Monday Morning Music Ministry

4-12-21

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Click: Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

4-4-21

He’s Alive.

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

He’s Alive.

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

He’s Alive.

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

He’s Alive.

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

He’s Alive.

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

He’s Alive.

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

He’s Alive.

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

He’s Alive.

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

He’s Alive.

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

Talk to someone whose life has been transformed;

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

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

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

Talk to an addict who now is “clean”;

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

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

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

Talk to that little baby who smiles back at you;

Talk to…

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

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

He’s alive.

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Click: He’s Alive

11-26-12

I have become aware of the condition of a friend who has experienced some trials lately. None of the experiences are, perhaps, unusual in themselves, but their almost simultaneous visitations might test anyone’s spirit. He is trying, not to make sense of these sorts of life-happenings – because everything makes sense or nothing makes sense; and “time and chance happen to all men,” as Proverbs says – but to cope, simply to cope. Have you ever been there?

In less than a calendar year his special-needs niece died; his nine-day-old granddaughter died; his wife, after multiple long-term illnesses, is to choose between dialysis and hospice; and his sister, who lost her home in Hurricane Sandy, is losing a battle with HIV that was long held at bay. My friend says he keeps fighting the seduction to moan about his own condition, his own emotions and reactions to these matters.

But he knows – that is, he too infrequently remembers – that it is not about him. It is about these loved ones. And about God. Usually, when nothing makes sense to us, and God seems to be somewhere in the story, it means that God is EVERYWHERE in the story. The man’s wife, for instance, has been cited by many, many people through the decades as an inspiration: encouraging people to faith and endurance as her faith helped her to endure. And his sister, after years of rebellion, has come to know Jesus, drawing closer to God.

Why do we find it so hard to see the silver linings to the dark clouds? Why are we always surprised at the grace that infuses every “crisis”? Why do we forget that the sun shines, not only after the storm clouds pass – but all the time, even when the storm clouds temporarily are overhead and blot the sun from view?

Just like the natural tendency to be sad when a loved one dies, such emotions are a brand of selfishness. Not the nasty schoolyard selfishness, but self-ish focus on one’s own condition. Rather, or I should say in addition to the unavoidable, we should direct all the emotions we can toward the loved ones in their difficulties, and to God on their behalf.

We should not believe that God is in control only when the course of events magically follows our own scripts. God wants us, more than anything else, to trust in Him. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is not summoning patience until God does what we want. Faith is, sometimes, stopping our obsession to understand everything.

And faith is humility. Obey His commands, trust in His love, accept His plan. My sister, newly a friend of God, is blessed not just by the power and balm of the act of praying, but of praying on her knees, specifically. There is a language of prayer, in some gifted circumstances; and, surely, there is also an attitude of prayer.

And sometimes, my friend has discovered anew, there is the biblical concept of the “sacrifice of praise” – when you don’t feel like praying, and even less feel like praising, is when to do it. Loudly and confidently, or softly and tenderly, do it.

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If you never have clicked on a music video after one of these messages, please do watch this one, the completion of this message. The classic hymn “Softly and Tenderly” was written a century and a quarter ago by Will L. Thompson on similar reflections, and among its verses, “Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing, Passing from you and from me; Shadows are gathering, deathbeds are coming, Coming for you and for me.” But followed by: “Oh, for the wonderful love He has promised, Promised for you and for me! Though we have sinned, He has mercy and pardon, Pardon for you and for me.” And the promise in the chorus: “Come home, come home, Ye who are weary, come home; Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, Calling, O sinner, come home!” Sung by RoseAngela Merritt of NewSpring Church, Anderson, S.C.

Click: Softly and Tenderly

Years ago, when my wife had her heart and kidney transplants, the Lord used the circumstance to give our whole family a burden for others in the Heart Failure Unit at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. He also graced us with a boldness to pray with those patients who waited… or who received the medical miracles… or whose transplants went awry… or their families in those situations, or, sometimes, times of grief.

There were questions, always questions, and we were laymen with few answers. We often were asked by pastors, even, how we managed to deal with peoples’ confusion and fear and doubt and sorrow and terror and loneliness. Well, it was the same as we dealt with faith and hope and conversions and even healing. It wasn’t us, it was Jesus — all we could do was share Jesus. (“All”? Yes, it was everything we could do).

We frequently sang a gospel song that became many patients’ favorite: Leave It There. Its words include:

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

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

After a time I learned the amazing coincidence (?) that the gospel song had been written only a few blocks from Temple University Hospital, where we met for those services! C A Tindley, the son of a slave, educated himself, moved north to Philadelphia, secured a job as janitor of a church… and eventually became its pastor. His large mixed-race flock of 10,000 enjoyed his powerful preaching and his moving hymns for years. (One of his hymns, I’ll Overcome Someday, was transformed with different words and tempo into the Civil Rights anthem We Shall Overcome.) Tindley Temple United Methodist Church was his “home,” and today there is a C A Tindley Boulevard in Philadelphia.

So every time we sang that song in the Heart Failure Unit, we did honor to a man in whose neighborhood we sang, who taught untold multitudes (and still does, through such songs) that we should “be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God”… and leave them there at the foot of the cross.

By the way, another coincidence: this Gaither Homecoming video by Lillie Knauls and Babbie Mason is my favorite version. After my father died, in Florida, my sisters and I did not know what to do with furniture, kitchen appliances, household goods, and such, a thousand miles away from where we each lived. I called my pastor, whose sister, I knew, worked in a church nearby in central Florida. Could they find a needy family, perhaps, who could use these things? A few days later I received a phone call from another lady in that church who said she could indeed direct a couple families to the goods, and took down the information. Her name had rung a bell in my head but I thought, “no, it couldn’t be…” But it was. Lillie Knauls! A professional gospel singer, but also on the staff of that church. I was indeed happy to return blessings I had received from her through this performance…

But through it all, the simple message: through all of life’s challenges: don’t fret. Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

Click:   Leave It There

All the Merrys of this season, and the Happys of greetings like the thousands we hear and say, cannot mask that sometimes life is not always merry and happy.

Even Christians, as secure as they can be in their faith, and mindful of God’s many blessings, not only have difficult times and enormous challenges (not warned about in the Bible, but promised to occur)… but also deal with moments of doubt.

To be a follower of Jesus, and admit to these things, does not make you a bad Christian; it just shows that you are… a Christian. We believe, but sometimes doubt things. We trust, yet need His hand to walk forward. We take the risk of trusting like a child…

Those last words are in Bill Gaither’s song I Believe… Help Thou My Unbelief. If you are ever in that fragile spiritual state, or ever have been, or might be sometime, this brief emotional song might minister to you:

Click:  A Hymn for Doubters