell us not to be like that man. Have you heard the words? Not to let the left hand know what the right hand is doing (don’t do things for praise). Not to utter the loudest prayers in places of worship. That the widow’s mite is more meaningful than ostentation. When Jesus talked about not hiding one’s light under a bushel, He meant that our faith should shine as a glowing candle; but works, our deeds, may be in secret.

Who sees the good works? The giver, who surely is blessed; the recipients, who benefit; and God, who knows.

Well, as stories were loudly shared during that anniversary party, so also were stories of different sorts — privately, of faith and witness and love. No surprise: that’s how life ought to be. A mosaic of experiences, friendships, memories. Often, memories that bring tears to our eyes.

But it sounds like at that surprise party for Charlie and Sally, there were two kinds of tears flowing. Some of them like showers of blessing. We also have an illustration of the saying that we should always “share the Gospel… sometimes even using words.”

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Click: There Shall Be Showers of Blessing

10-9-23

Toe-stepping alert. Some will be offended here; maybe a greater number of you than usually happens. But as they say in legislative debates, I rise on a Point of Personal Privilege. Or, I don’t know… what cats do with hairballs.

Recently I wrote about how Jesus was treated in the days leading to His crucifixion “by us.” What I mean was that there is no reason to think that any of us would have acted any differently in those horrible days than the people who, just days before, welcomed Him with Hosannas, or even His closest friends who abandoned and denied Him despite three years spent in His entourage, seeing miracles, knowing His love.

Yes, we can be fickle. We often revere the most common things in life. And we often are casual or even dismissive of the holiest.

Exhibit A: It is amazing – and to me, personally, annoying – how many people, even nominal Christians, who refer to God Almighty as “the Man Upstairs.”

It is almost like a superstition, a fear of calling the Most Holy God, Creator of the Universe, Love of our souls, by any of His many proper names. It seems like trying to hold two like-poles of a magnet together. But it is, in reality, an insult.

Would it be much different than God referring to us as “Those little fleas down there”?

Except, maybe, as matter of degree – like physical abuse or cruder insults – disrespect is disrespect, we might be dangerously close to acting like those abusive crowds in Jerusalem. Even those of us who have repented of our sins and asked forgiveness were, as it were, virtually among those crowds who despised and rejected Him, when we choose to continue to live in sin; when we choose to show proper respect before Him. Which we always are: before Him; in His presence.

Do I paint an extreme picture, go too far? You don’t think so? Would you have acted differently back then? Are you as resectful of the Savior… as He deserves? Even His disciples mostly scattered like autumn leaves in a windy street when things got rough, before our Savior was mocked, kicked, and spat upon, betrayed, seized, jailed, accused, tortured, and killed. And then “we” hid in fear for three days until He rose from the dead and had to show Himself to us.

You know, sometimes I wonder – if such a thing could be measured – whether “Jesus Christ” is uttered more as a curse than a blessing or in prayer across the United States every day. Possibly so. Shame on us.

The “Man Upstairs” must be awfully disappointed.

When He comes again in Glory it will be humankind’s second chance. Will He be despised and rejected by us again? Take your pulse, as it were – will we hide our faces from Him? Will you “esteem Him not” (as Isaiah predicted 700 years before Jesus was crucified)? When He returns will He be kicked and punched again? Will you spit on Him?

Will He be called names?

Yes. He will.

Will it be “Son of the Man Upstairs”? Will it be “Je-sus Christ” as in some bitter curse? Or… will we call Him King of kings, Lord of lords; Savior of our souls?

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Click: Rise Again

10-2-23

I have come through a stretch where friends, or acquaintances of friends, have died or observed anniversaries of deaths, or have faced serious life-threats. There have even been sad stories of different people’s similar ailments, tempting one to think they are more than coincidences. Have you ever noticed such trends?

We wonder at those times: Is there something in the water? Conspiracies afoot? Phases of the moon?

There is something called apophenia – confirmation bias – that can fool our perceptions; self-fulfilling prophesies in our minds. Examples are when we take note of weather trends like global warming; or crime statistics; or cancer and other diseases – are things changing, or is there only better reporting?

Nevertheless, we sometimes want to toss statistics (whether affirming or contrary) and “expert opinions” out the window. For instance, when we see more children exhibiting signs of autistic behavior; or know of more folks dying of cancer than in, say, Colonial days; or hear about examples of more auto-immune diseases than existed years ago. If these are just perceptions, or heightened awareness, we can point to another adage – what the Romans called omne trium perfectum – that things come in threes. (Like my lists in these previous paragraphs!)

In fact our minds often run in threes. There are sayings that both good things and bad things happen in threes. The Bible, beginning of course with the Trinity, points to 3 as the number of perfection. Writers are taught to have three main “peaks” in a storyline; fewer are dull, more are confusing. Similarly, orators and pastors are taught to hold audiences with three main points. Homiletics: explanation; illustration; and application. (“Tell them what you’re going to tell them; tell them; tell them what you told them.”)

So… our minds want to “see” patterns in myriad ways.

Yet, to return to cancer. The disease does seem to be on the rise, at least in its horrible varieties… more than three, sadly. For all the accounts of “thank God it was detected early” – and we do thank Him in such cases – there are counter-balance stories. In my case, an old church friend whose husband was “opened up” to search for the cause of stomach discomfort… was quickly “stitched up” when many cancers were evident; he died soon thereafter. Another new friend’s son-in-law was diagnosed but surgery seems to have “caught” the suspicious lymphatic glands. But another friend’s husband went from diagnosis of brain cancer to death in five quick weeks. “Mercifully short”? Clichés are of scant comfort…

Cancer – the “Big C” – looms larger in our collective minds than almost all other diseases; perhaps more ominous than international crises or environmental challenges (which, in fact, might be closely related to the cancer epidemic), touching almost every family and neighborhood. The “Big C,” people call it.

It’s a little odd how humankind makes light of dangers. You know, phrases like “acts of God.” Jokes like “The devil made me do it!” Back to cancer again – smokers who cynically call cigarettes “C-sticks.” In fact, if we insist on reverting to shorthand or nicknames, let us adopt another use of the term “the Big C,” and apply it to the real Big C – Christ.

We, the human race, had our chance one time when Christ “became flesh and dwelt among us,” as the Bible refers to His earthly ministry. Seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, the prophet Isaiah prophesied and predicted, and even described what Jesus would look like… and how He would be treated by us: Despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. We hid our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

Yes, the “Big C” came to earth, to teach and heal but mainly to Save – to offer Himself as the sacrifice for the punishments we deserve as rebels against our Heavenly Father.

He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and by His stripes we are healed. Full circle back to cancers and afflictions? Does Christ, by this, always heal as we would wish? Not as we would wish – my wife was miraculously healed of thyroid cancer… yet despite fervent prayers, she had to receive heart and kidney transplants. However she faithfully believed she was healed by the miracle of surgery, God’s chosen answer in that circumstance. And she was given a testimony to share.

If there are lessons through all these mysteries, it is that God is sovereign. We trust Him to answer prayer as He will. We praise Him at all times: that is faith. God’s “Big C” – our elder brother, Christ Jesus – is bigger than cancer and any other problems we face.

No matter what we call the challenges, we should call Jesus by Who He is – Christ, our Savior.

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A beautiful, pertinent song by cancer survivor Janet Paschal, written by her and her half-sister Charlotte Ahlemann.
Click: You’re Still Lord

9-25-23

The Holy Bible is comprised of many books written by many hands over many centuries in many locations. Most of the writers did not know each other; neither did they dream of how their texts would be joined or bequeathed through subsequent history.

In fact some of the books were written frankly to record events; some were written to inform and instruct other believers; some were written in the clear belief of writers that they were transcribing God’s words and warnings and commandments.

All the writers, however, were inspired. Consider that word literally: in-spired; as per respiration and other words, the root is “breathing.” So the Holy Spirit of God, by common belief of all the scribes, believed that the Lord “breathed in” to their hearts. As our Creator-God, He did such things. In these later times and by other ways, He still whispers His truths to us… He speaks to us in answered prayer, and inspired thoughts. Like no other deity in other “religions,” His words are confirmed multiplied times over, through the ages.

The “harmony of Scripture” and “unity of the Gospel” are therefore truths that reassure believers, and astonish mathematicians, among others. Think about the probabilities of disparate people agreeing with others whom they did not know; or confirming facts about which they had no tangible clues; or sharing predictions and prophecies that happened, as it turned out, “to the letter.”

These people “recorded” as the Spirit of God dictated to their hearts, things that sometimes made no sense, or seemed irrelevant at the times… but of course have powerful relevance to humankind. Scientists and archaeologists today are discovering places and persons in ancient Scripture that were recently thought to be poetry or fantasy or fiction… but – we discover that those kings, those battles, those cities were real.

The Bible tells us so.

So, despite the stubborn secularists and agnostics who regard it all as a fable or insider-conspiracy or poetic nonsense, we stand in awe of the Holy Bible as history (“His story”); as wisdom and guidance; as a Love Letter from God Almighty. Between its covers are not random contents and disputes and admonitions, but exceedingly precise, intentional words for our comings-and-goings. And for our lives.

There are nit-pickers, some of whom seem sincere, and some of whom have huff-and-puff scholarly manners, who tell of minute differences between, say, accounts in the Gospels – just how many things did Jesus say when hanging on the cross? Or renewed skepticism when their “proofs” against, say, a Great Flood or the actual existence of an ancient Biblical kingdom, have been upended. If they spent one one-thousandth of the time studying the truths in God’s Word, as they do searching for contradictions…

They, and the world, might be better off.

If we look hard enough, anyone can see what they want to see, or miss what they want to miss. I was on the editorial team of the republication of the 1599 Geneva Bible, which was in fact the translation of John Calvin that (among other significance) Pilgrims brought to the colonies; not the King James version. It lives in history as the “Breeches” Bible because translators handled the account in Genesis 3:7, where Adam sewed fig leaves together to cover his nakedness, and called the garment “breeches.” Somehow mankind seemed to pay as much attention to that, as to the entirety of Scripture.

There are other tempests in teapots – or angels dancing on heads of pins. The Apocrypha is, or is not, regarded as canon; and portions of Daniel and Esther are regarded by some Christians as “Deuterocanonical” – added or discovered at dates later than “accepted” Scripture. Martin Luther doubted the authority of the Book of James. I recently have been studying the movement of the early church father Marcion, who held unorthodox views on the relevance of the Old Testament, and establishment of the Apostolic church, to Christ’s mission and message. Some view him as heretical, but without his movement, we might not have some of New Testament Scripture and traditions.

Again, my point – and my willingness to raise such issues – is that we as humankind are face-to-face with God’s existence, Jesus’s reality, and the Holy Spirit’s essential role in our lives. Yes… the devil can be in details, sometimes.

We need to keep our eyes on Heaven, and our feet on the ground.

I know Jesus is real because I have met Him. He mightily has intervened in my life, and that of my family. He has worked miracles that no other person, no other power, could do. Can I explain this to skeptics. No, not really… it is for everyone to experience. And I would say that it is not so important that we love Him – it is to our salvation; yes, but what is most important to grasp is that He loves us.

If we had to order a priority (and it is not really a priority: both things are true and essential), but I would plead to those who have not yet accepted Salvation to grasp the fact that God so loved the world that He allowed His Son to take our sins upon Him… that we may be one with the Father. That makes the Bible – however else the world debates it – a thousand translations; the source of debates; the essence of holy wisdom; a handbook for conducting one’s life; a record of miracles; prophecies of end times – when all is said and done, a love story.

I think we cannot fall in love with God fully until we are aware of the awesome fact that the Creator of the Universe knows and loves you and me. The Bible is God’s love letter to us; love is in every word, every verse, every chapter, every book.

Yes, Jesus Loves Me. The Bible tells me so.

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Click: Jesus Loves Me

9-18-23

There have been a few small denominations that discouraged music in worship, just as there were sects that outlawed sex. For similar reasons those groups seemed to perish, disappear… and are missed by few.

Music is a part of humans’ souls. Mysterious in its way because not everybody has the talent to create tunes… or perform well… yet we all respond to music. Those who “can’t carry a tune” (and some people cannot) still enjoy listening. The most hardened people find their hearts softened when they hear a familiar melody. Songs are composed to win lovers and to send boys to war; to bond and to bind; to remember… and, by diversion, to heal and forget.

I am not aware of a survey, but I figure that 95 per cent of songs are love songs. Tennessee Ernie Ford once was asked why he sang so many Gospel songs and not more love songs, and he answered, “Gospel songs are the greatest love songs of all.”

Instrumental music is, to me, the most mysterious, and profound, of all music… all of all the arts. Abstract, yet specific in intent. And musical notation is a language all its own – a universal language. Composers who begin their work with blank staves… and finish with “sounds” that can move us literally and also move us to tears and smiles… perform a kind of miracle.

Johann Sebastian Bach took those blank pages, and before beginning to compose any work, wrote “Jesus, help me” at the top of the first page. When the composition was finished, he wrote “Thanks be to God” on the last page, acknowledging his source and strength of inspiration.

Quirky denominations aside, all cultures, in their social and religious practices, have relied on musical expression. The Bible overflows with descriptions, and endorsements, of joyful music. In Genesis 4 Jubal is identified as the ancestor of “all those who play the lyre and pipe.” Elsewhere, Elisha commanded, “Get me a musician,” wherewith a blessing was delivered. David, the “Sweet Singer of Israel,” ministered to Saul by playing music at night, much as Bach’s Goldberg Variations were composed to soothe those who sought rest.

Martin Luther, the great reformer and preacher, was also a composer (for instance of A Mighty Fortress Is Our God) and he defended music in church: “The devil does not need all the good tunes to himself!”

Some of the most important American historians are those who have studied and recorded (including literally) the folklore and folk music of the American past. I was privileged to know (and play music with, even past his 100^th birthday!) the legendary Wade Mainer, whose banjo-picking style influenced Earl Scruggs years before the Bluegrass Sound was born. To hear his stories of rural North Carolina, and hear the songs he and his wife Julia (whose stage name back in the day was Hillbilly Lilly) sang together was like walking through history.

A friend recently reminded me of the excellent book and movie Songcatcher, about those who kept those musical traditions alive. One of the characters mused about the “thread” of a favorite song, perhaps “a touchstone with the past – a remembrance of all the singers who had ever kept a story alive on the strength of their music, and that singing the ballad was a chance to join that chain of voices stretching all the way back to across the ocean to the place where the families began.”

Yes, music hath charms. It is the case, of course, with mighty hymns as well as humble folk tunes. May I provide an example?

Here is a video of a performance of the hymn Nearer, My God, to Thee, which was composed in 1841. Its meaningful words were set to music by several people through the years, including Sir Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame). Its words were on the lips of President William McKinley as he died of an assassin’s bullet – imagine an American president today having this as his last thought? – and by legend, as The Titanic sank, Theodore Roosevelt’s former military aide Archie Butt directed the ship’s musicians to play it.

In this video, André Rieu conducts his Johann Strauss Orchestra, plus 400 brass players and a hundred singers in a performance of Nearer, My God, to Thee. The audience of thousands is a mixed, international group in an open square in Maastricht – and the hymn is performed without words, the singers chanting. Does the audience miss the significance? Not counted by the emotions, and tears, on listeners’ faces!

To hear this hymn, even once, impresses the powerful words on one’s mind, carried by the music. And the reverence of this elaborate performance… confirms the Power of Music.

In words written in 1697 in William Congreve’s play The Mourning Bride, “Musick hath Charms to soothe the savage Breast, To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.” And it can lift souls, and carry us somehow Heavenward too:

Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee! E’en though it be a cross that raiseth me,
Still all my song shall be, Nearer, my God, to thee; Nearer to thee!

Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down, Darkness be over me, my rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I’d be Nearer, my God, to thee; Nearer to thee!

There let the way appear, steps unto heaven; All that thou sendest me, in mercy given;
Angels to beckon me Nearer, my God, to thee; Nearer to thee!

As Bach, “the Fifth Evangelist,” said, “With devotional music, God is always present in His grace.”

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Click: Nearer My God To Thee

9-11-23

“9-11” will never lose its meaning in America; maybe it will have evocations as long as the world lasts. More than a mere “event,” it is one of those moments in history that people will always associate with where they were, what they were doing, when the news of the terror attacks occurred.

It might not lose its meaning, but will it lose its significance?

My son Ted was an intern at one of the major cable news networks at that time. Its studios are across the Hudson from lower Manhattan, and every day – before 9-11 – he could see the Twin Towers from the station’s parking lot. On that day he put in extra hours, working non-stop on the breaking news, correspondents’ feeds, editing video footage, some of which, featuring falling bodies and splattered corpses and collapsing monoliths, have still never been publicly shown.

I frequently have challenged audiences in some of my speeches if anyone could state, even approximately, the number of victims of terrorism there were on 9-11. Hands go up, and the invariable estimates are around 3,000. And my invariable response is this correction:

No. There were approximately 3,000 victims of murder on 9-11. The victims of terrorism are about 330-million… and still growing.

If there were “silver linings” to the clouds of smoke and dust on 9-11 it was that America was briefly united, even unified, in our response, grief, and resolution. Skeptics worried that clarity, patriotism, and some common purposes would be short-lived.

Of course, the skeptics were right. Many young people responded by volunteering for military service. American adventurism, however, has led to ambiguous results if not Pyrrhic victories. A Patriot Act inherently is flawed, perhaps compromising as many rights as it purports to protect. According to elections, surveys, and streets filled with spilled blood and broken glass, our citizenry is more divided than ever.

The terrorists are following an agenda. But who wrote it?

We are in this state not because of a few hijacked planes on 9-11. There were attacks before; many since; and 9-11 only represented the most palpable and perhaps symbolic of the threats America faces. In fact, as with the Roman Empire and all empires and decadent societies throughout history, such attacks are virtual metaphors for the self-destruction that essentially plagues us.

America has invited this situation by our abandonment of core values. Our society – indeed the West in general – is a Post-Christian culture. Among those who might say “I told you so” are the “great cloud of witnesses” described in the Bible (see Hebrews Chapter 11) and, by the totality of His Word and Commandments and Judgments, God Himself.

For further commentary (“Don’t take my word for it!”) I will commend some reflections by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He was the Soviet exile, a man who fought Communism and somehow survived persecution and prisons (the gulags) and escaped to the West after his writings were smuggled out of Russia; they won praise and Nobel Prizes.

I will quote him briefly but wish I could share his thousands of pages. Find his books! His analyses – his warnings – are dispositive today. They are not mere critiques of monstrous Communism. They recognize the Bureaucratic State that threatens “democracies” today. They attacked all of the decadent West. They recognized that the Crisis of the Twentieth Century was not confined to the Communist State into which he was born.

