Monday Morning Music Ministry

4-29-24

I have come to the conclusion that a lot of things they say about Jesus Christ are not true. Especially hearing all that Jesus-stuff around Easter, you know? Enough! What bothers me, really, is that we’re not hearing about that other Jesus, as I call Him.

Oh, He was serene and holy, like the peaceful face we see in stories about the Shroud. And I’m sure He smiled a lot, and sometimes wore perfectly starched robes, and went around patting children on the head, like I saw on the covers of all those Sunday-School pamphlets.

And if I remember correctly we have stories of Him preaching and dispensing wisdom and then moving on to the next town, other river banks. Like in the Chosen TV series. Yes, He was misunderstood; people were jealous of Him or threatened by Him; and He was an innocent victim of persecution. I understand all that.

But why can’t He just leave me alone with those images? Messiah, I get it. Died for my sins, fine. Shouldn’t that be enough, like at Christmas and Easter? A lot of people think that’s the whole package… but it turns out that’s not the case.

Which is what makes me annoyed, drives me crazy.

A Jesus who smiles all the time? No… I see Him otherwise. Sometimes He is angry. Sometimes He is disappointed and looks sad. Sometimes I see tears in His eyes. In those moments He confronts me. He reminds me that I make mistakes and even sin, that I am lost in this crazy world. He pleads with me to make a choice. To change. To believe in Him. To replace the junk in my heart with the goodness He promises. I’ve heard it. I hear it.

The annoying thing: He never shuts up. I wish there were a fishing village down the road, or some little group of followers that He would move on to. He persists. He won’t let me go, leave me alone. Those paintings of Jesus standing at the door and knocking? Don’t let that kid you. He knocks at the front door. The back door. He scratches at the windows. He is like an alarm clock; like virtual phone calls and texts. “Why do you ignore Me, reject Me?” is what He seems to be saying. “I love you! Don’t you understand? I love you! Let me in!”

And how annoying is this? – I’m getting the feeling that Christmas and Easter are not enough for Him. Or church once in a while. Or even every Sunday morning. He wants me, not my schedule or my habits or my family’s customs. But don’t I pray… or think about praying… or tell people I will pray… when someone is sick, or I’m having another crisis? What does He want from me, anyhow???

Why, why can’t Jesus be like the guys in those other religions? A wise man, a powerful teacher, a prophet, a role model… those are good enough gods for all those other followers, and their lives are OK. Well, maybe not, but at least those religions are sensible. I mean, Buddha and Mohamed and Confucius and the rest didn’t ever claim they were sons of God, or “God With Us.”

Isn’t it just like Jesus, though, to be the only One claiming that this is exactly who He is? That accepting Him is the way, the only way, to experience forgiveness, to have eternal life? It gets annoying, doesn’t it?

Because if it’s true… I’m fried. If that persistent, sincere, earnest, holy, logical, annoying Person called Jesus is telling the truth, I should be scared crazy. I heard that Bono recently said, “Jesus isn’t lettin’ you off the hook… When people say, you know, ‘Good teacher,’ ‘Prophet,’ ‘Really nice guy’… this is not how Jesus thought of Himself. So you’re left with a challenge: either Jesus was who He said He was, or He’s a complete and utter nutcase… You have to make a choice about that.”

Annoying! “Make a choice!” First Jesus says it; and then all those people who died as martyrs, embracing Him; and then these guys like C S Lewis and Bono, laying it out so logically; and then… then… then I know I do have to make a choice. Annoying!

Everything else in life these days frees us from having to make choices. Or, if we make bad choices, someone is right there to say “No worries” and “It’s OK” and “No problem.” That’s what is great about modern life, right? But… “Make a choice, make a choice!”

It’s not like my life depended on it. Can’t you see how annoying this Jesus is? Why? WHY?

+ + +

The simplest Sunday-School song, maybe the very first hymn a lot us remember hearing, answers the question of Why Jesus is so… well, annoying, sometimes. But Jesus loves me, this I know.

+ + +

Click: Yes, Jesus Loves Me

3-31-14

I have come to realize that a lot of things they say about Jesus Christ are not true. Oh, I’m sure He smiled a lot, and sometimes wore perfectly starched robes, and went around patting children on the head, like I saw on the covers of all those Sunday-School pamphlets. And, if I remember correctly, we have stories of Him preaching and dispensing wisdom, and then moving on to the next towns and lakesides. He was misunderstood; people were jealous of Him or threatened by Him; and He was an innocent victim of persecution. I understand all that.

But why can’t He just leave me alone with those images? Messiah, I get it. Died for my sins, fine. Shouldn’t that be enough for Christmas and Easter?

A lot of people think that’s the whole package… but that’s what is not true. And that’s what makes me annoyed, drives me crazy.

A Jesus who smiles all the time? No… I see Him. Sometimes He is angry. Sometimes He is disappointed and looks sad. Sometimes I see tears in His eyes. In those moments He is confronting ME. He reminds me that I sin, that I am lost in this crazy world. He pleads with me to make a choice. To change. To believe in Him. To replace the junk in my heart with the goodness He promises.

