Monday Morning Music Ministry

2-26-24

I am going to take you on a brief tour of some surprising places. I have had the wanderlust all my life, and have discovered that some legendary places (the “Room with a View”) can be mundane; and some very memorable sites greet us unannounced.

For instance, strolling around Venice (yes, one can walk around that city), I once turned a corner and came face-to-face with a plaque identifying a modest building as the birthplace of composer Antonio Vivaldi. It seemed to me like holy ground.

In Rome I stood in the plaza in front of the meticulously preserved Pantheon, where once stood the Temple Agrippa. Inside are the tombs of the artist Raphael and the composer Arcangelo Corelli (I think one of the most beautiful names ever borne by a person) but the plaza is where St Paul, having arrived in Rome by foot along the Appian Way, first shared the Gospel in the seat of the Roman Empire. I stood where he stood. Holier ground.

In Ireland, at a roadside stop by a modest chapel, I saw in its even more modest cemetery the gravestone of the great poet William Butler Yeats… revealed by no special markers nor arrows. By pure serendipity I found myself on holy ground, as it felt to me; secular – but you may know what I mean.

I had a similar experience at the other corner of Ireland, so to speak. A friend and I had traversed, roughly, the perimeter of that wonderful island over two weeks. Near the vacation’s end we sought lodgings outside Belfast. Rather by chance – without, that is, any premonition of another “holy ground” experience in the offing – we found ourselves in a little village called Crawfordsburn in County Down. There was an ancient Old Inn (it calls itself), rambling and half-timbered. It had charms and, most importantly, a room to rent and a restaurant.

I was startled to read an unpretentious plaque on the wall when I registered. It stated that decades ago members of the legendary Inklings group occasionally met there (otherwise, more famously, in Oxford, in England). That was the famous circle of literary friends that included C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien. Moreover, since its establishment in 1614 the Old Inn had been a meeting place for writers including Swift, Tennyson, Thackeray, and Dickens. Holy ground, of sorts, for me, a writer.

Most pertinent, or compelling, according to the plaque, was that the Old Inn was where C S Lewis and his wife Joy Davidman spent their honeymoon.

Most readers will be quite familiar with Lewis’s classic stories in the Chronicles of Narnia books. I had not read them (almost alone among my friends and my own children). I hope that you readers are familiar with Lewis’s life and his tragically short marriage to Joy; there have been books and movies about them. Married late in life, Lewis was a former atheist who came to a saving, and influential, relationship with Christ. He fell in love with Joy, an American Jewess who died of cancer only four years into their marriage. Shadowlands is one telling of their remarkable and bittersweet life together.

The feeling of a presence on “Holy Ground” was scarcely related, I have said, to The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe or such classics. But C S Lewis was also known for his writing (and BBC broadcasts) as one of the greatest of all Christian apologists of any era; he was gifted to explain the Gospel in logical, layman’s terms. (By the way, Lewis’s favorite poet was Yeats; what a trip of “coincidences” that was for me!)

I am only one of millions whose faith has been awakened, challenged, informed, illuminated, inspired, and fortified by the simple truths C S Lewis powerfully explained and gently shared. Of his many works in the field (The Screwtape Letters; A Grief Observed; Surprised by Joy) the thin collection of essays Mere Christianity is the enduring classic.

I can paraphrase his powerful refutation of the common human tendency to acknowledge (really, dismiss) Jesus as “merely” a great teacher:

I want to prevent anyone from saying, “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.” That is the one thing you cannot say! A man who was merely a man but made the claims Jesus did would not be a great moral teacher; he would either be a lunatic – like a man who says he is a poached egg – or evil. Or the biggest of all liars.

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.

Such is the beginning – perhaps, even, the culmination – of arguments you can make about this Jesus with atheists, agnostics, skeptics, scoffers, and, actually, your own self when you have moments of doubt.

C S Lewis brilliantly allowed us to relate to the Incarnation of God Almighty. Mighty? Yes. Distant, unapproachable? No. We can know Him as the Lover of our souls.

And, knowing Him… we can stand on holy ground.

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Click: Jesus Lover of My Soul

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

6-8-20

I write this as the third part of an informal tracking of a neglected but essential part of church history – the period after Jesus’s crucifixion and death; Resurrection and 40 days of preaching and witnessing; His bodily Ascension into Heaven, confirming His divine nature; then came the day of Pentecost.