The infection, he said, is not Communism per se – although, of course, Marxism is alive in American education, media, and party politics – but secularism. The rejection of God. Therefore he attacked not only Stalin of the past but the Bidens of the present; not only the Soviet apparatchiks but the American Dark State:

If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than… “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”…The failings of human consciousness, deprived of its divine dimension, have been a determining factor in all the major crimes of this century.

We are witnesses to the devastation of the world, be it imposed or voluntarily undergone. …sucked into the vortex of atheism and self-destruction. This plunge into the abyss has aspects that are unquestionably global, dependent neither on political systems, nor on levels of economic and cultural development, nor yet on national peculiarities.

It was Dostoevsky… who drew from the French Revolution and its seething hatred for the Church the lesson that “revolution must necessarily begin with atheism.” That is absolutely true. But the world had never before known a godlessness as organized, militarized, and tenaciously malevolent as that preached by Marxism…. hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions.

Through decades of gradual erosion, the meaning of life in the West ceased to stand for anything more lofty than the pursuit of “happiness”, a goal that has even been solemnly guaranteed by constitutions. The concepts of good and evil have been ridiculed for several centuries; banished from common use, they have been replaced by political or class considerations of short-lived value. It has become embarrassing to appeal to eternal concepts, embarrassing to state that evil makes its home in the individual human heart before it enters a political system.

Atheist teachers in the West are bringing up a younger generation in a spirit of hate for their own society. Amid all the vituperation, it has been forgotten that the defects of capitalism represent the basic flaws of human nature, freed from all limitations just as the various human rights are; that under communism (and communism breathes down the neck of all moderate forms of socialism, which are unstable) — under communism the very same flaws become completely unbridled in any person with the last degree of authority; and that everyone else under that system truly does attain ‘equality’ — the equality of destitute slaves.

Instead of the ill-advised hopes of the last two centuries, which have reduced us to insignificance and brought us to the brink of nuclear and non-nuclear death, we can only reach with determination for the warm hand of God, which we have so rashly and self-confidently pushed away…. If we perish and lose this world, the fault will be ours alone.

From more than 50 years ago Solzhenitsyn speaks to us. Prophesies fulfilled before our eyes. Solutions under our noses.

Several correspondents have written lately to me about so many “gloom and doom” subjects in these messages, when I promise “a song in your hearts.” Well, yes. But I am a reporter of Biblical things and current events – I try to eavesdrop on the Lord. So these messages convey the facts of our situations, not fantasy.

God, however, writes “between the lines”! Turning to Him, repenting and reforming, will heal our land and dispel gloom and doom!

It is not too late – as individuals and as a nation!

For I the Lord will hold your right hand; Fear not! I will help you! (Isaiah 41:13)

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A dear friend has written that this is a song not in our hearts but to our hearts:

Click: Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand

9-4-23

The unofficial end of Summer: This weekend there will be the sounds of parades, the colors of flags, the sights of smiling friends and family, and if nothing else… the aromas of barbecues. Particularly dear to me as, these very weeks, my daughter Emily, who lives in Northern Ireland, is amping up her American-barbecue business in Ireland and the UK; the BBQueen of Derry. Appropriate Cultural Appropriation you can taste!

I have told this story before about summer get-togethers. When I skip it, I get letters asking “Where was that great song you post every summer?” On this Labor Day weekend, I remember a simple barbecue, 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 almost 30 years ago.

And it always makes me wonder, Is an America we once knew disappearing?

I lived in East Texas back then for a few months, conducting interviews and research for a book I was writing. 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. 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. In 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 for 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 brought the biggest watermelon I could find as my contribution to the pot-luck. There were dozens and dozens of folks. I couldn’t tell which was family and who were friends, because everybody acted like kinfolk. When folks from East Texas ask, “How are you?” they really mean it. There were several monstrous barrel barbecue smokers with chimneys, all slow-cooking beef brisket. (Every region brags about its barbecue traditions, but I’ll fight anyone who doesn’t agree that low-heat, slow-smoked, no sauce, East-Texas barbecue is 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 Charles Wigley of that local church, during the summer had opened for Gold City Quartet at a local concert, playing gospel music on the saxophone.

In some churches, in some parts of America, you sing solo every once in a while. You’re not only 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 naturally 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, and each other, 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

8-28-23

Nothing in the Holy Bible is an accident. Every word of Scripture has application to our lives. That we are not nomads or shepherds is irrelevant. Truth, sin, purity, love, and God’s sovereignty are matters as pertinent to us today as to any people through past centuries and many lands. The smallest details are as important as the larger narratives.

In that perspective I invite a look at the first of Jesus’s miracles. In the second chapter of John’s Gospel we have the account of the Wedding Feast at Cana. It is where Jesus turned water into wine as the feast ran short.

This is the first of Jesus’s recorded miracles. We may marvel, as the wedding couple and the guests did. The important point is to focus on the miracle, not specifically the wine (for all its symbolism, I suppose Jesus might have made a miracle at the wedding feast of bread or fish or… wait; that’s for later). But The miracle itself was intended to impress the guests. Jesus’s actions have significance. His presence as a “mere” guest affirms His own humility, the “servant king.” And so forth.

But let us pause with those who focus on the role of wine at this event. Many people – and multiplied-more others – have lives that are scarred by alcohol abuse. It was the case in my family, and probably the same with most of you readers. It is a weakness in the human condition; and although specific to wine and liquor, I am persuaded that many people are basically addicted to being addicted; alcohol is the tendency or “flavor” or option of many self-destructive life-choices.

Virtually every addict, no matter the frequency or pleasure of the “highs,” regrets the addiction… sometimes (or repeatedly) seeks release… grieves over the consequences. Relationships, jobs, family, career, health, life.

Stick with me, please. The focus of the Water-Into-Wine miracle should not be the food or wine, nor even the miracle itself… but the Miracle-Maker.

Let us say that you have an addiction. We all do, in myriad ways, even to the common addictions to sinning, transgressing, pride, not fully serving God. Many believers – and I address well-meaning Christians – often pray that we be freed from bondage to this or that temptation. But those prayers are often in this context: “Help me be strong, Lord, that I can battle these problems. Watch me!”

As God reads our well-meaning hearts, we often mean: “Get me to that point, Lord, where I can resist these challenges on my own.” And it’s likely we really mean: “I want You to be proud of me, Lord. Give me wisdom and strength that I can overcome these temptations by myself.” And we are in effect wanting to get to the point of saying, “Thank you, Lord! I will take over from here!”

That’s spiritual maturity, right?

No, that is spiritual immaturity.

Let us never forget the Biblical reminder that “we can do nothing except through the Christ who strengthens us.” Remember that Jesus wants to run with us, not watch us hand off the baton and then cheer from the bleachers. Why did God send the Holy Spirit except to be our constant Guide and Comforter and Wisdom and Strength?

Was Christ’s work on the cross something that we should regard as “finished” when we think we know how much to receive from it?

In the case of our focus here, sometimes for addicts the greatest miracle is not to be free of the alcohol… but rather to become addicted to Jesus. “I’ll take it from here, God…” is self-swindling. A greater personal “overcoming,” a greater miracle, is to change our lives that we learn to be dependent, not independent. To be dependent on Jesus instead of the bottle, our own wills.

We are impressed by the account of that miracle at the Wedding Feast, turning water into wine. In our own lives it would not be a matter of weakness, but of strength, if we were to plead for a different miracle. Many things we simply cannot do on our own. God, please turn the wines of our lives – our tendencies to sin; our disobedience; our addictions – back into water.

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Click: Wine Into Water

8-21-23

The pictures and videos of the devastating fire in Hawaii, in the city of Lahaina on the island of Maui – much less the bare news and statistics – are nightmarish. Arising spontaneously; whipped by bizarre winds; approximately 3000 structures destroyed almost instantly; many people literally incinerated. Death tolls of more than a hundred folks are sure to rise, as many hundreds are unaccounted.

We tend to use words like “unprecedented” when we hear of such disasters, yet we sadly and too easily can recall other natural disasters like Pompeii 2000 years ago, or the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, when upwards of 8000 people died.

When the news of the fires broke, I called a friend in Seattle. He has a home on Maui, about two miles from the fires, as I learned. He has been reassured that his home was safe, yet he wept as the memories of familiar and favorite neighborhoods – and, of course, possibly many friends and neighbors – might be among the horrific losses.

Our minds might go back to another legendary fire, the Chicago Fire of 1871. Debates still rage, virtually as heated and wild as the flames themselves: Was the fire’s origin of “man-made” causes? How responsible were poor city planning or faulty responses in Chicago… or in Lahaina? Or are such disasters (for instance, in great forested lands) inevitable and cyclical? My webmaster, who is formatting this message, recently was on a car trip half a continent away from a burst pipe in his basement. Family heirlooms and uncountable photos were ruined. That sort of a flood can be as personally tragic as the 1889 Johnstown Flood.

My friend with the house on Maui shed real tears for the disaster in “paradise,” despite his own property being spared. And yet – I am not naming him to protect his privacy – his tears of compassion were being shed despite the immediacy of his current situations. He is dealing with two very serious medical problems; and his wife is very sick, too, at the moment.

How quickly beautiful oases of serenity and security, like Lahaina or suburban Seattle, can become virtual “valleys of the shadow of death…”

A prosperous Chicagoan in 1871 had lost properties and much of his wealth in the legendary fire. Horatio Spafford was further devastated by the Wall Street Panic and Depression of 1873. With meager resources he decided to have his family – his wife and four daughters – live for a spell, frugally, in England. Attending to final arrangements, Spafford sent his wife and daughters ahead, intending to join them soon afterward.

But a cable arrived from England with news that their liner had collided, mid-Atlantic, with a Scottish freighter. His four daughters were among those who drowned; more than 300 souls in all. Even in an ocean there are “valleys of shadows of death.”

As Spafford sailed for England to join his wife who survived, the captain of his vessel slowed the ship at one point and announced to passengers that, as close as he could reckon, they were at the approximate spot where that “famous, recent maritime disaster and loss of life occurred.” Can you imagine the anguish of experiencing fire and flood (so to speak), so personal, and even floating on ocean waters where his dead daughters might have been below?

Spafford, a devout Christian and supporter of the noted Chicago evangelist Dwight L Moody, reacted in a way that only the Holy Spirit could embrace and give strength – anyway, I am not sure I could have had the spiritual courage… to write a poem in reaction. That poem became the words of one of the great hymns of the church: “It Is Well With My Soul.”

When peace like a river attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll, Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, “It is well, it is well, with my soul.”

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, Let this blest assurance control – That Christ has regarded my helpless estate, And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin – oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! – My sin, not in part but the whole, Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more! Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul!

It is well (it is well) With my soul (with my soul); It is well, it is well with my soul!

It would seem to take superhuman faith to compose such words at that moment. In fact – whether with this background or not; the Hawaiian wildfires on the news, or not – it takes great faith to read these words, sing that hymn, and believe that truth.

Because whatever befalls the believer, it is well with our souls if they are in Jesus. Even in the worst circumstances… health or status… self or family… things of the moment, things of the future… even loss of jobs, of homes, of friends, of lovers… “let goods and kindred go,” in the words of Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress”… God is yet the Captain of our ship, our souls.

Impossible to accept, believe, embrace? That’s what faith is.

• Sometimes friends are revealed as inconstant; and we realize that in a situation, we had hope in a person, instead of faith in God.
• Or we pray and plan, and yet the programs fail; and we realize that we sought direction from everyone and everywhere except the One who orders our steps.
• We know what we want; and then we are reminded that God knows what we need.

There are mysteries in the Ways of God. I do not believe He sends disasters or disease, even to “teach lessons.” He is not a child abuser. Yet there is sin in the world, and our sins have corrupted the beautiful world He created, and sometimes obscure our vision of the beautiful life He promises.

God’s love does not depend upon our understanding of it. Even receiving it does not depend on our total understanding of it! As His ways are mysterious, His love is profoundly without limit. We trust and obey; there’s no other way. And – even in the face of circumstances seemingly to the contrary – it will be well with your soul.

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Click: It Is Well With My Soul

8-14-23

(A guest message by our sometime contributor and all-time friend Leah Morgan)

My apologies to this bee.

I’m so sorry, that’s false fruit. You may be salivating for pollen, but you’ve just received some miscommunication. There’s no nourishment here.

Our own bodies are so magnificently engineered with such heightened perception, they can mistakenly respond to false stimuli too. Our nervous system perceives danger and reverts to a sympathetic condition that propels us in to a fight-or-flight response. High alert! Adrenaline pumping! Physically ready to react! But… it was just political news. Or… it was just someone’s relational chaos we insist on listening to.

The hazards of living in this sympathetic state of perpetual high alert – or stress, as we more commonly know it – are devastating for us physically, mentally, and emotionally. We are meant to immediately revert to operating in a parasympathetic nervous state after dangers pass.

It’s the opposite of fight-or-flight; more like rest-and-digest. But if there are perpetual false alarms, and we continually fatigue our brilliant system, essentially crying wolf, we teach our bodies to never feel safe.

We won’t rest well or digest well, when our nervous system is locked into focusing on danger, real or perceived.

It’s why a particular declaration in Psalm 23 is so profound and such a paradox. He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

Our nervous system downgrades the priority of resting and digesting, when an enemy is present and a threat is imminent. It reserves its energy for allowing us to escape through confrontation or retreat. Fight or flight.

Eating a prepared meal at a table as an enemy lurks nearby, not mindlessly grabbing a snack on the run for our lives, is a startling portrait. It contradicts how we’ve been wired to live. It invites us into a relationship like this with the Good Shepherd who provides for our thriving in every climate, even under duress.

What kind of sheep can rest and digest when a wolf is near? One who is led by love, not driven by fear. A sheep who is confident that every wolf has to first pass through the gate – a sheep with a Shepherd so good he becomes the gate. He positions His body at the entrance and the wolf has to take out the Shepherd before he can ever get to the sheep.

That has been attempted. You might have heard of this great showdown outside the city gate. It commenced at Calvary and culminated in a garden. The mouth of the gate of the tomb was rolled away to reveal the Shepherd still capable of protecting the sheep and defeating the wolf. Hell itself is no competitor against Him.

So when He prepares a table for us, we eat. We are able to eat. To rest and digest. And we never believe it to be our last supper.

(www. Leahcmorgan.com)

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Click: That’s The Power

8-7-23

Alienation.

It is one the most prevalent, and serious, of problems in society today. No… not an “alien nation.” That controversy – or threat, or mystery, or conspiracy of silence – I am persuadable is a manufactured distraction from real, honest, terrestrial dangers.

But we do hear a lot about people who are “alienated” from society, from their families, from neighbors and co-workers. It is ironic and therefore true (irony always derives from truth) that the more crowded our society is… the more “inter-connected”… the more “welcoming,” “accessible,” “integrated” we are – the more alienated people have become.

Alienation, isolation. Many people – again, despite the crush of neighbors and the menu of diversions – are convinced of having arrived at the end of the line. Their lines… their lives. They know nobody; they trust nobody; they have nobody to turn to.

How can they know if we don’t tell them? That situation is a lie from hell – they are not isolated; they don’t have to feel that way.

OK, your family has left you. But Jesus hasn’t.

Your friends have betrayed you. Hey, it happened to Jesus too; He knows. He will not betray.

Counselors have been worthless? Don’t trust in people.

Government outreaches are… Let’s not even go there.

Calling out to God is a prayer that never goes unanswered. Opening a Bible will lead to Comfort. Finding a Christian to talk to, pray with, share things… will never come up empty.

Prayer cancels alienation.

Lonely people already have an answer, even if they do not know it. “When two or three are gathered in My name…” You can be the loneliest person in the Lonely Spot in the middle of Lonelieville… and there will be two gathered when you seek the Lord. The Holy Spirit is promised to be with you in those moments when your heart cries out. You are never alone.

The Bible also talks about the “Great Cloud of Witnesses” in Heaven who watch us… and cheer us on.

In my life, I went through a period of doubt, who hasn’t? and my father said he trusted me. My mother always prayed with me. But my mother’s brother, Ed, and his wife, my Aunt Mildred, had strayed from the family’s Lutheran roots and became “religious nuts” (in my parents’ view) – they went to a Billy Graham crusade. And, horrors, they were more committed Christians.

Aunt Mildred used to phone me out of the blue and encourage me – no “hard sell”; she was praying for me, that’s all. Uncle Ed, when he visited Washington DC when I was in college, arranged lunches and reminded me… that he was praying for me. In the midst of my wise-ass doubting stage, I never was offended, but… I never forgot these gestures either. When my cousin Irene went to college near me outside Chicago the year I worked there, I almost felt like I would catch some strange spiritual disease from her…

Well, eventually I became more of a religious nut than they (um, a Pentecostal reference). Eventually I delivered one of the eulogies at Uncle Ed’s funeral. And Reni is my dearest cousin.

Eventually, you see, I realized the power of prayer… was not always my prayers, but even the prayers of people I didn’t know were praying for me.

Allow Captain Obvious to share this: God is sovereign. He can do what He wants. He does do what He wants. Yet… He has instituted the “channel” of prayer – the language; the means of communication. Can prayer influence God? Well, the Bible has examples of that; yes. Does He answer every prayer? Yes. But… sometimes in “His time.” And sometimes His answer is No.

That’s where faith and trust come in. But it all pleases God. Prayer is the key to Heaven, but faith unlocks the door; do you know that song?

And in the meantime… friends are praying for you. Strangers are praying for you. The hosts of Heaven are watching and cheering. And, as I said, when you pray, you are never alone.

… and, hey – in the meantime, what happened to “alienation”? Praying people are in the Family of God. Not alone. Will never face challenges alone, or problems alone.

Once upon a time there was a group of men, gathered from far and wide, risking their lives to make momentous decisions. Gathered in a hot room – this was in the middle of summer in the 1700s, and they kept the windows closed – but they suddenly felt frustrated, at odds, arguing, almost alone in their deliberations.

It was the Founders of our Nation, the brightest and bravest, but all of a sudden in a confused crisis… can we say alienated, not knowing which way or ways to turn? Benjamin Franklin stood up and suggested that they do something immediately that the group had not done yet… and do it every morning henceforth: Pray together.

The fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much (James 5:16).

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Click: Prayer Is the Key To Heaven

7-31-23

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This little light of mine…

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

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

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

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

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

Carry your candle, run to the darkness

Seek out the hopeless, deceived and poor.

Hold out your candle for all to see it,

Take your candle, and go light your world!