Another annoying thing: He never shuts up. I wish there were a fishing village down the road He could move on to. He persists. He won’t let me go. Those Sunday-School paintings of Jesus standing at the door and knocking? Don’t let that kid you. He knocks at the front door, the back door, He scratches at the windows, He is like an alarm clock; like virtual phone calls and texts. “Why do you ignore Me, reject Me?” is what He seems to be saying. “I love you!”

And how annoying is this? – I’ve gotten the feeling that Christmas and Easter are not enough for Him. Or church once in a while; or even every Sunday morning. He wants me, not my schedule or habits or family customs. Don’t I pray, or think about praying, when someone is sick, or I’m having a crisis? What does He WANT from me, anyhow???

Why, why can’t Jesus be like the guys in those other religions? A wise man, a powerful teacher, a prophet, a role model… those are good enough gods for all those followers, and their lives are OK. Well, maybe not, but at least those religions are sensible. I mean, Buddha and Mohammed and Confucius and the rest didn’t ever claim they were sons of God, or “God With Us.” Isn’t it just like Jesus, though, to be the only One claiming that this is exactly who He is? That accepting Him is the way, the only way, to eternal life? It gets annoying.

Because if it’s true… I’m fried. If that persistent, sincere, earnest, holy, logical, annoying Person called Jesus is telling the truth, I should be scared crazy. I remember that writer named C. S. Lewis said something: “You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Annoying, right? Then I heard that Bono, the singer and activist, recently said, “Jesus isn’t lettin’ you off the hook… When people say, you know, ‘Good teacher,’ ‘Prophet,’ ‘Really nice guy’… this is not how Jesus thought of Himself. So you’re left with a challenge in that: which is either Jesus was who He said He was, or a complete and utter nut case… You have to make a choice on that.”

Annoying! “Make a choice!” First Jesus says it; and then these guys; and then… then… then I know I do have to make a choice. Annoying! Everything else in life these days frees us from having to make choices. Or, if we make bad choices, someone is there to say “It’s all right” and “No problem.” That’s what is great about modern life, right? But… “Make a choice, make a choice!”

It’s not like my life depended on it. Can’t you see how annoying this Jesus is? Why? WHY?

+ + +

The simplest Sunday-School song, maybe the very first hymn a lot us remember hearing, answers the question of Why Jesus is so… well, annoying, sometimes. But Jesus loves me, this I know.

Click: Jesus Loves Me

12-9-13

If you had a child playing at the edge of an ever-widening sinkhole – and sinkholes lately have been in the news, including ones that swallowed people as well as houses – you would call that child to move back. If your friend were eating something poisonous without realizing the dangers, you would advise that friend of the fact. We do the same, some of us, with people, even strangers, who smoke. “Intervention” today increasingly is employed on behalf of people with drinking problems.

Followers of Christ, who subscribe to the beliefs that all of us make mistakes and are sinful at heart; that therefore a wide gulf separates us from a Holy God; that this God nevertheless desires eternal fellowship with us and offers forgiveness and salvation; and that “accepting” Jesus – believing in our hearts and confessing with our words – these Christians cannot do anything else than have the same regard for other people’s souls as we do their health and comfort.

How often do contemporary Christians fit that last puzzle-piece in place?

Failing this, we condemn ourselves; and we are implicit in sending others to the cold darkness of eternity, separation from God. How often do we avoid sharing even the smallest portion of Jesus with someone because we might “offend them”? Hurt their feelings? “Hey buddy, don’t smoke in your apartment, but I don’t care if you go to hell.”

It’s not always comfortable, but neither was that splintery cross. Living in a multimedia culture makes it easy to assume everyone thinks like we do, or has access to the same facts that we process. Not so. When the Apostle Paul arrived in Ephesus, word-of-mouth about the Savior had already led to the establishment of several Christian communities. But not every word had been shared by every mouth:

“…he reached Ephesus, on the coast, where he found several believers. ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ he asked them. ‘No,’ they replied, ‘we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’ ‘Then what baptism did you experience?’ he asked. And they replied, ‘The baptism of John.’ Paul said, ‘John’s baptism called for repentance from sin. But John himself told the people to believe in the one who would come later, meaning Jesus.’ As soon as they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in other tongues and prophesied” (Acts 19:1-6, NLT).

Paul wrote letters to local churches and church leaders, sharing the good news, and answering questions. These letters comprise the majority of the New Testament. We shared last week how papyrus letters from a generation or two after Paul are extant. Before Christ’s time, spiritual news and God’s words were shared by Torah scrolls, inscriptions, sacred texts. After him we have the successive march of letters, manuscripts, tapestries and stained-glass picture stories, parchment books, printed books, mass-production, tracts, evangelistic crusades, recordings, radio, short-wave, television, and the internet.

The SHARING of the good news is central to the good news itself. “Go into all the world…” Jesus said, commissioning His disciples. Romans 10:14-15 argues: “How can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him? And how can they believe in Him if they have never heard about Him? And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them?  And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, ‘How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!’ (NLT) Like much of the Book of Romans, this is like an advocate summarizing his case. How can they hear about Jesus unless someone tells them?