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Click: Go Light Your World

7-24-23

Last week’s metaphorical garden walk evoked great response. Among the characteristics of pretty and seemingly fragile flowers are, frequently, a tenacity that can inspire us to persevere against life’s onslaughts.

Perhaps the most opposite of objects to a fragile flower that we can think of in nature is a mountain. A giant rock, a monolith, an “immovable object.” Oh, yeah?

When I was a young teenager I visited Italy. I was interested, who isn’t, in Renaissance art, and I was grateful to be able to visit the legendary marble quarries of Carrara. It is an area where primeval formations during the creation of the world caused a wide swath of mountains to be composed of marble. Marble has unique properties – it is a rock (metamorphic carbonate), to be sure, hard and heavy, but at the same time malleable and in some conditions, a virginal pure white.

Michelangelo coveted the marble from Carrara and Seravezza for his planned façade of San Lorenzo in Florence. Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici and Pope Leo X indulged him, but Michelangelo knew his marble, having sculpted the supernal “David” and “Pieta” several years earlier. He was so intent on moving that marble of Carrara to that city of Florence – hundreds of miles down the Mediterranean coast, thence east into the boot, through Pisa to Florence – that he put aside painting and sculpting and architecture to oversee the “quarrying” of marble and moving gargantuan slabs down the sea and across lands. He became like Leonardo during those many months, inventing rigs and carts and boats and bridges.

Allora. Yes, to get to my point. I was fascinated, as a teenaged tourist, to learn how giant pieces of marble were secured – separated from the mountains that held them. Dynamite existed at the time, and primitive explosions might have been tried… but were not. Many workers with sledgehammers? No. Beasts of burden strapped with great ropes affixed to peaks and outcroppings? Not at all.

The giant chunks of marble were instead separated from the mountains by mere modest slivers of wood.

Wedges. It is a property of some stone, especially marble, that it can crack under pressure (hmmm… like many people do, but that is not my message!). Small cracks were found, or made, in the great marble monoliths, and Michelangelo, studying and planning properly, had narrow wooden wedges tapped into those cracks. Then water was applied to the wood, which expanded slightly from the moisture.

On the next day, after the engorged wood had, unlikely as it seems, pushed the marble monolith apart ever so slightly, other wedges were tapped in – a little larger in size, and soaked again.

This process was repeated, day after day, until (again with forethought and examination for the planned “capture” of the marble that was figured to break free) eventually the marble broke free. Making sure the chunks of rock were “caught,” not to crash down, they were lowered, then to make their serpentine way to Florence. No easy tricks themselves… but compared to the separating and securing of tons of precious marble from a massive mountain?

Now, I made reference to people cracking under pressure. Surely that is a simile if not a metaphor. But the real lesson – a valuable and quite appropriate lesson to learn – is similar to that provided by tenacious little flowers! Can you picture what I described in the quarry-process? “Moving mountains”… The power of planning, patience, and persistence… Being content with slow but steady results… Accomplishing a seemingly impossible task… and using seemingly absurd ideas and tools in order to succeed greatly.

May I suggest further: as beautiful as those snow-white chucks of a mountain were, they still were only pieces of rock. But in a master’s hand (and in the Master’s Hand) they became stunning façades of cathedrals; and lifelike statues of Moses and David; and of Mary holding her crucified Son. Living, breathing, miracles can emerge from cold stone. “The rocks cry out!”

Finally, before we forget the mountain itself: We think of Sisyphus, his impossible task being to push an impossible rock up an impossible mountain. We recall Moses smiting the rock. We remember God’s promise that with prayer and in faith we can move the metaphorical mountains that stand in our way. We remember hymns like A Mighty Fortress and Rock of Ages – that God is our refuge and strength.

But we remember too the fissures in mighty rocks and mountains. Remember how Michelangelo utilized the cracks – the “clefts” – that certainly play their own roles.

When we need it, as God assured us in His Word, those rocks can provide refuges too. He provides safe havens when we need protection from the world, even for a spell. Mountainous rocks can provide hiding places from the world’s attacks and storms, where we may regain strength and courage.

What promises! Move those mountains… and, when needed, find those safe places where God invites you to pray “Hide Thou Me.”

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Since we shared much here about Michelangelo, I would like to close with lines he wrote toward the end of his life:

Neither painting nor sculpture will be able any longer to calm my soul, now turned toward that Divine love that opened His arms on the cross to take us in.

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Click: Hide Thou Me

7-17-23

I never have taken the trouble, either when choosing classes in college, or casually consulting the Google gods, to know the actual definition of a weed.

Occasionally in my life I have owned properties large and inviting enough to grow gardens, and I have attempted their cultivation. That is, until realizing that… I have a “black thumb.” I have a friend, an ex-pat from England, who has the natural British ladies’ gift for planning, planting, growing enormous Technicolor and fragrant flower gardens with pathways, benches, little oases. Whidbey Island, now North Carolina: wherever she lives, gorgeous flowers grow and thrive.

It might not be only a British thing. Another friend is American-born, and lived some years in the Netherlands – oh yes: a nation synonymous with floral splendor – and returned to the US and to a second career as a floral and garden consultant. In any event, this gift is not a Marschall thing.

My disinclination, or deadly thrall, might have originated in fifth grade, when a teacher asked me to use “horticulture” in a sentence. A budding (ha) wise guy, I innocently declared, “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.” Compounding my personal War Of the Roses, the afternoon I spent in the Principal’s Office was, ironically, next to a large vase of flowers.

Anyway, my working definition of a weed is, simply, an unattractive or inconvenient flower. That works for me. This theory does not prevent me from being fascinated rather than put off by the middle ground (literally) between beautiful flowers and pesky weeds: Wildflowers.

With all due respect to British garden-architects and those who make living rooms and lobbies resplendent with colorful and fragrant arrangements, “Mother Nature” (I choose to regard her as Mrs God) can outdo them all.

• When I lived near deserts in the American Southwest, I marveled at the times – maybe only one day every year or two – when the slightest rain-shower “made the desert come alive.” Then, those barren landscapes miraculously bloom with carpets of strange and brilliantly colored flowers.
• In the same mysterious ways, nature’s ambassadors – random breezes, hungry insects, and wandering birds – carry seeds and pollen far and wide. They cause pretty wildflowers to grow in unexpected places like highway medians and roofs of urban apartment buildings.
• One of the miracles of wildflowers is their resilience, matching their beauty. Seeds found on millennia-old ancient fabrics or in Egyptian tombs will still sprout and bloom when watered.
• Delicate wildflowers, counter-intuitively, are as hardy as they are beautiful. Seemingly fragile flowers, no matter how tiny, grow in inhospitable places – between barren rocks, in cracks of city sidewalks, sometimes sideways out of brick walls.

I believe that God has not only chosen to array His creation – that is, His gift to us, a beautiful world – in blankets of colorful, often surprising, beauty and fragrance, but He desires that we see lessons: a larger purpose.

Some people look at flowers that struggle, plants that die, wintertimes that leave trees and plants barren, as signs of a hostile universe; death is at every turn. But for every Winter there is a Spring. Every seed will sprout. Every desert will bloom. In a version of the “glass half-empty or half-full” paradigm – another proposition I never understood – we can know the answer to the question, “which prevails in the cycle: death or life?”

We know that Life prevails. Jesus – “the Rose of Sharon, the fairest of ten thousand flowers” – proved that.

This truth represents more than a nice metaphorical garden to walk through, or a bouquet we can put on our table. It is a promise. It confirms life and the renewal of life. It allows us to view life optimistically. What we may grieve over today; what we cannot see for a season; what we might cling to, despairing of any results or answers… are like seeds.

Seeds will sprout, in their own time and with patience and cultivation. And they will bloom. And bless. As flowers, they will produce more pollen and seeds. Life goes on… beautifully. And when it appears most fragile, we are reminded that life is real, life is earnest; life is determined, life is triumphant.

In my naïve folk-wisdom, I see those vagabond reminders of life triumphant, wildflowers, as floral counterparts to another of God’s colorful promises, the rainbow.

I listed some strange and hostile environments where wildflowers “take root.” But people are wildflowers too. Wild flowers. We know them; we should be them, in some form we can choose. At one time in history it was common that children left their homes in their early teens, sometimes losing all subsequent contact with their families. But they took root, blooming, blessing.

The histories of races and peoples can be traced today through the evidence of seeds and plants that were carried and cultivated in migrations of centuries past. The Virgin Mary, it is estimated, left her parents to be with Joseph when she was barely 14. My daughter moved to Northern Ireland almost 20 years ago, and is thriving faraway with her husband, children, and a wonderful career.

Be willing to be a wildflower seed. Eagerly await where God’s breezes and the flights of His birds and bees may carry you.

“Be fruitful and multiply”? Also take root, bloom, and be a fragrant and beautiful flower – not one of life’s weeds – to be blessed, and to be a blessing, where you find yourself. Wild flowers don’t care where they grow.

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Click: Wildflowers

7-10-23

My good friend Gordon Pennington, a remarkable and accomplished man, has moved on in his life from several successful careers — not abandoned but “graduated” — and today is a motivational speaker, conference guest, lecturer, organizer… and evangelist. In his latter role he is not connected to a ministry, nor associated with a movement – other than the movement to witness to people who have not yet accepted Christ. He is a recruit, a volunteer, and a worker in the pursuit Jesus would have us all to fulfill, the “Great Commission.” Winning souls.

Gordon has a remarkable gift for engaging people on sidewalks or waiting rooms or over coffee; comfortably making friendships; discussing their “situations”; and sharing the Gospel. Uncountable people have accepted Jesus – and most importantly have changed their lives and “stuck” with their Christian walk – because he exercises that gift. He does as all believers should do, in our own ways of course. The opportunities are always there.

How many of us respond to that prompting of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, to act on the command of the Great Commission? How many readers are yourselves in a good place because someone shared the Good News with you? How often do you feel that spiritual revolution in your soul that is as “new” today as when you first experienced it?

Have you had a “religious experience”? Experiential events are important in life, and often are vital parts of emotional, even intellectual, breakthroughs; but they also can be seductive. They can prove temporary. Life changes need to put down roots in our minds, hearts, and souls; not be mere refreshing breezes.

A challenge is the oft-stated and dispositive distinction drawn between Religion and Relationship. Christian denominations – and there are hundreds – can be caught up in divisions and disagreements, interpretations and inclusions (and exclusions!), rituals and rules. On the other hand, true Christianity (or “Mere Christianity” as the reliably brilliant C S Lewis defined it) is no more and no less than a relationship with Jesus.

That relationship – friendship, intimacy, trust – is all that is asked. A question posed not only by C S Lewis, but by Jesus Himself. No frills, no conditions, no membership requirements or quizzes! Belief that He is the Son of God, that He rose from the dead, that He loves you ineffably, beyond our ability to understand… but not beyond our ability to accept. And to embrace.

There are skeptics, or examples we know, of people whose faith wavered. Folks who have had bad experiences with religion (there’s that word again). Cynics because of religious experiences proven hollow, or religious people proven flawed. And there are hypocrites aplenty in, probably, every church we can visit.

But there’s always room for one more.

On the other hand, it is refreshing to discover new-born Christians (oh, yes: “Born-again Christians”) whose conversions and new lives, while genuine, did not change every single aspect of their old selves. It does frighten some converts – “Do I have to start wearing bow ties, mow a suburban lawn, and go to Sunday School picnics once a week?” Converts like Alice Cooper, Bob Dylan, Chuck Norris, and Robert Duvall looked the same and remained in their professions, even while the great Interior Decorator worked on the inside aspects of their lives.

Let us remember that Jesus “hung around” with some unsavory types — the people He most needed to reach. And remember that St Paul was determined to “be all things to all people” in order to interact with those who would not otherwise be in a place to hear the Gospel.

If you, or someone you know, has been curious to know Christ; or tempted to yield to cynicism about following Him – I invite you to think a little harder about the question, Have you had a religious experience?

And then I would remind you that Jesus Himself had a religious experience:

It was religious people who rejected, accused, tortured, condemned, and killed Him.

Keep in your mind the wide difference between joining a religion and becoming a follower of Jesus. Respect tradition, but always be open to questioning traditions and rules and social pressures that are empty or misleading.

We are well reminded to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. But never forget to yield to God the things that are God’s… and that includes your very soul.

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An example of a Christian’s change of heart being sui generis – important unto itself, not relying on arbitrary sets of external rules, or other peoples’ opinions – is the German punk queen Nina Hagen. After a life of drugs, rebellion, artistic experimentation, political extremes, and wild performance art… she met Jesus. She was baptized. She reads the Bible to audiences while on stage. Little changed in her outward self; she is however evidently much changed inside, where – after all – her Savior lives. Here is a clip from her Personal Jesus tour, singing an American Southern Gospel song.

NiNA HAGEN – This World Is Not My Home – Personal Jesus Tour, PARiS

7-3-23

I once made a deal with my late wife that we would split the duties facing us, the issues we had to deal with as a couple. I mean, it was a sort of a deal. My plan was that she would handle the minor things like utility bills, car payments, and house repairs. I would concern myself with larger issues like world peace, nuclear disarmament, and the energy crisis.

It seemed like an intelligent plan, to me.

The human mind, or in my case the “mind,” has an infinite capacity for self-deception. Beyond that, self-delusion. Even further afield… well, you see a pattern. And recently, here, we considered the matter of “Progress” as a false god, evanescent at best; a cruel chimera at worst.

I invite us to switch our consideration from material miseries to those pathologies of “self,” as we started listing above. Self-ishness can be a positive motive when it inspires prudence, protection, and preservation. As with airplane safety procedures, we can best care for others when we properly tend to ourselves.

In a Christian context, I frequently remind believers who are active, very active, in ministries and missions, that Jesus came to earth to save them… individuals… you and me… not (primarily) our programs, plans, and priorities. Those things will follow, but He died for our sins, not those of some committee or organization.

Is that “selfish” in the pejorative sense? No – especially if we identify it as Jesus’s point of view. Is it selfish, grabbing glory for ourselves? Heaven forbid. In fact when we truly consider who we are, it is, instead, very humbling.

Of all the things increasingly in short supply in the world today, I say that Humility is the most threatened of resources. Being humble. And the opposite of Humility is Pride. Ah, Pride – which I consider the deadliest of the Deadly Sins, and which to me is the wellspring of all other sins. From back in the Garden, down to every hour of every day in our own spheres.

Pride preceded rebellion against God: “We know better than Him.” Pride: “I can ignore God’s commandments; I’ll bet He spares me the punishment.” Pride: “If God is good, how can He keep me from Heaven?” Pride: “I am not as bad as a lot of horrible people around the world.” Pride: “I give to charities; I care about the poor people. Isn’t that enough?” Pride: “Why should I bother God with my problems?” Pride: “Thank God I am not like other people…”

To be filed under “Unconscious Irony,” Pride Month has just ended. By proclamations and the movement’s very flag, this Pride is not about academic achievement or conquered diseases or even material advances, but the celebration of sin. It is as if a month, or special holidays, were devoted to cheating on one’s taxes or betraying marriage vows or abusing children. Yes, my seat belt is fastened; these are incendiary remarks these days. But this new, branded Pride also encompasses choosing to ignore or overrule or endorse things that the Bible condemns, over and over.

Humankind’s Pride assumes many forms, many of which are not so obviously toxic; but sin is sin. I remember debates some short years ago when computers played chess matches against humans, and sometimes won. “Is this the end of humans’ dominance in the world?” people asked, with some prescience. My reaction was that if computers won such competitions… computers had been created and programmed by humans, so didn’t “we” win after all?

The same “long view” is needed in the current discussions about Artificial Intelligence. This bundle of Brave New World technologies (and projected consequences) has dominated a lot of research and development; is actually fueling some stock-market booms; and animates a lot of hopeful dreaming. But it is prompting apocalyptic fears, too.

It is my opinion that if “machines” become able to fool us, influence our decisions, steal our independence, and lull us into deadly slumbers… this will not be a perversion of liberty, but the natural consequence of unbridled liberty. The history of humankind – our natural tendencies; “human nature” – has been a chronicle of fooling each other, influencing unsuspecting people, and stealing goods and ideas. In the 21^st century we merely have better tools.

So the fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

With the Bible as our road map, so to speak, throughout history, we can know the way forward. History’s second best-seller, The Pilgrim’s Progress, is a brilliant if thinly veiled metaphor of life – its pitfalls, detours, dangers, and its ultimate joy-filled destination. Some people “get it”; that is, wisely choosing between Pride and Truth. But even John Bunyan himself learned it after mistakes, failings, and persecution – he wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress from a dank jail. John Newton only was able to write Amazing Grace after almost suicidal remorse for being a slave-trader.

Those experiences qualify as major ingredients in Humility, as discussed above. It might seem unfortunate, but nevertheless true that Wisdom usually follows stupid decisions. Liberation cannot come except from bondage. Salvation is from sin. Joy is measured against misery. Are these paradigms in fact unfortunate? No, it is a way that Life works. Let us learn.

And let us pay attention to words, the way we express our understanding. Artificial Intelligence: we should be a little skeptical – humble – about what constitutes Intelligence. And we need to respect the qualifier, Artificial. Some things we don’t understand; some things we never will understand.

That is God’s way. There is “Intelligent Design” – I think God planned Life so that for all the manifold things we cannot understand, we seek Him.

For the Lord gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding; He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk uprightly (Proverbs 2: 6,7).

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A precious example of someone who has had a right to ask “Why?” and want to understand things in life is Joni Eareckson Tada, the talented singer, artist, speaker, and paraplegic. I interviewed her at Billy Graham’s retreat center The Cove a few years ago. Here, with Joni and her mom; and Cliff Barrows and George Beverly Shea of the Billy Graham Association. Please click on Joni’s brief testimony and song:

Farther Along, We’ll Know All About It

6-26-23

This is the Age of Grievance.

People these days are eager to assert claims about the hurts they suffer, the wrongs committed against them, the compensations they are owed. In this land of plenty. During this period of prosperity, despite blips on the economic graphs. “I know my rights!!!” yell protesters in street riots – even when most them do not know or understand the status of laws and statutes. “Rights” versus “wrongs” they might commit themselves.

People these days are not happy unless they complain. And, too often, about bogus complanints.

In this litigious society, lawyers stand ready to monetize the wrongs you think you have suffered, or have been convinced that you have suffered. Rather than moral palliatives, the “solutions” always translate to money, not explanations or apologies or corrections. Actual, direct damages cease to be legitimate justifications for picking others’ pockets.