Right about in the middle of humankind’s list of ways to share the good news – not in a timeline, but in the numbers of methods and technologies – is the radio. After its invention it was available to almost every community on the earth. And much of its message, especially today on short-wave broadcasts, is Christian. I went to Sunday school as a child, but it was preachers on my AM transistor radio from whom I really heard the first hard (and sweet) truths of the Gospel; and came face-to-face with decisions to make, or avoid, regarding Jesus Christ.

Albert E. Brumley was an American gospel songwriter of the past century. He wrote more than 800 sermons-in-song, many of which are favorites today in churches, hymnbooks, and recordings. Among them are “I’ll Fly Away,” “If We Never Meet Again (This Side of Heaven),” “I’ll Meet You In The Morning,” “Jesus, Hold My Hand,” “I’d Rather Be An Old Time Christian,” and “Rank Strangers to Me.”

He told a story about another of his classics… and the role of radio in spreading the gospel:

“I wrote ‘Turn Your Radio On’ in 1937, and it was published in 1938. At this time radio was relatively new to the rural people, especially gospel music programs. I had become alert to the necessity of creating song titles, themes, and plots, and frequently people would call me and say, ‘Turn your radio on, Albert, they’re singing one of your songs on such-and-such a station.’ It finally dawned on me to use… ‘Turn your radio on’ as a theme for a religious… song.”

Like the poor, radio we will always have with us. In the words of the song, “turn your radio on and listen to the music in the air; Turn your radio on and heaven’s glory share…”

Are you tuned in… to what God is saying to you? Don’t touch that dial! You can broadcast (as it were) a brief public-service announcement, or a personal message, every once in a while yourself.

+ + +

Many folks’ favorite version of Brumley’s classic song is by the great Ray Stevens. Fun, upbeat, infectious… meaningful. Here he sings at the piano, surrounded by friends who sing along, as you might, yourself.

Click: Turn Your Radio On

4-9-12

Happy new year! That’s one way to feel about the first day after Easter. “He is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” is how Christians of the first centuries would exchange greetings. All things are made new, after the Resurrection. But then, every day should bring the realization of a new life in Christ!

I have been thinking of the first times I heard about Jesus. Too early to remember an exact day, because I was fortunate to be born into a family of believers. “Church-goers.” As a child I had a standard faith – I use the term because it was only in my twenties that I came to an intense, personal knowledge of biblical truth and relationship with Jesus: born again. Yet, early on, seeds were planted; Bible stories were told; verses were memorized; prayers were said; hymns were sung.

Seeds. A good metaphor at Springtime. Not many committed Christians in our culture can say that they only heard about Jesus for the first time in the their twenties or forties. (Hearing the “hard truth” of the Bible, in this culture, is another matter… for another discussion). But almost every new believer will say he or she “returned” to the faith. Seeds, when planted, sometimes lay dormant, but can always sprout.

A “standard” church-going kid, I went through my wise-guy period of rebellion against God in my high-school years. Never an atheist, I veered toward agnosticism, and yapped a lot of skepticism in classes and to friends.

In the cafeteria, there was a kid who was kind of a loner. Not the newspaper-headline kind of loner, just a guy who always pretty much kept to himself. He was a pudgy kid, I don’t think an object of bullying or anything, just kind of private. One day he called me over to where he was eating, alone. I never really had talked to John Frost (what were his parents thinking?) before then.

I remember being impressed, a really nice kid, good conversations, a clever guy. Before I knew it, as natural as anything, he was talking to me about Jesus. He shared a little, but no grilling of me, no “decision” challenge. Every once in a while, thereafter, we would share lunch – I’ll admit that he did more of the inviting than I did – I would share dessert, and he would share Jesus.

I will tell you that Johnny’s quiet witness, as we can call it, had a greater impact than the substance of what he said… or so it seemed to me. The fact that a stranger would do this, non-confrontationally, randomly, bravely, and – what else? – in the purest form of Christian love, impressed me. Later on, it inspired me. How to be gently bold.

Seeds. Can you remember who first told you about Jesus? Most likely it was a parent or grandparent (am I wrong to want to suggest “mother or grandmother”)? Was it a random song on the radio or Christian cartoon on TV? Was it a Sunday School teacher? Almost all of the “yes” answers would still have to trace back to parents who placed us in situations where we could see or hear… where seeds could be planted. Parents, take note.

I certainly can remember the first “hymn” I learned. It is still one of my favorites, not only because of its profound though simple message, but because it always transports me back. “Jesus Loves Me” puts me in the place where God first said Hello to me, where I had an inkling of a loving Savior, where I could believe that I belonged to Him, and where a book called the Bible could hold answers to my questions. Yes, Jesus loves me!

Is that song one of the “seeds” of your faith? Can you remember who first shared Jesus with you? And early, middle, or late in life, did someone else come alongside you to nourish those seeds? In my case, it was a guy named Johnny – a real Spring Frost; maybe an angel – who chatted comfortably about the greatest truths of history, and the neediest needs of my needy heart, in the corner of a high-school cafeteria.

+ + +

Click: Jesus Loves Me, This I Know