The Slavery Reparations movement that first flourished in the Radical ‘60s has blossomed again in our day. Formulas for how much money contemporary Black people should be paid by White people – all non-Blacks, essentially – are calculated. Brazenly, the enormous sums are “due” to brothers and sisters who were not slaves (obviously) but also to those whose ancestors did not live in slave-era America. Or cannot substantiate their bloodlines. Or do not “suffer” any related effects. Proponents in California, with pens poised over other citizens’ checkbooks, dismiss these points as irrelevancies.

Similarly, the “Holocaust,” past which fewer and fewer people are alive, has partly become a Reparations movement. Dr Norman Finkelstein, whose parents survived Nazi concentration camps, has written a book, The Holocaust Industry, in which he documents his claims that “a repellent gang of plutocrats, hoodlums, and hucksters” routinely engage in virtual blackmail-by-PR campaigns. He documents the flow of money to “lawyers and institutional actors” instead of putative survivors. Yet TV commercials depict starving Jews today, even supposedly in Israel itself, pleading for money.

So forth and so on. It seems like every group on the landscape is aggrieved; every mendicant may choose a reason to whine — like “Pin the tail on the guilty,” down to virtual blindfolds. It begins with “hurt feelings” of invented groups and genders; and ends with threats of arrest if you do not surrender yourself to the Compassion Police. And it ends with transforming your value system, if you let them; and ponying up money. The paradigm is common these days. Every aggrieved person and every assembled group climbs aboard the bandwagon.

Almost every person and group, that is. It is still safe in America and the post-Christian West, to be prejudiced against Christians.

With increasing rapidity, followers of Jesus are proscribed, ridiculed, sanctioned, silenced, and discriminated against. By governmental laws and regulations and court decisions, Christians are becoming second-class citizens. In popular media they can be criticized as, say, Jews or Muslims or homosexuals cannot be. In government schools and on state media, many perverted ideas once regarded as taboos are endorsed, even encouraged – while Christian ideas, traditions, expressions, even innocent decorations are forbidden.

So forth and so on. Yet – unlike every other group of whiners across the spectrum – Christians are not seeking Reparations. Grievances are not new; for two thousand years Christians have been persecuted. The blood of martyrs has soaked many a soil; and still today there is prejudice and abuse of believers, all around the world. Have Christians committed sins too, through history? Yes, against some groups filing grievances today. But are Christians demanding Reparations for old grievances?

The answer, generally, is no; and the reason, specifically, is this: For all the promises of peace and the assurances of Heaven… the Lord Jesus Christ told His followers – us – that persecution will come. We are to expect resistance, opposition, and tribulation in this world. We should not be surprised by hatred. The world hated Him first, after all.

We have been told that believers might be “trouble” in their households. Friends and family might actually despise us. The Jesus you see in paintings, standing amidst the lilies? That same Jesus told us He comes with a sword. He told us about the things we must be prepared to put aside – to sacrifice, but also to endure – if we follow Him.

Jesus died on the cross to fulfill His mission, taking upon Himself the sin-punishments we deserve. But He did not free us from the rejections and persecutions He experienced. In fact He not only predicted such treatment… He virtually promised it. It will come. If it doesn’t… perhaps we are not doing our job as Christians.

Who will save us? Surely not the government: we are seeing that. The churches? No: remember that it was religious people who demanded that Jesus be crucified; the religious Establishment. Remember that.

The Christian’s “Reparation” will not come in this world, in our lifetimes. It cannot. We should be suspicious if it is offered. Our Reparation – our rewards – can be earned now (and only by His Grace, not our works) but realized only in Glory.

My sin – oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! –
My sin, not in part but the whole
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul!

Thus is Reparation paid. In full.

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It Is Well With My Soul

6-19-23

It will not surprise those who know me that I went through a rebellious streak in my younger days. I remember it well – it lasted 15 or 20 minutes back in the…

No – of course, no. Anyone with a pulse experiences certain changes. Winston Churchill supposedly said that anyone in his 20s who is not a liberal has no heart; and anyone older who is not a conservative has no brains. Well, I was never a liberal, but I get his point. We do evolve… because the world around us revolves.

I suppose, if “rebellion” has a cousin, I have always been a contrarian.

Back in my high-school days I did go through a cynical stage. Recently I recalled to a friend that when I was a high-school junior I memorized about a third of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, as beautiful but as cynical, worldly, and secular a group of quatrains one could find under this inverted bowl we call the sky. (Oddly, I then rattled off several dozens of them, despite not having thought of them in decades. “Oddly,” because half the time I go to the supermarket these days I forget what the heck I needed to buy…)

But during that mildly cynical phase of my life, it was time go off to college. I was allowing skepticism to creep into my faith, and I wanted to discuss it with my father. Our conversation is vivid in my “mind” because it was a Saturday afternoon, and he was flat on his back, a captive audience, fixing something under his bathroom sink.

“And why are you telling me this?” he asked.

Now I realize that I really wanted him to talk me out of my doubts, but I shared the other reason: “I have these thoughts on my own. I don’t want you think down the road that college filled my head with these ideas.”

Did he get angry? Did he laugh at my youthful foolishness? Did he sit up and reason with me?

No, no, and no. He hardly moved an inch, except to tighten the valve or something. “Oh, it’s a phase,” said. “You’ll grow out of it.”

I almost felt offended. Years later, I identified with Elaine Benes: “Don’t you care if I go to hell?” But at that moment, I asked, “Dad… Don’t you believe in Jesus?”That’s when he sat up.

“Of course I do. You know that. I believe you do, too, but if you don’t test your faith it won’t grow stronger. I’m not worried. I trust God, and I trust you.”

He asked if anything triggered my doubts. There was one book I recently had read, a disputed Mark Twain book that was anti-God, not funny, and featured a character named Satan. He had begun The Mysterious Stranger three times through his life, its final version (perhaps doctored by someone else after he died) written after his daughter’s death when Twain was more cynical than he routinely was.

I told Dad about the Mark Twain book. Then he chuckled. Despite my processing of its valid challenges to Scripture, Dad said, “I think you’re safe.”

Then he went back to the monkey wrench. And I went back to… my thoughts. I think I was insulted that he didn’t go full-bore and call the Scriptural Rescue Squad. We used to debate everything – politics, philosophy, literature, classical music. Why not this, I thought.

He trusted me.

And he let me know that God trusted me. Now, you might think that was a risky strategy. But it was a winning strategy. I felt respected; honored; trusted. That trust meant more, and stayed with me, than a weekend full of arguments, than a briefcase full of tracts, than weekly calls, tracking my behavior.

When it comes to it, our Heavenly Father trusts us too. He has revealed His Truth; He has sent teachers and prophets; He even sent His Son to die so that we might live.

He loved us first, before we loved Him.

In fact, He trusted us before we trusted Him.

Does that inspire love, and trust, in you?

Remember, on Father’s Day, that we should honor… love… and trust… our Heavenly Father too.

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Click: Like Father, Like Son

6-12-23

Progress. We may conclude after the lessons of history, over uncountable generations, and every civilization that has dedicated itself to the ideal… that Progress is a false god. Perhaps a worthy goal in the abstract, but little more.

The challenge inherent in “progress” is the fact that it is an abstraction. A chimera: literally something honored in the breach, a dream whose precise realization is an illusion; something impossible to define or finally achieve.

If we judge and celebrate Progress by prosperity, we ignore the poverty, starvation, and misery around the world. If we call the triumph of diseases “Progress” we ignore cancers, plagues, epidemics, and self-initiated ways of dying. We think it Progressive that humanity is proving itself more compassionate and welcoming… yet dysfunction, abuse, addictions, suicides, failed marriages, depression, and wars touch every country, family, and household we know.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

We think we know better than all of previous humankind – “we” being contemporary, liberal, secular societies – that we have, progressively, learned lessons from previous cultures; we have built on the discoveries of wise people; that science guides us ever upward. Indeed we are aware of many lessons of history – triumphs and disasters – but that does mean we learn from them.

In infantile fashion, we pick and choose from the annals of history, not to learn and see more clearly and improve our ways, but to craft new justifications for our original, base inclinations. The pattern is called Human Nature; the inclination, theological or otherwise, is called Sin. The result is called Self-Destruction.

Of course, it masquerades as “Progress,” so we congratulate ourselves.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

The West is undergoing a radical transformation of attitudes and codes these days. Under the name of Progress, the roles (and even functions) of the sexes are being redefined. Millennia of foundational spiritual beliefs and attitudes are being denied and even outlawed. Totalitarian practices have permeated national governments and local councils, supplanting authoritarianism, which in its turn had supplanted freedom of thought and expression. Murderous Marxism, tried and failed so often, is being recommended in myriad forms… to be tried one more time. And another, and…

We can look to the French Revolution, among many spasms of Progress, for similar experiments. Discontent led to radicalism so severe that the Church was abolished and its properties confiscated. Members of the monarchy, then the aristocracy, then the middle class, were slaughtered: the revolution “ate its babies” before the factions began slaughtering each other. New governments started foreign wars to distract – and conscript – the public. Fiat currencies were invented; a new calendar was devised; women’s rights were proclaimed and quickly suppressed; and new religions were fabricated to replace Christianity – “The Cult of Reason”; “The Cult of the Supreme Being;” and so forth.

Ultimately, this eruption of Progress, like the Chinese “Cultural Revolution” and myriad others that followed, accumulated its most dispositive statistics by the numbers of people persecuted and slaughtered.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

The 20^th century saw history’s greatest advances in knowledge, discoveries, inventions, medicines… and was by far the bloodiest century of persecution, death, and wars of any century. Innovations dedicated to killing. Progress? We believe ourselves kinder to animals; we no longer kill baby seals or slaughter herds of buffalo. Yet we slaughter babies at rates unprecedented in the history of “humanity.”

As the French say, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – The more things change, the more things stay the same. Really, a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes. So perhaps the millions of aborted babies are merely the “new” version of infant sacrifice practiced by “primitive” societies. But in this Age of Progress, we sacrifice to the gods of self-indulgence, convenience, and a “wiser” form of progressive morality. We know better.

In the post-Christian West, our orgy of selfish delusion lives on borrowed time, existing more and more tenuously on the inertia of expired sanity and fleeting prosperity. Our homes were built on solid foundations, but are crumbling. A few people have vague memories, inchoate awareness, of history’s lessons. But… collectively we are different. We know better. If there is a God, He will forgive us; He always has. Right?

I believe the most serious of all sins, theologically and practically, is the Sin of Pride. It precedes all other sins, and enables all other sins. We know better than our consciences. We know better than history’s examples. We know better than God. But…

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Ultimately the human race and, yes, much of the Christian world, has put itself in this dreadful situation. For individuals, where sin abounds, grace abounds much more; yet surely judgment is coming to this world. I am reminded, if you will indulge an extreme shift of reference, of a 1952 movie, Ma and Pa Kettle At the Fair. It was one of a series of movies about a family of rural nitwits, very popular at the time.

In this movie, Ma and Pa were tossed in the town jail, framed by the village harpy. Even the jailer was sympathetic to their plight, and he repeatedly left the jail cell unlocked or ostentatiously dropped his keys, so that Ma and Pa could escape. More dumb then honest, each time they called, “Oh, Sam! You dropped your keys!”

When Sam sighed in resignation and shuffled away, Pa slowly lamented, “I wish we could figure a way to escape from this old jail…”

We find ourselves in cultural and moral prisons these days. Jesus provides our way to escape; He leaves us the keys; He is the key. And we – deserving the jail cells wherein we find ourselves, often of our own making – nevertheless we wish we could figure a way to escape. The keys are in front of us. But…

There is nothing new under the sun.

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The Contemporary Christian Music singer and songwriter Rich Mullins sang this (caught on amateur video) at the end of a 1992 concert. A few short years later Rich was killed in a highway accident.

Click: Rich Mullins – This World is Not My Home

6-5-23

We know what we want; God knows what we need.

Jesus, your best friend, would ask – not how many friends you have of your own, but how many people cherish you as their friend.

Our society is doomed when Christianity becomes a habit instead of a passion.

God is not dead. He is merely unemployed.

Evil triumphs less when people hate the pure and holy, than when they are indifferent to such ideals.

God does not care that you are successful; He desires that you are obedient,

What matters more to God than your salary or your bank account – is how you acquired your resources, and what you do with them.

Men have forgotten God. That’s why all this has happened.

Equity is not Equality. Uniformity is not unity.

God fervently desires that we talk to Him. If you reach out to Him mostly when hard times come… I’ll let you finish that thought.

If the Lord does not wreak justice on America, does He owe an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah?

“All things work for good to those who love God…” does not mean that all things are good; but surely it means that nothing is good apart from God.

Never be in the position to say with regret, “I never had the chance…” when in fact you never took the chance.

The God of the mountain is still God in the valley.

If it were against the law to be a Christian, would there be enough evidence to charge you?

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” Jesus will never barge into your life. He knocks because He requires that we invite Him in.

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Click: When I Get to The End of the Way

5-29-23

The followers of Christ were frightened and confused. Their Jesus had been tortured, killed, and buried. On the third day He rose from the dead. He was with them for 40 days, then left them again. He ascended bodily to Heaven. But among the words He left were two specific things. He said it was “better” that He leave them, because “One would come” who would give them each, individually, “power from on high.” None of them understood. He also told them to “wait.”

In the meantime, for the harvest commemoration called Pentecost, Jews from “every nation on earth” were gathered in Jerusalem, many with the Apostles. They waited… for what? They were confused, nervous, choosing a replacement for Judas, anxious, wondering…

… until, suddenly, in an upper room of a house where they waited, a “mighty rushing wind” blew through. On their foreheads were strange sights – “tongues as of fire” appeared on those gathered. Then (some began to remember) as Old Testament prophesies and words of John the Baptist had foretold, the men and women were “filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

So this is what they were told to wait for. Was it merely a strange occurrence, a bizarre one-time event, with incomprehensible meaning? Some people, in subsequent generations, have attempted to obscure this event, but it was crystal-clear.

This was Jesus’s Promise fulfilled. The Holy Spirit – the next manifestation of God on earth; the third member of the Trinity – had come to reside in the hearts of believers in Christ. For that day, and for the rest of humankind’s history.

Many things changed, profoundly, that Day. The fear and confusion among the Disciples evaporated. Peter, who had always been an impulsive and sometimes foolish Follower, was suddenly mature in faith and leadership. He became the head of the newly organized church.

Yes, this was the birth of the Church.

Those who had gathered from other lands likewise were filled with Truth and Power, and returned home to spread the Gospel. Members of the Twelve became missionaries who visited them, and other lands, to establish groups of believers. So the acceptance of Jesus as Savior, and His Church, spread. Before the year 70 A.D., there were even Christian fellowships as far away as England.

The second chapter of the Book of Acts recorded these events of Pentecost; and so did secular reporters of the day, and contemporary historians like Josephus. But in ancient Scripture, it had been foretold. And in the last days, God says, I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; your sons and your daughters will prophesy; your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.

All through the New Testament are accounts of how God subsequently poured out His gifts. St Paul listed them succinctly in his first letter to the Church at Corinth: Words of wisdom; Words of knowledge; the Gift of supernatural faith; Gifts of healing; the working of miracles; the Gift of prophecy; the ability to discern spirits; speaking in tongues; and the interpretation of tongues.

After two thousand years, these Gifts still sound strange to some people, but scarcely are stranger than Jesus, and His followers, making the blind to see; raising people from the dead; and – perhaps most audaciously – forgiving people of their sins in the Name of Jesus. Oh, that’s not for today? Then the Savior Who promised these things is a liar.

Further than that – if you might be someone to whom these things sound like fairy tales or delusional rants – I have experienced many of these Gifts. I have seen them exercised by others. I have seen healings; I have been at exorcisms; I have found myself praying over people things that I had no way of knowing – not in a trance; nothing like that, but just aware what God wanted me to share. My daughter prayed over my wife who was diagnosed with three types of cancer, somehow aware that God had healed her. Indeed the doctors found no cancers the next day. It was not my daughter’s prayer that healed, but she had an inspiration to share what God had done at that moment. That is a Gift.

Manifestations of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit – Pentecostalism; the Charismatic Movement; Holy-Ghost Revival – never died, but since around 1900 have exploded around the world. There are major denominations in America. The Underground Church in China is largely Pentecostal. There are more Pentecostals than Catholics in Africa and South America. The Assemblies of God has more adherents in Brazil than in the United States and Europe combined. Think of news stories you have recently heard of “revival” breaking out in Kentucky and elsewhere…

Readers, you might know and be already at home with many of these things. Or maybe they are foreign to you. Or are rumors you have heard; or perhaps are unknown to you. Your salvation does not depend at all on whether you accept or reject the Gifts. You might respond – or not – with ecstatic worship. There are no rules! My own “prayer language,” when exercised, is in private.

But just think about the Gifts of God He offers you through the experience of the Holy Spirit. I invite you think back on any Christmas morning, or birthday. How many wonderful gifts were given to you by your loving parents; how many times that you said… “No… not for me.”

Really?

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In the chance any of this intrigues you, please contact me and I can offer you information, and will prayerfully answer your questions.

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This is not a church service; just worship time:

Click: Cleansed / Look What the Lord Has Done

5-22-23

If you live in a city, you can see the moon and a few stars in the night sky. In suburbs on clear nights you can find Venus and Mars and maybe the famous constellations. In the Great Plains or on ocean cruises, look up at the night sky and you will never lose your wonderment at the blanket of planets and stars, twinkling like sparkles on a pretty date’s dress and shoes. If you are fortunate to have beheld the Milky Way, you know it more resembles a magical, glowing ribbon than a band of individual stars.

The James Webb Space Telescope is treating us to pictures of billions of stars; galaxies previously unknown; “events” in space calculated to have happened billions of light-years ago (or away, take your pick of terminology) – that actually might have “burned out” by now, despite their images traveling 187,000 miles per second and only coming close to our view now.

Whether you believe the universe is 6000 years old or sixty-skillion years old, your hair may start hurting now over such thoughts.

Speaking of stars. And hair. I got a chuckle this week from a review of a book called Observer by a “scientist,” Robert Lanza, co-written with a science-fiction writer. Not really a review; rather, a collection of quotations and self-congratulations on Lanza’s own website.

Breathless endorsements suggest that the authors have kissed the Face of Truth in their construction of themes – like the serious-sounding quantum-physics hoodoo – basically, that our thoughts can influence the physical universe. An MSNBC “Science Editor” claims that “special relativity and quantum mechanics have provided solid grounding for the idea that the act of observation has an effect on external phenomena.” (Why doesn’t he “visualize” better ratings? …but I digress.)

A few years ago Dr Jim Garlow and I co-authored The Secret Revealed in which book we took the New Age best-seller The Secret to task. Besides peeling back its absurd claims and century-old rostrums, we applied logic on one hand, and a little detective work on the other. For instance, the author’s blatant misquoting of supposed experts in “thinking and realization” like Winston Churchill. She quoted Martin Luther King, and we reached out to his niece Alveda who denied that Dr King ever meant, or said, the things attributed to him in that book.

Yet The Secret “spoke” to a million itching ears, promoted on Oprah and elsewhere. And today its author is working on a sequel, and, surprise, endorses Observer as a book of substantial import. She is cited as a “#1 New York Times bestselling author,” not a fabulist, but she says that Lanza “has taken the gigantic step of incorporating his ideas into a science fiction novel…. Often-complex concepts are illuminated through a riveting and moving story.” She claims that Lanza’s previous work has “backed up everything I knew to be true on a spiritual level…. It is the leading-edge scientists such as Dr. Robert Lanza who will help take humanity out of the dark ages and into a new world.”

The authors say about themselves that “if life and consciousness are really central to everything else, then countless puzzling anomalies in science enjoy immediate clarification…. The simplest [?] explanation is that the laws and conditions of the universe allow for the observer because the observer generates them.”

Obviously this book and its proponents and its promotion do precisely what the contemporary world does – blurring lines between science and fiction; intelligence and “Artificial Intelligence”; and truth and lies. The phrase I used above, “itching ears,” is from the Bible, about people who crave unreality. A country-music song title captured the impulse well: “Lie To Me.”

The extensive review and promotion, just as with The Secret and myriad other manifestations of today’s culture, addresses the most serious matters and questions about reality – existence; the physical universe; our roles in life – but never utters one word about God.

How we got here… why we are here… who created the billions of stars… who created, well, us? Forget science fiction or this book specifically: those questions, and their answer, are seldom addressed seriously any more in media, in schoolrooms, in education… sadly, less and less in churches. Hint: The answer is God.

Authors and movie-makers and Oprah can speculate – and even believe – all their nonsense all they want, but I am still thrilled by quotations from another Book:

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars that You have ordained, what are mortals, that You should be mindful of them; mere human beings, that You should seek them out?

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father seeing. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than sparrows!

I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesmen to the world.

No two snowflakes are alike. We cannot survey the uncountable stars. We contemplate the numbers of grains of sand on the earth’s shores. And yet the Creator of all this, of the universe seen and unseen, has created us too… and knows everything about us.

More than that: He cares more about you and me than about everything else in His creation. That’s what He tells us. Is someone like Him going to lie? He cannot.

No fiction in His Book.

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Click: His Eye Is On the Sparrow

5-15-23

Traditional liturgical formations in worship are not universally followed these days. Their separate parts once represented the essential aspects of Christ’s ministry and significance, just as His life on earth was comprised of separate, meaningful acts. That is, lessons for us, to understand Him better.

When Mary conceived, it was the fulfillment of many prophecies. When Jesus was born, it was the long-hoped Incarnation, God in human form. When He preached, He explained the ways of God. When He healed, it showed the power of God. When He forgave people – how presumptuous, except as the Son of God – He shared the love of God.

When Jesus gave Himself up, He became the sacrifice for the penalties our sins should be ours to pay. When He was betrayed, He understood our sorrows. When He was tortured and He suffered, He understood our pains. When He died on the cross, He fulfilled His mission – “It is finished.” When He arose, it represented the promise that we too may overcome physical death and have life eternal.

Traditional church services similarly would focus on aspects – for instance, the “Agnus Dei,” the “Lamb of God” to remind us of the sacrifice of this Sinless Man. And so forth. Losing this structured reminder of the Savior’s ministry is a down-side of contemporary, free-form worship.

I invite you to see the life of Christ, even for only a moment, in perhaps a different light than you are used to.

All of the familiar events in Jesus’s life, even the uncountable prophesies fulfilled, even the powerful miracles, suggest that He was the Son of God. Suggest? Only suggest? Is this blasphemy? No… stick with me. Of course we know the prophesies, the signs, the wonders, represented His anointing. Of course we know and respect His claims. Of course we know the confirmations that He rose from the dead; let us remember that so did Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus; and they are not regarded as Saviors of humankind.

What I am asking us to remember is the half-forgotten holiday of the church calendar, Ascension Day.

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be My witnesses, telling people about me everywhere – in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” And after saying this, Jesus was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see Him. As they strained to see Him rising into Heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. They said, “Why are you standing here staring into Heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into Heaven, but some day He will return from Heaven in the same way you saw Him go!”

This account is from The Acts of the Apostles, the very first chapter; the history of the Early Church. This was the confirmation – the final puzzle-piece, if I may – that Jesus was not only a teacher or a healer or a prophet; not merely a persecuted good man; not just one of history’s misunderstood and saintly persons. He was physically lifted to Heaven… reunited with His Heavenly Father… promising us that He will live in our hearts in the Person of the Holy Spirit of God. The heroes of faith of the Old Testament appeared at the scene to seal the event, and His promise.

The bodily Ascension of Jesus confirmed that He was indeed the Son of God. Messiah. God-with-us.

That act, Ascension, which is celebrated this week – 40 days after Easter – as well as the promise Jesus made, the Gift of the Holy Spirit (on Pentecost, soon to come) should not be forgotten by the church, or by His followers. For centuries, in fact, the Ascension Of Our Lord virtually was the most important observance-day in the church year. In some countries (do Americans know this fact?) it is still observed as a public holiday.

The sobering challenge we face in the 21^st century is not whether we identify as Christians. It is not how we justify our social views based on what we think the Church says (or used to say). It is not whether Christian traditions “inform” our life choices.

It is whether we believe Jesus is Lord. One with the Father, Creator God, Lord of all creation. If you don’t… stop playing around; be honest; and go over to the other side. If you do believe Jesus is God, has saved your soul, and will return again in Glory… act like it.

“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” These words of Jesus (Revelation 3:15,16) are what He will say when He returns.

Are you “standing here,” even “looking up to Heaven”?

He ascended. Now it is our turn, our time, to do His will on earth.

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Click: Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise

5-8-23

“Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent,” ran the opening line of a crime series in the early days of black-and-white TV. In the stories here, names are neither given nor relevant, but the situations are sadly too common in contemporary life.

They concern parents who are among my most precious friends; and precious children.

In the case of the first family, a family of strong Christian faith who show joy to the world about them and are upright in every way. One son had hidden demons, so to speak – episodes of emotional struggles and bouts of what the world calls mental health crises – and were that, indeed. Spiritual crises, too, but only episodes, because most of the time he was happy; a good friend and brother and son; strong in faith. But there were threats of suicide, and then prayer, therapy, meds, counseling. Then, evidently, victory. Then… suicide.

No more to be said, here anyway. Unimaginable grief, unending questions. Precious memories remain of the good times, of the good kid; for he was. Suicides are not new in humankind’s history… but why are they so common today? And among teens? And in a “comfortable” society, in happy homes?

In the other family, a son born with a proverbial silver spoon has periodically turned to drugs. The family is of conventional Christian background, and no social situation – other than the contemporary pattern of drug use so common – suggested that addiction was a prediction. Yet each episode was part of a vortex of more serious self-harm… then absences… and then bare escapes from disasters. Check-ins to programs and farms were accepted by the son every time… until he invariably checked out or went AWOL.

In this situation, currently, the parents are in a frenzy because the son has disappeared, evidently homeless and desperate, but by occasional accounts more addicted then ever.

In both of these cases, by some inner strength and faith, the moms neither gave up hope for their sons, nor faith in the One who can deliver… even amid the storms, even when the world screams, “Defeat!!!”

At this moment in history, in this rotting structure of a once-solid Christian society, I could be writing about other families, other children, other parents’ grief. Don’t we all know friends, relatives, neighbors with similar situations? Or… our own households?

The world grows crazier by the day.

And the world’s answer to the challenges of children who doubt is… to add more doubt.

The world’s answer to fear is… to provide more fear, to focus children’s attention on hopelessness and futility.

The world’s answer to craziness is to introduce more craziness: lies about gender, about patriotism, about tradition, about loyalty, about life, about faith.

Many of peoples’ problems in life are caused by their own sins. But many of today’s problems, I believe like those mentioned here, are the result of society’s evils visited upon vulnerable children – lies we are told; lies they believe; lies dressed up as truth.

Mental illness is real. Addiction is real. Does society – the “system” – provide help? Often, no. The culture, too often, is the enabler-in-chief. Music, entertainment, the media, Hollywood, education, even the church, too often provide excuses instead of solutions.

Are there solutions? If you believe the ills we face are bedrock spiritual crises… then, logically, the solutions are spiritual.

Shakespeare paraphrased Deuteronomy 32:2 when he wrote,

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It drops as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:
It blesses those who give and those who take…
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God Himself.

… and I suggest that, as the quality of mercy is not “strained,” neither are the qualities of love, and anguish, and grief, and a parent’s heartache. Neither a child’s needs, whether recognized, acknowledged, or silently screamed.

Only with God’s help can we end these cycles of horrible choices and frightening situations. They are cycles, for these situations described here are not random. This is contemporary America. This is our Post-Christian society. This is the world.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever (I John 2:15-17).

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This is a song written by the grandfather of my friend Daryl Coats about a “wayward” child and a parent’s love.

Click: The Greatest Gift

5-1-23

I am enamored of the hilarious BBC mockumentary series Philomena Cunk that has found its way onto American cable outlets and the internet. Comedian Diane Morgan plays a determined blockhead who conducts educational tours and interviews actual experts and professors about history, the arts, and culture.

She is relentlessly clueless, and manages to surprise and confuse her stuffy guests. Normal hosts begin their interviews with respectful introductions or a detailed resume of the person’s credentials, but Philomena routinely demands, “So, who are you?”

Don’t get whiplash, but I will pivot from her silliness to a legitimate thought: When we think about it – which we often should – life is always asking us, in effect, “Who are you?” To take stock, and to know where we’re going. We should ask it of ourselves, too. “The unexamined life,” Socrates said, possibly going overboard, “is not worth living.”

And then, of course, we must be aware that God is forever asking us, “Who are you?” – not waiting for Judgment Day. Who are you?

We evolve; and we should. It is the essence, after all, of the requirement to be “born again.”

Who are we? People different than we were yesterday. People whose tomorrows will be different than today. “Better”? That depends on the definition of “better,” and certainly it depends on choices we make, and our determination to draw closer to God.

The act of “drawing closer” was given a name in the early church and in church history: to be “Imitators of Christ.” It clearly means to walk in the footsteps of Jesus; to apply His teachings and His examples of love, forgiveness, humility, mercy, charity. To be Jesus to those who hurt or are lost. A few decades ago it was manifested in the WWJD wristbands – “What would Jesus do?”

The books of the Gospels and Epistles have numerous adjurations to be like Christ. St Augustine made a brilliant recommendation: Why art thou proud, O man? God for thee became low. Thou wouldst perhaps be ashamed to imitate a lowly man; then at least imitate the lowly God. St Francis; St Bernard of Clairvaux; St Thomas Aquinas, all sought ways to be Christ-followers best by “imitating” His ways, not only believing in Him.

The Imitation of Christ is a book by Thomas à Kempis written in 1418. It can be seen as Christendom’s first devotional manual. With Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress it probably is the most-printed book in the Western world, after the Bible itself. It still is a worthwhile “user’s manual,” so to speak, for being a Christian. It is not a 12-Step program or substitute for Salvation. It helps us be like Christ, subsequent to Salvation. Find it! Many translations and versions exist.

You will discover, when you ask “Who am I?” and determine to “imitate” Christ in every way, that you have great company! Imitation, that is, as a theological practice. We could do worse. The Bible overflows with examples of people who examined their lives… asked “Who am I, really?”… and then were changed. Discover “Before and After” examples of people who can inspire us.

David slew a giant (anthropologists, by the way, have discovered that there were races of giants) but was also the “sweet singer of Israel.” He could be such a rotten schemer that he arranged to have his lover’s husband killed… yet he ultimately was, after forgiveness, the king “anointed of God.”

Was there ever a better example of “Before and After” than Peter? An impulsive fool, sometimes, and one who denied Jesus three times… but after Pentecost he matured and became what Jesus promised, the leader of the Church.

Saul persecuted believers, even having some put to death. After his own “Who am I?” experience, he became Paul, the first and greatest evangelist; writer of half of the New Testament.

The examples are many. We think of Luther, we think of C S Lewis, we think of Billy Graham. We think of so many saints of history who found new lives by examining their old lives… and were transformed from the Old Selves to New Creations in Christ. Imitation may be the best form of theology!

Who are you?

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Click: Who Am I?

4-24-23

This weekend marks an anniversary in my family. Usually that word “anniversary” connotes a happy date but in this case it was associated with much sadness. My niece Liza died on an April 22^nd, after a difficult birth, a severe case of cerebral palsy, an eventual three-month mental maturity level, a prognosis of perhaps three years of life but ultimately well more than two decades of these conditions. Her sweet smiles masked the tragedy of her daily life.

My sister Barbara was a single mom who battled this situation bravely and lovingly. After some years, at a certain point she stumbled and sustained her own individual health problems and myriad other challenges, some virtually nightmarish. Many people might have thought her situation could not possibly have been worse. And then Liza died.

Recalling all this on the phone this week, Barbara, still facing challenges, spoke with perfect peace. So many past memories have been replaced, she said, by the joy and hope – no: the knowledge – that one day she will be with Liza in Glory. And they both will be whole. And that now, she knows, Liza is in the arms of my late wife Nancy, also the victim of many ailments in her own painful journey on earth. What a reunion that will be!

It can be an empty phrase, or a cruel joke, to say that we can choose joy despite life’s pitfalls. On the other hand, many people who know the truths of God’s promises nevertheless choose despair and depression and sorrow. Excuse me, but those choices are empty, cruel, and joyless.

Among the choices that my sister Barbara made along the way, and that made all the difference, was to accept Jesus. I quickly say that “accepting Jesus” is another phrase that we frequently hear, or say, but it has many deeper shades of meaning. Something so profound cannot be reduced to a phrase, and if you are a Christian who deals honestly with your faith walk (or even if you are not) you know how many steps there have been, and will be, on that “walk.”

Even a lightning-bolt conversion, the “road to Damascus” experience, is never the whole story. We all have progressive revelation… we see through glasses darkly, then with increasing clarity… we experience doubts… we learn lessons… we rebel and return… we hunger for the Word… we grow bold… we receive spiritual chastisement… we feel the peace that passes understanding… we “know that we know that we know”…

Sometimes these experiences are stretched out over years. Sometimes they can all seem to come in one day of spiritual yearning! And everything in between. Faith is a living thing, growing; almost breathing. In fact, the Holy Spirit does breathe into us the profound truths of God – literally in-spiration.

So Barbara cannot really be described as suddenly “accepting Jesus.” As her brother who prayed for her and with her, it has seemed to me more like she gradually realized Jesus had been there with her all the time. And then the realization that Jesus had accepted her, not just the other way around.

Then that “walk” didn’t seem so lonely anymore.

In all these ways a miracle can take place – for it is miraculous that amid horrible conditions and seemingly hopeless situations such as this mother and daughter experienced… joy and peace can come out of it. The world cannot give that, and the world cannot take it away.

And the devil cannot take away an anniversary that, somehow, is a Happy Anniversary after all.

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Click: What a Meeting In the Air

4-17-23

I cannot be surprised or critical or… anything other than empathetic when I meet Christians who are sincere, maybe lifelong churchgoers, even those who are secure and comfortable in their faith – but don’t know some of the bedrock truths of the Gospel.

I don’t mean knowing the “rules.” Or being familiar with the traditions. Nor creeds and hymns. I mean knowing Christ, that last and important step. I recently read a brilliant squib reminding us that all one of the thieves on the cross did was to acknowledge Jesus… who then told him, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

And I cannot be critical of those who have “missed” important truths, in spite of knowing rules and rituals… because I was there too.

I have been in those “places,” and, thank God, still got through some crises of faith, and weathered some of them, but not all. Or not all well. Here are some things all believers should know up-front.

1. For instance, after years of being a Sunday-school boy and regular church member, even on committees, I was thunderstruck when I finally realized we can know now whether we will spend Eternity in Heaven, or not. No waiting to step up to St Peter at the Pearly Gates.

In fact, Peter cannot pull rank on us, much less issue passes, in Heaven, nor will he want to. Just as “all have fallen short of God’s glory” here on earth, all the saints will be equal in Glory. “Saints” includes us. Further, think of the title that R W Schambach used to use, which still blesses me – “our elder brother Jesus”! Think about it!

2. I don’t have to pray over and over (“without ceasing”) to be forgiven for this-or-that. When we are truly repentant, God forgives. And forgets (which is more than we are usually able to do! What a feeling of liberation)! Is there something God cannot do? — Yes, He tells us He cannot remember our forgiven sins and hold them against us!

3. We should lose the well intentioned attitude, seemingly humble, of many Christians – especially new or “baby” Christians – to pray with the attitude of “I am a miserable sinner, how can I approach You, I am not worthy…” etc., etc. No! When we have Jesus in our hearts, God sees the Jesus in us, not the “old” us anymore. Jesus died for us so when God looks at us, we are “covered in the blood” – He sees that, and not our flawed, finite, former, selves. This is an amazing fact that few believers realize or exercise. And is why the Bible says we can – we should – boldly approach the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16).

(Now. About prayer and forgiveness and the “burdens of our heart,” it is, still, a mystery. Yes, God casts our sins into “the sea of forgetfulness.” Yes, when we are saved, all is washed away, “all things are made new.” Yes, He has the power to know the future; He knows all. But… there are mysteries. The Bible says we should “pray believing”… so can we always say, “Done!” Or, do repeated prayers suggest our occasional lack of faith? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Through such mysteries we are led, when we rely on the Holy Spirit’s guiding. When the Bible encourages us at times to pray without ceasing, in our strong faith we will want to, and we do. The born-again believer knows when God wants to minister to our spirits… and prayer becomes a conversation, not a list of requests.)

This is one reason Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit, “who will lift our prayers to the high places… who prays for us in the Heavenlies and before the Throne… and [I love this] when we cannot find the words, will groan for us before God, on our behalf.” It is why I cherish the Pentecostal mode of the Early Church: we can access the Gifts of the communication with the Lord, the prayer-language of angels. The Spirit will approach God for us with groanings we cannot express; but God knows… and will be touched.

I grieve that some Christians do not know the full Gospel, do not avail themselves of the peace – and the power – that God has laid before us. As tools, sometimes. As weapons, frequently. As aids, all the time.

Does religion lie to us? Yes, it has lied; it has confused the Truth; it has obscured and hidden truths. Read your Bible. God does not lie; He cannot lie. It is not about religions; it is about Jesus. If you are on a figurative cross of sin, or doubt, of hurting – or even exercise smugness – turn to the Savior on His cross. He will invite you too to Paradise.

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Click: How Firm a Foundation, originally written in 1787.

Easter 2023, 4-10-23 message

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If God the Father ever wept, it was then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Click: Were You There?

4-3-23

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jesus will even stop parades to be there for us.

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

Click: The Night Before Easter

3-27-23

The “issue” of crime is in the news these days. In some polls it is the major concern of citizens, at least as troubling as the virtual invasion of millions of illegal migrants and the rotten economy. Unchecked immigration is a literal crime (“il-legal”); and high prices are cursed as virtual “crimes” by every shopper making every tough choice every day…

But across international stages, to our nation, cities, and towns, on sidewalks and in schoolrooms, crimes are on the rise as an epidemic; crimes being ignored and therefore spreading. Ignored… except by the victims. Spreading… because lack of punishment encourages their proliferation.

Crimes and sins are related – maybe in the chicken-and-egg context – but essentially, crimes are legal questions and sins are moral questions. That’s how “legalism” would define the differences. But there are deeper distinctions.

A crime is an act; sin is a tendency. The moment you commit a crime, you are guilty. A guilty act, and formal verdicts of guilt, can be pardoned. Sins, however, often have worse consequences, whether they lead to actual crimes or not. And where crimes can be pardoned, sins cannot.

Sins can only be forgiven.

Weeks before Easter, this still is an Easter message. In fact it is the message of all Scripture, the whole Bible, all of life.

Jesus was condemned by “legalists” who accused Him of crimes, and He was charged, tried, sentenced, tortured, and killed for “crimes.” We know that He was, of course, sinless. His “crimes” were twisted accusations by haters – healing people on the wrong day of the week; showing compassion to the wrong ethnic groups; citing prophecies – and, much like today, the authorities ignored what they should have respected and were upset by things they ought to have ignored. Does this sound like today?

The eighth chapter of John’s Gospel, despite its events chronologically well before Holy Week, addresses the centrality of Easter’s message: Forgiveness. The stark contrast represented by Jesus’s death on the cross was on one hand the crimes imputed by both the state and religion, and the sins of humankind on the other. More so, between the connivance of the malignant forces of state and religion… versus the liberating peace, freedom, and salvation offered by God: Forgiveness.

John chapter 8 begins with the religious hierarchy of Pharisees – Legalists – hauling an adulteress before Jesus, demanding that He approve her imminent stoning as punishment for her sins. Their first priority was to trap Jesus in a legalistic argument. Their second purpose was to scorn, hate, condemn, and kill the woman. Their last thought was to counsel her and lead her to repent. Least of all, Forgiveness.

Scripture tells how Jesus was diffident during their rant, casually writing in the dust; it does not explain what He doodled. My idea was the numbers 1-10, because He then challenged, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” reminding them, perhaps, of the Ten Commandments. In any event, as they dropped their murderous rocks and silently walked away, Jesus said, “Go and sin no more.” The usual interpretation is that He spoke only to the woman, but the message was also to the “Holy” mob… and to us.

Today, too many in the Establishment of media, education, and the state – and, sadly, the Church – want us to confront sin, but find a “welcoming” way to meet it halfway. Jesus spent much time, we read, with sinners. But in the Gospels it was they who went away changed, not Him.

Then John 8 records how the Pharisees engaged in debates with Jesus over His claims about prophecy, and Father Abraham, and fulfilling the Law of Moses, instead of what He taught and how He lived. Legalism was deadly, being a convenient excuse for those who would not see.

And Legalism is no less deadly today, as a crutch for those who wallow in their own sins and errors, rebellion and destruction.

Legalism, so much a component of organized religion, has sent more people on paths of misery straight to hell, than have accumulations of sinning… because it enables sin.

What Jesus taught that day, and spoke through the Message of the Cross, and pleads with us today, is that sin is the problem; not the sinner.

Willingly deaf to His words, the Jews in this chapter did not relent; they peppered Jesus with challenges (“You are not yet 50 years old, and yet you say you have seen Abraham?”) and their logic about the Law of Moses (to which He replied, “I am the Law of Moses”). They found the stones again, to throw at Him… but He disappeared out of the midst of them. His time was not yet come. Holy Week, as we call it, Good Friday, the Cross, and the Resurrection, were yet ahead.

But in the meantime, as we read, when He beheld Jerusalem, Jesus wept.

Surely He weeps today over America and this world of sin and error. He weeps for an apostate Church and a culture that prattles about what is “fair”… but not as much about what is pure, and just, and holy.

Let us weep too. Not to respond and act would be more than a crime. It would be a sin.

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Click: When He Was On the Cross, I Was On His Mind

3-20-23

The French have a phrase that is memorable and useful, because it is true, not a mere facile epigram. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Its universality, and applications, are so basic that it is often quoted in the original: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” It was written by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr in 1849.

The concept can be said, or thought of, as pessimistic or fatalistic. Also it can be considered as merely a statement of fact, even an encouragement to a realistic view of life – a viewpoint from which we might brush the dust off out feet and seek new directions.

The Bible addresses the idea of course in a perfect way, and as often the case with bits of wisdom – proverbs – in the words of King Solomon. We recently visited the first chapter of Ecclesiastes, in which this verse appears:

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun.

This came to mind again this week when I chanced upon a political cartoon I drew (gulp!) half a century ago, almost to the day. Isn’t it amazing how a four-year-old could draw? (I am not good at math, so I might be off by a few years…) But more than the archaeological discovery from my files, I was struck by the issue I addressed in the pages of the Connecticut Herald back then.

This cartoon could have been published this week – only better drawn, I would hope – and it would be just as pertinent, just as impertinent, every detail of my critique and complaints resonating the same way.

I would give my right inkpot if such were not case. For this is not an amusing coincidence; it is evidence of rot in American life. We might acknowledge that there might be nothing new under then sun, but – despite Solomon and Jean-Baptiste – we hope that things can at least vary their colors and flavors, can change or evolve. In 1973, for instance, the Soviet Union was our international threat; now it is China. In 1973 Vietnam was a diplomatic vortex; now it is Ukraine.

But the crises in American schools, as I identified them in this cartoon, are the same today (with, perhaps, the only change being greater degrees of severity). In my drawing I pictured sex “teaching” in the classroom; “new math” (the crazy numbers on the blackboard did not reproduce well here); anti-American teaching and actions; the presence of drugs, violence, and alcohol (I drew a syringe, a knife, and a beer can); the Black Power poster would be BLM today; and a Marxist textbook, which lives today as Critical Race Theory and other propagandistic school books.

Oh. And the assault on Bibles and prayers in schools, and the courts’ malignant interference in public education.

When I drew this cartoon, “thanks” to the Supreme Court, Bible reading and Christian expression in schools had been outlawed for about 10 years. To many people, this seems like the world of centuries ago, but I was in seventh grade; I can remember another America. Until that time, my schools in suburban New York City – and it was no different anywhere in the United States – opened every day with the Pledge of Allegiance. Moments of silence. Every week opened with Bible readings, round-robin with classmates. Out of deference to the Jewish kids in my classes, Bible readings often were Old Testament psalms.

If kids came from households of no faith, or other faiths, they could opt out; no ostracism of any sort. I had no friends who felt persecuted. The Lord’s Prayer was also recited weekly, and the Protestant kids added “For ever and ever, Amen,” nothing odd about it. We had Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter programs… with the spiritual backgrounds discussed matter-of-factly.

These were aspects of American schools until the early ‘60s. Ten years later… this cartoon was not a fantasy or a warning, but a critique of unfolding situations. Fifty years later… Nothing new under the sun.

I was not too young when Bibles were outlawed, nor when I drew this cartoon, to be unaware of predictions from many quarters. Don’t think citizens did not object. There will be consequences if children are not grounded in an awareness of God’s role in American life… morals will degrade in a generation of young people… If Biblical values are stripped from history and science classes, children will have no standards… We will raise up generations with false values, little respect, and no traditions… and other predictions that are “la même chose.”

Every movement, through many centuries – indeed, back to the Garden – that has attacked God’s Word and orderly societies, has commenced with corrupting children. Of late, in the West, whether it is the questionable Protocols; or the manifestos of Marx and Engels; or the “Progressive Education” of Dewey; or the well-funded subversion of George Soros, corrupting the youth is the tip of the spear.

I wish, today, I could draw a cartoon predicting a better future – American classrooms free of subversion and perversion; shining with patriotism and traditional values; teaching, and learning, the Three Rs; not woke but awakened; outcomes and advancement of students by merit.

But I am afraid that my pen has run dry.

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Click: The Darkest Hour Is Just Before Dawn

3-13-23

A friend recently asked about Messianic Jews and Christians who choose to observe the traditions of the ancient Hebrews. Festivals, dietary laws, customs of holy days. Should Christians, and “fulfilled” People of the Book, feel obligated or be encouraged to observe practices from centuries prior to Christ’s incarnation?

Those ancient traditions pointed toward the Messiah’s coming. Discernment was required with all prophesies, customs, ceremonies, and the most minute elements of observances. Things that inspired people of Old Testament times can provide reminders to Christians of our time: God’s sovereign and eternal plan; the unity of the full Gospel; the confirmation of His miracle workings.

To the extent that awareness of ancient observances can turn into obsessions into substitutions into replacements, we should discourage these things. Anything that takes our eyes from Christ Himself must be resisted. Christ and Him crucified, Christ risen and reigning – all else pales. Customs and prophecies become academic; signs and wonders are confirmations. Luke 12:30 warns us that “these things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers all over the world.” Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Taking these thoughts further, I remembered one of the most powerful books of warnings, so to speak, in the Bible, and one of its most powerful chapters. Amos the Prophet speaks to us today.

The customs and observances of the Old Testament were for the times in which they were given by God. As I said, they are for our edification still today; all of Scripture is inspired. Laws and commandments are likewise of God, and yet we should remember that Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. However, the books of the Prophets are slightly different, in my view. Many of the prophecies, especially the Jeremiahs, were for people of the day – warnings to repent and return to God. And many of those warnings, as we know, were rejected… resulting in punishment, wrath, and exile.

Yet many prophecies were spoken and written to us, too. For us. About us. Not only in human-nature categories of advice, but specifically to our circumstances – our places is historical dispensation; our situations. The sixth chapter of Amos reads that way, as if Amos looked almost 3000 years into future and knew our society, reading our headlines.

And what he saw is not pretty.

We know things are not pretty today. And the more serious our crises are, contemporary life dresses things up to look pretty… taste sweet… and appear harmless. But don’t we know that these are perilous times? Problems barely beneath the surface? Amos did. God does.

Woe to you who are at ease…

Woe to you who put far off the day of doom, Who cause the seat of violence to come near; Who lie on beds of ivory, Stretch out on your couches, Eat lambs from the flock And calves from the midst of the stall; Who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments, And invent for yourselves musical instruments like David;
Who drink wine from bowls, And anoint yourselves with the best ointments, But are not grieved…

The LORD God of hosts says: “I abhor the pride of Jacob, And hate his palaces; Therefore I will deliver up the city And all that is in it.”

You have turned justice into poison, And the fruit of righteousness into bitterness.

“Behold, I will raise up a nation against you…” says the Lord God of hosts; “And they will afflict you…”

“Woe to the complacent” is the thrust of this prophecy. It is a stark reality – a tragic truth – that America and the “Christian” West have arrived at a point where we are not only diverted by, but we put our trust in, bread and circuses. We look to wealth and armaments for protection. We believe we are privileged and secure. We think that because the world loves our rock ‘n’ roll and blue jeans, others are not jealous and lustful after our resources and blessings. We call good evil and evil good, fooling ourselves that it makes no difference. We have manufactured our own morality – believing that sin has no consequences; that we can exploit and abuse each other; that marriages, babies, and the “inconvenient” among us are expendable. Crimes are not crimes anymore; and substance abuse is assuaged by more and more substance abuse. We have become insensitive to beauty and truth.

We have come, on this mad journey of democratic license and self-indulgent capitalism, to a point of elevating Self – the deity of contemporary life. Human nature reigns supreme, the ultimate force to be trusted, a secular god that believes nothing, forgives everything, and demands our worship and trust.

All of this instead of trusting in the Lord.

How is this working out? How has it ever worked out, three thousand years ago or in any civilization, past or present?

We have turned the fruits of righteousness – to which we delude ourselves into thinking we are dedicated – into bitterness. And justice in contemporary life – whether regarding neighborhood crime, or respect for the sanctity of life, or international relations – we are turning into poison. And poison kills.

Thus spake the Prophet. The words are true, even if we ignore them.

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Click: Purcell Funeral March

3-6-23

Like the boy who cries wolf, the people behind the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists seldom are noticed anymore, or as much or as often as they once were. In 1947, at the dawn of the Atomic Age, the group’s “Doomsday Clock” was calibrated and publicized, meant to represent how close humankind was to obliterating civilization on earth.

Significantly it was issued at a time when nuclear weapons were a monopoly of the United States, and indeed the USA was the only nation, and remains so, to have unleashed nuclear weapons on people, military or civilian. To me that is a matter of shame, but my purpose is not to discuss wartime strategies.

Peacetime strategies of certain groups also deserve our attention. The “Doomsday Clock” – how close the world supposedly is to annihilating itself, “midnight” being the death-knell – was set at “seven minutes to midnight” as per the Bulletin’s first press release. Two months ago our current death sentence, so to speak, is calculated at 90 seconds away from doom. There are 86,400 seconds in a day, by the way, so we can see what the fuss is about. Since 1947 other nations have joined the “nuclear club.” (The Soviet Union in 1949; the UK in 1952; France, 1960; China, 1964; and at least five other countries.) The Bulletin of “scientists” has widened their list of threats to life on earth include over-population, green concerns, and global warming (or as it is known at the moment, “climate change”).

The United States is always cast as the boogy man in such alarums. I do not doubt the malign effects, both wanton and avoidable, of civilization and its discontents. It might even be the case that Chicken Littles in white lab-coats have inspired reforms. Yet there have been unseen consequences of Doomsday scenarios despite the absence of nuclear bombs being dropped during all the wars since 1947. My generation of schoolkids surely absorbed psychic poison from warnings about our homes being incinerated, and the necessity of hiding our little heads under desks during bombing-raid rehearsals in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Some day soon I believe we also will look back on the futility of two years of societal lockdowns over a relative of the flu.

I suggest that our problems with ticking clocks and last pages of calendars, of big bombs and little viruses, is “not in the stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” That quotation is from Shakespeare, not the Bible; but there is wisdom in it. Another wise man wrote in the Book of Ecclesiastes: “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.”

In these famous lines, the “Preacher,” acknowledged as the son of David, King Solomon, did not address “vanity” as being conceited or boastful, or chasing after fashion, except in the (much) larger sense – the contrast between substantial things and temporary concerns. The difference between the pertinent and the impertinent. The important things in life, and, yes, the futility of some things we humans chase after.

In that sense, things like atomic bombs and fossil fuels pale in significance to the many things the entire human race is doing in myriad other ways to kill itself. Yes, a bomb’s blast is palpably horrific: ask the many survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet the moral decay of hatred, prejudice, corruption, deceit, abuse, addiction, exploitation – of sin – is individual, widespread, and, unlike international treaties and federal regulations, within the power of each of us to remedy.

This human condition – vanity; the sense of futility we share in ever-increasing ways – can be addressed by humans. Spiritual crises require spiritual answers

Solomon, thousands of years ago, addressed the same challenges to “human nature” wherewith we contend today:

Says the Preacher, “Vanity, vanities, all is vanity.”

What profit has a man from all his labor In which he toils under the sun? One generation passes away, and another generation comes; But the earth abides forever.

The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, And hastens to the place where it arose. The wind goes toward the south, And turns around to the north; The wind whirls about continually, And comes again on its circuit.

All the rivers run into the sea, Yet the sea is not full; To the place from which the rivers come, There they return again. All things are full of labor; Man cannot express it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor the ear filled with hearing.

That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us.

There is no remembrance of things past, Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come By those who will come after.

Does this mean we should do nothing about our manifold problems? No – I have listed the problems I believe ultimately are most important that face our species and our families. If we can solve those, the “larger” crises might sort themselves out, for we will be wiser, more responsible, more loving.

Does this suggest a new form of hyper-individualism, addressing our problems ourselves? To the extent we should rely less on scientists who cry wolf with Bulletins, or governments who intimidate us by claiming to have all answers to all things… yes.

Does it say that life is futile; we are doomed according to a ticking Doomsday Clock?

No. These thoughts remind us that God is in charge. We are not to look to the stars, be scared by clocks, or even rely, solely, on ourselves – but to Him.

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap (Galatians 6:7).

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Click: The Great Judgment Morning

2-27-23

Ashes marked on the forehead in Ash Wednesday services, marking the beginning of Lent’s 40 days before Easter, is not mentioned in the Bible. It was not practiced during the first Holy Week, nor for the first thousand years of Christianity. It is an ordinance observed by Catholics and some other denominations, a tradition meant to focus on sacrifice.

For many centuries – indeed, back into earliest Old Testament times – the wearing of sackcloth (a coarse, uncomfortable fabric made of hemp or flax) and imposition of ashes (the modest reminder of dust, as in “dust to dust”) were symbols of humility, repentance, and willingness to do penance for sins.

When an association was drawn with the Message of the Cross, the mark on the forehead as a visible statement of sorrow and repenting of sins (in the manner that believers’ water baptism is regarded as an outward sign of spiritual cleansing) became a custom at the beginning of the Lenten season.

Soon the further practice of “giving something up” as Easter approached also became a custom, a sacrifice, reflecting the sacrifice of Jesus giving Himself up unto death. In time, the taking of sackcloth and ashes became the liturgical tradition of receiving ashes on the forehead as a symbol of absolution and forgiveness.

As many elements of liturgy and rituals can morph from rite to rote, so can the man-made tradition of “giving something up” for Lent morph, sometimes, into hollow customs. And too often a habit that is honored “in the breach.”

Not always, of course, but all too often such Holy Intentions dwindle into simple jokes. Contests of sorts – “who held out the longest?” or silly, insincere pledges to start with – like chocolates (when the person has been trying to diet, anyway) or smoking (what?… again?) having little to do with the suffering and crucifixion of Christ on the cross.

Too often, Lenten “sacrifices” are mere churchy versions of New Year’s resolutions – and just as meaningful.

A proposal: Why don’t we TAKE UP something up for Lent?

Perform, instead, some extra deed for 40 days.

Determine to help someone in a new way.

Reach out to a stranger… or a friend. Intentionally, daily.

Such actions, likely involving thought and effort, are as “sacrificial” as denying bad habits, giving up chocolates, or quitting smokes. The actions would lead to contemplation of what the Cross is all about – caring, serving, true sacrifice.

Instead of stopping something… we can start something.

And it might indeed start something… in our lives, our families, our neighborhoods, our nation, our world.

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Click: Create In Me a New Spirit

2-20-23

There are strange things happening every day.

For a change, not everything in the news seems Apocalyptic. At a small university in Kentucky, a religious revival has broken out. Stranger than its occurrence, perhaps, is the fact that it is being noticed by the news media. Social media, these days, cannot keep the lid on much.

Revival. It was only on February 6 that this blog made an argument that Christians stop praying to God to send revival – my point being that we should, ourselves, work to revive our faith, our churches, our communities, our nation; and then God will bless us. “Revive us again,” in the words of the old Gospel song: inspire us to do Your work that You may bless our land.

God does, after all, work in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. On February 8, in a morning chapel service at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, a seemingly routine message, based on Romans 12: 9-21, was delivered. Its message was love – one of Scripture’s most forceful presentations of the necessity to discern Christ’s love, to share love, to be love. Mostly students in attendance, the young campus speaker in a stained T-shirt; when chapel was over there was an invitation to pray.

Chapel did not end, however. There was prayer in the seats and in front of the stage. Students did not leave. Praying and singing grew more intense. By evening the auditorium was full, the balconies too, and praying and singing continued – singly, in groups; quiet and exuberant. A choir sang and individuals spontaneously preached. Everyone prayed and laughed and cried and hugged. Now adults joined the throng – faculty and neighborhood folk.

This did not stop at end of day. It continued overnight, into the next day. It continues still, more than 10 days later. As word spread (as the Word spread!) the university opened satellite locations around campus; people gathered and prayed and sang on lawns and elsewhere on campus. Social media accelerated the phenomenon – yes, clearly a revival – and there was news of similar occurrences on other campuses around the nation. People arrived from around America.

Besides the prayer and worship there have been testimonies, conversion experiences, healings, ecstatic gifts, demons cast out; and no less significant, profound private prayer and quiet fellowship, prophesies and revelations from God, and answered prayer requests. I have been to Pentecostal revivals that are more exuberant, but… God works in mysterious, and myriad, ways.

I want no one to think I am implying a connection between my little call for individuals’ need for revival, and the Asbury events a few days later. I should be struck down if I thought to imply such. However, if the Holy Spirit moved me, and others, to address the need for a proper understanding of revival in our land… well, that working of God is perhaps mysterious but not “strange.” The Holy Spirit might be motivating many people at the same time. And, I notice, a movie about the Jesus Movement has been released just now.

In fact an aspect of the current Asbury Revival (there have been others on that campus, most recently in 1970) was the “strange” story of a Christian couple from Malaysia, of all places, who were inspired to move to Kentucky, of all places, and wait for the falling of the Holy Spirit in a worship-revival setting. It did not come for years, and, discouraged, they moved to New York City. But they were inspired in their hearts to return to Kentucky, which they did… days before the current revival fell. After God moves, His timetable becomes clearer!

This had been my point. That we, as believers, cannot order God around with a wish-list that He “send” deeper spiritual experiences on demand. That is our job. But there is a holy synergy.

When His people work and wait… expect and believe… study and spread the Word… open their hearts and “till the soil,” so to speak – He will plant the seeds. And bring a harvest such as we see at Asbury right now. Remember: “Revive” means, literally, Re-Birth.

As I said, I have been in revivals like the famous one in Pensacola, the “Brownsville Revival” that lasted years. There have been others. In fact, what the Asbury chapel resembles is the early, first-century church after Christ’s ascension. Other experiences have included the four notable “Great Awakenings” between the Colonial days and the Civil War, as well as in brush arbors and camp meetings on the American frontier; but they have accelerated in the past century: Wichita in 1900; Asuza Street in L.A. in 1906; revivals in Wales and Scotland; the Toronto Blessing; etc. Their increase suggests that the End Times are approaching.

In the Second Chapter of Acts it is foretold: In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people; your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.

Regarding my recent message here: “Hasn’t God sent revival after all?” Yes. My plea, again, was for us, like watchmen at the wall (Isaiah 62:6) to wait, warn, and work. Also – there is Revival and there is Revival. A “revival” of the nation’s politics and morality is important. But even the most well-meaning Christian patriots must not confuse the priorities:

We must work for our own spiritual revivals, in our households and communities, before working for, and expecting, national policy-revivals. Any other order is futile.

And – this is so important to notice about the Asbury Revival! – this is happening among the youth!

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There are many, many cameras trained on the Asbury Revival right now. Search Google and YouTube and elsewhere; you will easily find video clips and news reports and even live streams. Experience it for yourself, even on the TV or computer screen… and maybe invite the Holy Spirit to your own community.

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Click: News report on the Asbury Revival

2-12-23

Some people of recent times have torn down statues and monuments of American history’s great figures, including those of presidents. I am not only condemning vandals armed with paint balls and ropes, who were widely videotaped but never so much as arrested or fined. I refer instead to government officials and descendants of those leaders who scurried and hurried to align themselves with PC mobs, and support the desecration.

Those despicable anti-patriots in their suits and from their offices might be the virtual vandals, but they can never subtract from the greatness of many historical figures, including two whose birthdays we observe this month, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. Theodore Roosevelt said of them, “There have been other men as great and other men as good; but in all the history of mankind there are no other two great men as good as these.”

I want to linger a moment before Lincoln. From his roots in crushing poverty and absence of schooling, he rose to be the savior of the Union, his wisdom equaled only by his humanity. It seems a miracle that that this unlikely person was the perfect leader at a unique time. I believe it was God’s working.

I also want to linger on the misconception that Lincoln was an atheist, or an agnostic. Yes, he was unchurched and seldom attended formal services. But his Bible was well-worn; he quoted Scripture extensively; and indeed by the end of his presidency, his messages and speeches were as much sermons as civic documents.

His humanity? We remember his reading the stack of requests for soldiers’ pardons he considered one day, each with testimonials from influential people… except one plea from a soldier who left his ranks to return home to a sick mother. “Does this man have no ‘friend’?” Lincoln asked. He was told No. The President said, “Well, he does now,” and pardoned him.

His faith? We remember his clear and powerful statement of theology, when he said in effect, “I am not so much concerned that ‘God is on our side,’ but that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.”

Lincoln’s personal secretary John Hay testified to Lincoln’s spiritual struggles, and his reliance on prayer in the White House. It is inspiring to read of Lincoln’s steadily increasing faith… the progression of his appeals to God… invocations of Providence… seeking the Lord’s guidance… Biblical quotations… allusions to Bible history… setting aside national days of prayer, fasting, humiliation, and thanksgiving.

Lincoln’s first inaugural address acknowledges his “firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land.” In the second address: “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” And of course his reference in the Gettysburg Address that this “nation shall under God have a new birth of freedom.”

A proclamation:
It is fit and becoming in all people, at all times, to acknowledge and revere the Supreme Government of God; to bow in humble submission to His chastisement; to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and to pray, with all fervency and contrition, for the pardon of their past offenses, and for a blessing upon their present and prospective action. And whereas when our own beloved country, once, by the blessings of God, united, prosperous and happy, is now afflicted with faction and civil war, it is peculiarly fit for us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals, to humble ourselves before Him and to pray for His mercy.

In private communication, 1862:
We are indeed going through a great trial – a fiery trial. In the very responsible position in which I happened to be placed, being a humble instrument in the Hands of our Heavenly Father, as I am, and as we all are, to work out His great purposes, I have desired that all my works and acts may be according to His will, and that it might be so I have sought His aid.

About his dark moments when Lee’s army invaded Pennsylvania, Lincoln wrote:
When everyone seemed panic-stricken… I went to my room… and got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed… Soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul that God Almighty had taken the whole business into His own hands….

Lincoln said about the Bible:
In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say I believe the Bible is the best gift God has given to man. All the good Savior gave to the world was communicated through this Book.

And other reflections:
I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.

God loves us the way we are, but too much to leave us that way. I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.

We do not need to contrast these confessions of a sitting President, whom ignorant secularists like to portray as an unbeliever, with the actions of the current sitting President who recalls his days as a choir boy but supports the murder of babies and other policies in contradiction to his Church’s teachings. But the temptation is strong to draw contrasts.

Yet Abraham Lincoln, as a Christian Patriot, can stand on his own, without human contrasts. And he compares well with standards laid out by God Almighty, His Son Jesus, and the Holy Bible. Let us stand in that manner, too, on this President’s Day; and all days.

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Click: Battle Hymn of the Republic

2-6-23

There are many names of God in Scripture; and many names of Jesus. Similarly, names of the Holy Ghost.

Casual students of the Bible know these. Some of names are titles; some are descriptive; some are prophetic; some are virtual codes that communicate the attributes of members of the Trinity; some are poetic. Among scores are, for instance, God as “the great ‘I Am’”; Jesus as the “Bright and Morning Star”; the Holy Spirit as the “Comforter.”

One of my names for the Father is God of the If-Thens. It’s an odd phrase, so I will explain. It is based on my recognition that God loves us unconditionally, but many of His promises are conditional. We, His children, do not always recognize this, because we don’t want to.

Many Christians in these days of national turmoil and societal distress quote a passage from II Chronicles, Chapter 7. We hear it in sermons, speeches, and prayers:

If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Now, maybe God has many names for His people – us – too. Perhaps, if we think about the number of times Christians invoke this verse, one of those names could be: Lazy.

Lazy? When we hear those prayers often, even in anguish? But start thinking about all the times in the Bible that revival was needed among His people, in their lands, in His promised places. Many times! In fact, the need for spiritual revival is a repeated theme. People who are “called by God,” the blessed chosen who nevertheless exercise human nature, not God’s nature; and who inevitably (as per human nature) stray, rebel, grow apostate, reject God – the Bible record is populated by such people. And they, generally, are like you and me.

Whether God sends prophets who warn; or floods, famines, conquerors, or even a Savior, He provides ways out. He has ways to remind us of His love. He invites us to return. He issues promises. He offers forgiveness. Yet (to cite an aphorism from the Book of Proverbs) “As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.”

“Revival!” preachers yell. “Revival!” Christians call down from Heaven. “Revival!” believers pray for.

But in their yelling, calling down, and praying, very few Christians cite the whole passage from II Chronicles, Chapter 7, verses 12-15, when the Lord appeared to Solomon after a Temple had been built to honor God:

I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. If I shut up Heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people; if My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Now Mine eyes shall be open, and Mine ears attentive unto the prayer that is made in this place.

There’s the God of the If-Then. In language, “if” should always, and logically, be followed by “then.” That is the function of the “if.” And the prerequisite of the “then.” Cause and effect.

God can, but never has, brought revival to a person, a people, or a land – a country – without the prerequisite of repentance. Nor should He, in my view. The plea would be lazy; and the holy answer would be cheap.

America, in so many ways, places, and times, was dedicated to Christ. It has been the land of “Great Awakenings,” evangelistic outreach, learned theology, but has turned into a culture of death, apostasy, secularism, hedonism, and materialism. There was wisdom in a bumper strip I recently saw: “If God does not destroy America, maybe Sodom and Gomorrah deserve an apology.”

Why would God “send” revival if His people do not bother to desire it more earnestly? Why do we merely preach it to each other? How arrogant to think that, amid our manifold sins, we can order God to fix things?

Christians, all moral patriots, need to work for revival ourselves!

Just as we surely deserve God’s holy judgment, so does God deserve our heartfelt repentance. To “humble ourselves and turn from our wicked ways.”

THEN will He will hear the reports ringing through Heaven… and heal our land. But not, I’m afraid, before.

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.

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This popular song from the late 1960s has strong spiritual implications. It was written by the influential Gram Parsons, whose work inspired a generation of singers and groups. It is performed here in the room where he died at age 26, Room 8 of the very humble Joshua Tree Inn motel. I have been there, now a very accessible, informal shrine to Gram Parsons.

Click: Sin City

1-21-23

In this weekly blog I have been writing for almost 14 years I occasionally feel presumptuous on your attention as I attempt to share His messages. Eavesdropping, I consider it, on words that the Lord whispers and sometimes shouts to His children.

Today I will be more personal than I sometimes am. One more “share,” but with a lesson for others, I pray.

It was 10 years ago, January 21, 2013, that my wife Nancy died. She led a remarkable life, touching many people while she lived as she reflected joy, through her manifold sufferings; and since her death.

I had come home after college graduation and was promptly volunteered to be Sunday School Superintendent at my little church; I was introduced to Nancy the nursery-school teacher. She immediately struck me as the most beautiful girl I could ever meet, and that was a prophecy fulfilled – also her outward beauty.

Her nature can be illustrated by the first Sunday morning I visited her classroom. Utter chaos prevailed, kids screeching and climbing and doing everything possible. In their midst was gentle Nancy, urging, “Simon says sit down…”

Our first date was one month later to the day (a George Jones and Tammy Wynette concert) and one year later to the day I proposed. After we left the Chinatown restaurant Nancy called her family from a phone booth (kids, ask your grandparents what that is), and then I called a disk jockey I knew at WHN, the New York City radio station, and asked if he could maybe announce our news on the air. He did better, to our surprise. He invited us to the station. It was after midnight, and he instructed the guard in the lobby to let us enter, and he interviewed us on the air!

Fast-forward, another “to the day” anniversary.

A lot happened, of course, in between. We had a three-week European honeymoon. We had three wonderful children – Heather, Ted, and Emily – proud of them all; and four grandchildren. We lived in Weston, Connecticut; suburban Chicago; suburban Philadelphia; San Diego; and Michigan. We visited many national parks, had family vacations in Florida, Palm Springs, Europe, and points between. Many ups and a few downs.

Among the “downs” was her health. Diabetes had hit her at 13, and was the direct cause of eye troubles (virtually losing her sight twice), kidney failure, amputation of toes, and several strokes and heart attacks. She had heart and kidney transplants. She also endured celiac disease, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and when her new kidney was failing, early signs of dementia. Nevertheless she lived 16 years subsequent to the transplants, after being told she had “gained” possibly three to five years of extended life.

Nancy was not defined by her afflictions, however. She had a strong faith in God, and Jesus became her best Friend. Congenitally shy, she had a spiritual-heart transplant, so to speak, and became bold about sharing her faith. She started a family ministry at the hospital, all five of us holding services, visiting and praying with patients.

It is not true, nor fair to others with ailments, to say that she was never discouraged; eventually she grew sick and tired of being sick and tired. But, mostly, 15/16ths was a good record of defiance against defeat. She said, rather, that she would not choose to go through again what she had… but she wouldn’t trade her “walk” for anything. She inspired uncountable people.

Her Bible – well worn, full of highlights, notes, margin comments – has, underscored, Romans 14:8: “For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord.”

I have claimed as a personal anthem of ours the words of the Gospel song The Far Side Banks of Jordan:

I believe my steps are growing wearier each day;
Still I’ve got a journey on my mind.
Lures of this old world have ceased to make me want to stay,
And my one regret is leaving you behind.

But if it proves to be His will that I am first to go,
And somehow I’ve a feeling it will be,
When it comes your time to travel likewise, don’t feel lost
For I will be the first one that you’ll see.

Through this life we’ve labored hard to earn our meager fare,
It’s brought us trembling hands and failing eyes.
So I’ll just rest here on the shore and turn my eyes away
Until you come, then we’ll see Paradise!

And I’ll be waiting on the far side banks of Jordan;
I’ll be sitting, drawing pictures in the sand.
And when I see you coming, I will rise up with a shout
And come running through the shallow waters, reaching for your hand.

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Click: Far Side Banks of Jordan

1-16-23

There is an old description of untruths or falsehoods – “Lies, damned lies, and statistics.” It is, of course, more of an accusation against statisticians than everyday, garden-variety liars; and my own assessments of that profession is: “Statistics don’t lie, but statisticians do.”

We see this proven most glaringly in politics and public-opinion polling, but it is everywhere, in every sphere, used at every possible opportunity. I will assert that 78 percent of people agree with me.

Having disposed of that, we are left with lies, a subject or at least a practice with which most of us are familiar. But I rather mean for us to think about “damned” lies, and I hope nobody is offended by the word, but it is chosen and should be considered carefully.

To employ the “D” word, as earlier generations liked to politely clothe it, involves one of the most serious matters, with the most serious consequences, of all things. There is a heaven and there is a hell, even if contemporary society denies the existence of both. Even modern – or I should say post-modern – churches tend to deny hell; at the least we can note that many denominations avoid the subject of hell; many churches ignore the consequences of hell; many preachers deny the existence of hell.

And when the Bible, when Jesus Himself, spoke of hell and its reality, the contemporary world in its denials, finds it easy, or in fact, logically incumbent, to dismiss heaven – the desire for heaven, the reality of heaven, the existence of heaven. Besides, contemporary life and paternalistic governments bring us heaven on earth, right? So what’s the need?

When people, much less denominations, say that they know more than the Bible, and better than Jesus, their “faith” is no faith at all.

But damnation is real. It is a severe caution, and it is a literal threat. To state the previous point another way, if there is no hell and no damnation, God had no reason to become incarnate, to have Jesus come to earth, suffer, and die. If there is no hell to be saved from, there is no heaven to hope for, and then God Almighty is flawed, and His Son Jesus was a fool – worse, a liar.

There’s that word – Liar. God cannot lie. It is not in His nature. But one of the Bible’s several names of Satan is “Liar.” Further, his job description, pictured most fully in the Book of Job but elsewhere too, is “Accuser.” We can say it is his job description.

Whether literally true – I believe it is true, but I mean whether every minute or daily or in a physical setting – we are not told and I do not care about such details. God knows all, but nevertheless it is written that Satan accuses the saints (us). As I said, God knows everything anyway, so there must be a point to our being reminded in the Word that our sins are seen in unseen places, known to God and the heavenly host and even the devil… perhaps as Satan’s final effort (his job description again, according to the Scripture) to “steal, kill, and destroy.”

Jesus told us, “If you believe in God, believe also in Me.” So as night follows day, what God said and Jesus taught about heaven and hell should keep us aware. Hell and damnation are not things casually to dismiss, and certainly not things to talk about lightly. “Damn this,” and “damned that,” and “Go to hell!” — when we say such things, we are playing with fire.

There is one more thought about lies, and the devil accusing us before the throne of God. Whether literal or Scripture’s way of helping us picture reality is not as important as this truth:

If Satan is a liar, I don’t care so much about him accusing us, lying about us, to God.

What we should be concerned about – tremble with fear, actually – is that the devil would tell the truth about us.

Why? If we are sinners, we have already condemned ourselves. If we have accepted Jesus, however, our robes are clean.

We must not be concerned with what the devil claims, but Whom our hearts have claimed.

And that’s no lie.

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Satan, the enemy of our souls, roams about and among us seeking whom to devour, as the Bible says. He might rant and roar against us before God… yet let us remember that softly and tenderly Jesus is calling.

Click: Softly and Tenderly

1-9-23

You probably have heard this acronym, a good prescription for getting through life and advising others. The fact that we seldom observe it does not diminish its wisdom.

Events in the news this week will live on, and on, as yet another political football: the election of a new Speaker of the House of Representatives. Reactions in chat rooms, on cable news and, because I frequently write (and draw editorial cartoons) about politics, outreach from friends who vented, asked questions of me, and unpacked angry comments of their own. There has been widespread frustration with the machinations on Capitol Hill.

It was confusing; it was messy; it was of interminable length. Rivalries were exposed; partisan divisions were highlighted; ambitions were on display. Why could not a simple winner-take-all vote prevail? Why the florid speeches and name-by-name roll calls? Why the horse trading and pledges?

… the answer to all this is: That’s the way it is supposed to work. The Framers of the Constitution (as in so many other ways, thank God) knew what they were doing. Such arrangements in the House of Representatives – designed differently than the Senate – is the closest the American government gets to democracy… which is in its purest forms, by the way, a system the Framers despised and distrusted. They designed a Federal Republic, at most a modified republican democracy.

They did not want to “keep it simple” in this case. Virtually automatic accession of leaders – which recently has prevailed in the House’s power-structure – were envisioned as exceptions, not routine. Changing rules… challenges to those in authority… factions… the input of lobbies (how that has been perverted!)… compromises… frequent elections (two-year terms instead of the Senate’s six)… apportioned seats on committees… and, yes, “deals”… were all meant to keep the House close to the pulse of the public. NOT simple; just the opposite.

So. We saw this week what is called “sausage-making”: when politics seemingly gets messy. Folks like me (and I believe the shades of the Framers) loved the aroma of a country breakfast – “sausage making” in the House’s Speaker contest. A great show. And was the House’s “business” on hold for four whole days? Folks like me sometime wish that parts of government could be on gridlock for four months.

Anyway, I regret that so many people are ignorant of our government’s structure – its original architectural design, really – and were further seduced by Svengalis of the media. (For instance, instead of “simply” and properly reporting events, TV hosts colored the process. The 20-or-so holdouts were characterized as insurgents, egoists, and even terrorists; but I think if they had been liberals they would have been called Profiles in Courage and brave souls with integrity…) A lone congressman traditionally was allowed to challenge a leader’s status, until a Pelosi-decade ago; but its restoration is likened to a lynch mob’s fervor. Horrors! Chaos!! A raucous caucus!!!

The holdouts were upset with decades of broken promises about balanced budgets, transparent writing of laws, term limits, earmarks, “regular order” (through committees instead of puppet-strings of the handful of leaders). Upset that 5,000-page bills are devised in secret and presented for voting immediately upon arrival. Upset that too many laws are written, really, by donors and lobbyists. Left-or-right IDs aside, elaborate complaints ought to have outlets for pushing back.

So, some things are not supposed to be simple. But – Spoiler alert: I will share how “Keep it simple, stupid” does pertain to one of life’s more important matters.

Throughout humanity’s history this matter invariably has been distorted to seem complicated. It has been festooned with uncountable conditions. The matter has been subject to additions and subtractions. Innocent people have been deluded by rules and exceptions and mumbo-jumbo and, too often, have been intimidated.

That matter is Salvation.

Religion – that is: humankind’s systems of translating and explaining and operating what should be the simple province of your soul and your God – has sent more people to hell than have demons. Religion is, at best, reaching up to Heaven. Christianity simply is God reaching down to humankind.

God did not want it to be anything but Simple: He sent His Son to be the substitution for the punishment we deserve as sinners. Simple.

Jesus did not add to laws and commandments and rules: Rather, He fulfilled the Law. Simple.

The Holy Spirit was sent to be God’s method of guiding believers – to comfort, inspire, and direct us. Simple.

The Gospel, explained many ways and many times, is the opposite of complicated:

God created us with free will. But as humans, we choose to sin and offend Him.

A just God, being Holy, cannot have those whom He loves continue our sinful ways, or approach the Throne and live in Heaven, unless sinless.

This Holy God provides a loving means for us to be forgiven, and to be reconciled with Him.

He sent His Son to take our sins upon Himself.

All that is required is that we accept in our hearts that Jesus is the Son of God; that we confess with our mouths that He died to be our Savior; and believe that God raised Him from the dead.

That’s all? That’s all.

Keep.

It.

Simple.

That’s not stupid.

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Click: God On the Mountain

1-2-23

New Years is a sort of anti-Lent. We resolve to do things as New Year resolutions; and many people vow to give things up for Lent. There is a similarity, however: very few of us carry through on either category of intentions. The more interesting survey would be to track the average number of days people “keep” such pledges.

I have a new idea for New Years resolutions.

It involves neither self-sacrifice nor a “self-help” box to check, although you will feel good for having done it. But you will make others feel better – a pretty good way to start the year. Of course it does not have to be on the first of the year… but many of us need some “hook” to hang our good intentions on. (I think that is the justification for a lot of holidays on the calendar.)

There is not one among us who does not know, or know of, an “angel.” Not a literal, sent-from-Heaven angel (maybe), but friends who do good deeds. People who reach out to folks in need, even in mere moments of loneliness. They encourage. They involve themselves in local causes, perhaps with no fanfare. They sacrifice or volunteer. They smile when smiles are hard to come by; they weep with you when nobody else understands.

Praise God, every family, every neighborhood, has these people. Sometimes they never know how they are appreciated, because they go through life without being thanked… but they do not bless others in order to garner praise.

I suggest bringing a few of those people you know – because surely you do – to mind. One of them; three of them; whatever. And let them know they are appreciated, sincerely. Arrange to see them… write an anonymous thank-you note… send a non-anonymous, personal, thank-you note or e-mail… express your appreciation over coffee… whatever.

The form is not as important as the will to do it; and the will is not as important as the deed. I will name three or four such people I know. I will decline to use their names here, although that would honor them. But angels like this do not operate for glory or honor, and I want to inspire similar outreaches among you.

One friend has been a teacher in Texas, also is an author, a church worker, a selfless volunteer at conferences. She has managed difficult family situations, and may never get over the loss of her husband to cancer. She is chiefly, however, an encourager of others. She has blessed uncountable other people, not the least with her famous sense of humor; but some of us know she cries as many tears as she causes smiles. In all, an angel – a saint – and the type of friend who deserves the type of note I suggest for a New Year resolution.

No less spiritual, but active in other realms important to Christians these days, is a friend whose faith motivated her to be active in local, then state, politics. School curricula, mask and vaccine mandates, governmental intrusion, moved her to attend school board and legislative hearings. Often stonewalled, she climbed the ladder of activism, only to be frustrated further. Even at her state capital, deliberate snubs. She and other “moms” banded together and ran for offices. She challenged her state’s senate majority leader. She lost but, again, was frustrated when she requested to see vote totals. Time, trouble, and expenses racked up. She and her fellow moms – Christian Patriots all – are now primed for future crusades. Our whole nation should be filled with selfless angels like her. Her children are out of school, but she battles for the Kingdom.

I have another friend who similarly believes that Christians must be active in the public sphere – that we are seeing the heritage of our faith slip away. He had been brand-manager for a well-known international fashion company, jet-setting around the world doing consequential work. He gave it up, returned to his family’s fifth-generation home in rural Michigan… and still is a jet-setter of sorts, but now he attends conferences, speaks at events, organizes large meetings. His two spheres, now, are Christianity and the political crisis we face. As the previous angel is doing, my friend does not merely complain or advocate; he has rolled up his sleeves as a poll-watcher and attends meetings from the local to the highest levels. And his greatest joy – I have seen this over and over – is sharing Christ, witnessing to others. Baristas, handymen in town, celebrities he knows. It is what angels do.

Another friend is an angel in work overalls. He was an assembly-line worker who was obliged to retire when he developed a disease that made it unsafe to continue on his shifts. In his wonderful family he has a wife and two beautiful daughters who have debilitating, degenerative afflictions. I have never heard any of them complain or display anything but smiles and good cheer, goodwill. My friend uses his skills to manufacture or retrofit lifts for people’s vans, or stair lifts for their homes… and many of these folks are virtual strangers to him. Angels come in all forms.

In situations like these I have described, the “angels among us” do not have to be old friends from their address books… but are, after all, the best friends many folks could want.

Or need.

You surely know some Angels Among Us. Bless them with a warm reminder that you know about, and appreciate, their ministrations.

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Click: Someone is Praying For You

12-25-22

As we have shared here, often, the birth of Jesus, His ministry and even His death and Resurrection, were not events that took place in a vacuum.

The ancestry of Mary and Joseph are delineated in the Gospels, generation by generation. Myriad prophecies were fulfilled in the person of Jesus in so many aspects that would baffle statisticians. Hundreds of years before Bethlehem, the Book of Isaiah described things like the betrayals Jesus would suffer; even his physical appearance.

Whether from ignorance of Scripture or the Hallmarkization of our culture, a lot of us think that Mary looked up one evening and wondered “Who’s that angel?” Oh, she was surprised. She certainly was humbled. But… she knew Bible prophecy.

She knew that God had planned that a virgin would conceive in the City of David… that the Baby would be the Incarnation of God… that His purpose would be to serve as the Salvation of His people. His job description, we might say today.

And she knew – as she knew Bible prophecy so thoroughly; as did her betrothed, Joseph – that her baby Boy was destined to be the Servant King. And also the Man of Sorrows. She was humbled; she was full of joy; she knew there would be smiles, and tears. Perhaps the lot of all mothers. But Mary knew.

Her response to the angel, and with her cousin Elizabeth, has become known as The Magnificat. It is one of the Gospel’s tenderest and most profound passages, part of many liturgies and church music, including one of J S Bach’s foremost works.

My soul doth magnify the Lord.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.

For He hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden: For behold, from henceforth: all generations shall call me blessed.

For He that is mighty hath magnified me: and holy is His Name. And His mercy is on them that fear Him, throughout all generations.

He hath showed strength with His arm: He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich He hath sent empty away.

He, remembering His mercy, hath helped his servant Israel: As He promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed, forever.

Mary knew, because she knew prophecy, because an angel had visited her, that her beautiful, innocent baby Boy would do great miracles; heal the sick; comfort the afflicted; indeed, save His people and be the Savior of humankind.

And she knew no less that her beautiful baby Boy would grow up to be despised and rejected; acquainted with grief; wounded, smitten, and whipped for the punishment sinners deserved; brought like a lamb to the slaughter; put to death with the wicked. Mary knew.

She rejoiced to be used of God in such a role. But how excruciating nonetheless to be a mother in all these moments. Mary knew.

So she prayed her Magnificat – “my soul doth magnify the Lord” – and she planned with Elizabeth the birth of their babies; and traveled with Joseph (again fulfilling prophecy) to the spot where Scripture said the Messiah would be born. Humankind’s Messiah. Her baby.

No room in the inn? We know the story. So humanity’s Savior was born in a manger. Once again, try to erase the greeting-card scenes from your mind. “Manger,” from the Latin “to eat,” is where the animals chomped their hay, and it is reasonable to assume that the Christ Child came into His world amidst a few bugs and some animal spittle. A little town, a crowded hotel, the backyard where cattle and sheep slept and ate. Mary thought she already knew “humble.”

But that evening, the rough manger piled with straw became a King-sized bed. Mary knew.

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Click Video Clip: Mary, Did You Know?

12-19-22

Do we realize that the birth pangs of the first Christmas were not Mary’s alone?

The Bible tells us that all the aspects of Christ’s Birth were not unalloyed joy. The birth pangs of Mary were prophesied in Scripture, even from the Garden, and birth pangs are frequent Biblical metaphors for the distress believers will endure, even persecution unto the End Times.

Specifically at Christmastide the reference is not solely to one mother’s labor.

There was the grief of Judean mothers. It is ironic, especially in our secular time when the Divinity of Jesus is questioned – even in the pulpits of “liberal” churches – yet the pagan Roman ruler Herod acknowledged the mysterious, incarnate Savior to the extent that he ordered the slaughter of little boys under the age of two when he was told of prophecies.

This is no surprise when we remember that the devil himself acknowledged Jesus as the Christ, Son of the Living God. Herod was an amateur when we consider other enemies of Christianity; and the devil ultimately will be defeated (was defeated at the Resurrection). Yet birth pangs, too often, enflame the faithful, from tearful mothers of those baby boys, to mighty saints and martyrs.

Please, at least for a moment, put aside the Hallmark cards and boughs of holly. It is important to remember that He came… why He came… and how He came. In fact, Jesus was born amid tears; He dealt with tears; and He died on the cross – which was His mission – amid tears. Even 700 years before His Birth, Jesus was identified as a Man of Sorrows.

He shall grow up… as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned each of us to our own ways; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and he opened not his mouth…(Isaiah 53)

What has come to be called the Massacre or the Slaughter of Innocents today, as a historical fact, is described in Matthew 2:16-18. It has become a symbol, too – a twisted, evil inspiration to uncountable people around the world who slaughter innocents today. The abortion nightmare is not waged to thwart a Savior, but to save peoples’ comfort and convenience. I am in no way callous to the angst of these mothers when they make tortured decisions; believe me, I am specially tender, but we must always opt for life.

Some believe – or want to believe – that America marches lock-step with the contemporary world on this “issue.” But the US, with Communist China and North Korea, is virtually alone among nations in allowing the cruelest of procedures, and late-term deaths. Merry Christmas, by the way, to all survivors.

One of the most beautiful-sounding Christmas tunes is the lullaby we know as the Coventry Carol. Mother sings to child, “Bye, bye, lully lu-lay,” a transliteration of Old French. It is sweet, certainly; but many have forgotten that the mother in this lullaby is whispering good-bye to her son, about to be slaughtered. It is so named because this song, in Old English first called “Thow Littel Tyne Childe,” had its origins in a “Mystery Play” of Norman France and performed at the Coventry Cathedral in England. The play was called “The Mystery of the Shearmen and the Tailors,” based on the second chapter of Matthew. The earliest transcription extant is from 1534; the oldest example of its musical setting is from 1591.

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

Many people – many mothers – superficially think the ancient carol with its Old French roots of English, “Bye, bye, lully, lullay…” is merely a bedtime song. Yet the lullaby (which word derives from the lament) is a reminder of the hideous opposition the world harbors against the Gospel; and it commemorates the price, sometimes, of being a Christian. For all its beauty, it is the lamentation of an innocent mother cradling her innocent slaughtered child in her lap: a horrible reflection of birth pangs.

Its plaintive melody is one of the great flowerings of polyphony over plainsong in Western music.

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Lullay, thou little tiny child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we do sing
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

Herod, the king, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight,
All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor child for Thee!
And ever mourn and sigh,
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

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Click Video Clip: Coventry Carol

12-12-22

This weekend I attended a performance of Messiah, the famous oratorio by Handel. Inspiring, always. Familiar, too. The musical miracle of Handel’s many great works, all three hours or so composed in about 23 days, invariably is heard this time of year, in concerts, on radio, even in snippets on TV commercials.

It is associated with Christmas but Handel intended, and lyricist Charles Jennens arranged Biblical passages, to tell the whole story of Christ, Emmanuel, God-with-us, the Incarnate Lord, Jesus. That is, not his “biography” but the dramatic glory-story from prophecies to the Millennial Kingdom.

I mention the words and concepts of the masterpiece because many people assume it is only Christmas music. As we shared here recently, the songs of salvation should never be filed away for one day or one holiday season – because that would mean they are neglected for the rest of the year. God forbid!

Handel, the “Greatest of English Composers” (1685-1759) was in a sense three different men: The German Georg-Fridrich Händel, born in the Saxon town of Halle; the popular composer of Italian operas Georgi Federico Handel; and the English George Frideric Handel. He settled in England, serving occasional patrons and arranging his own concerts. His string of operas (the fad of the entertainment world then) gave way to religious oratorios through the years. He became more and more religious as he grew older.

It is often misstated that he was brought to England by the Georges, kings of Hanoverian birth. But he did execute many works for them (they craved the association) and among his early works in England (1717) was a commission for King George I, the Royal Water Music. The Royal Fireworks Music is equally famous.

Händel was born in the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach, slightly more than 100 miles from Bach’s town of Eisenach; and attended Martin Luther University. Händel and Bach, the two masters of Baroque composition, were aware of each other, but never met. They were born only months apart, and Händel outlived Bach by nine years. Ironically, they both suffered from blindness at the end of their lives, coincidentally treated by the same eye surgeon. Tragically, the doctor was something of a quack.

Händel, once nearly bankrupt in England, was relatively wealthy by the end of his life. He was always generous with his resources. He had financed the new organ that had its first use in the debut of Messiah. Händel conducted that first performance, and annual concerts (in London) occurred every year until his death, all the proceeds going to his beloved charity, the Foundling Hospital.

Messiah was first performed in Dublin, in the New Music Hall. Significantly, two choirs were engaged: from St Patrick’s and from Christ Church (Trinity) – a symbolic bow to Catholic and Protestant “harmony.” Its initial presentation was over-subscribed; the crowds trying to enter resulted in SRO, and advance-ticket holders were turned away. Händel offered to conduct a second performance to satisfy the demand.

Among his many great works, Messiah was beloved of Händel. When he was close to death, his last prayer was that he lives until (and die upon) Good Friday – which would coincide with that year’s performance of Messiah. God granted this wish, by hours. The version we know today was enlarged in scope by Mozart; the oratorio has been touched by history’s greatest masters.

At this season, with such magnificent music, it is virtually impossible not to think of “other things” during the moments we pause to listen to the music… and the words. Oddly, the church where I attended a performance this weekend was in Flint, Michigan. “Oddly,” I say, because a news story was published on Friday that by some metrics or other, Flint was judged the worst city in America among almost 500 in the survey.

But in that beautiful church, hearing talented amateurs sing and play, proclaiming and believing the promises and reality of the Savior of humankind – unto us He was given – all the news and noise of the neighborhood and the world melted away.

The reality of a God who sent a Messiah to our world while we were yet sinners, must overcome the “reality” of this corrupt world.

And, for Christ’s sake (literally) do not pack away that truth in some box, to be forgotten the rest of the year.

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Click Video Clip (one short passage from Messiah, the prophecy of Isaiah, 600 years before Jesus’ birth): Unto Us a Child Is Born