It was the promise of Pentecost – what we have come to call the Pentecostal experience – and Jesus’s careful explanation that it was good that He leave earth, because He would then send to believers the Helper, the Healer, the Comforter: One who would empower and instruct. The Holy Spirit, third manifestation, the third Person, of the Trinity. We shared how the Spirit first fell on worshipers in the upper room, how they received a strange gift of speaking in unknown languages, but understood or interpreted.

This was the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit,” this spiritual joy and maturity. It was not a one-day event in history. It was merely the first time.

I write this in the midst, whew, of the worldwide pandemic’s fears, afflictions, and social disruption; and in the equally chaotic riots following a police suspect’s death. And… what’s next? People are right to be unsure if not unsafe. Or vice-versa.

As a natural skeptic, I wonder whether we will look back on the shutdowns, this virus, and feel blessed, feel relieved, or feel scammed. And these riots – will we look back and see an explosion of righteousness, or a period of anarchy and looting?

I will keep to my promised theme. I can write about things we see and don’t know are true; or I can write about things we cannot see, but know are true.

Things were different, once the Holy Spirit came. Peter, for instance, had been a bumbling and impulsive disciple who denied knowing Jesus three times when things were dicey – scarcely less an offense than Judas’s betrayal. Yet after the Spirit came upon him in the upper room, Peter became the mature leader of the new church that formed, and a powerful preacher.

What happened to Peter 2000 years ago can happen to believers today, and does happen to believers today. Can you have salvation without the “baptism” of the Holy Spirit? Yes. The gifts are… extra. But who would reject gifts, especially from Almighty God? Would children at birthday parties reject gifts?

Yet, some Christians do. If God chose to express Himself in three ways, we need to remember they were equal manifestations. Jesus was all God and all man; and so is the Spirit.

This same Spirit was explained by this same Peter after he was blessed with gifts of wisdom. He recalled, and shared, the passage from Joel chapter 28 (500-800 years earlier) – And it shall come to pass… says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams…. I will pour out My Spirit in those days…

Now it became clear. “Greater is He that is within you [the Holy Spirit], than he who is in the world [Satan].”

Some Christians claim that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were only for that first crowd. But that is to doubt Jesus and limit the Father, not to mention denying the subsequent evidence. I know because I have experienced the Baptism, and I have witnessed miracles; I have received the gifts. Many people have.

Other Christians believe that sudden outbreaks of tongues, ecstatic worship, and miracles broke out in Wichita around 1900 and in a black church on Asuza Street, Los Angeles, in 1906 is where it started. And then, as we shared, Pentecostalism spread to half a billion people around the world, second only to Roman Catholicism among Christians. Not for now? How would that explain miracles, church growth, healings, and blessings over the following 2000 years?

There are accounts (described by no less a person than Theodore Roosevelt in his classic book The Winning of West) of pioneer camp-meetings and revivals where worshipers would gather for several days, overtaken by ecstatic worship and strange tongues. In the 1700s, similar responses in Philadelphia to public sermons of Charles Whitefield; Benjamin Franklin recorded these. In the 1800s, a similar reaction among lunchtime worshipers on Wall Street, of all places. The blind hymn-writer Fanny Crosby prayed in “the language of angels” only she and her Lord knew. And so forth, all before Azusa Street.

After that, however, there were spontaneous and simultaneous “eruptions” of Holy Spirit preaching, singing, worship, healings, Words of prophecy, and such, all over the world. Two decades ago I twice attended a famous such revival in Pensacola, Florida – a visiting evangelist was used by God to spark ecstatic worship that was not extinguished – 24/7, for month after month; people attracted from all over the world.

If the Holy Spirit is the equal of Jesus… but you don’t have to receive this “Spirit baptism” to enter heaven… why do some of us consider it so important? But as I implied before, if God offers a spiritual gift and we decline it, we are spiritual fools.

What are the Gifts of the Spirit? They listed several times in the New Testament. Any can be prayed for; they can be-one-time gifts – for self-edification, or ministering to a situation – or occasionally are specialized lifetime ministering gifts, for instance to evangelists with healing ministries. They are wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, speaking in tongues, and interpretation of tongues.

As I said, I have experienced some (blessing others when needed, or to communicate with God when I felt helpless) and I have witnessed healings, emotional breakthroughs, astonishing revelations.

Listen: Christianity is nothing if not a system of faith and belief and miracles. Plain and simple. How have Christians become so blasé about a Man who was born of a virgin, performed miracles, and rose from the dead? “Oh, well, that was God, 2000 years ago.” How can there be so many people who go to church (if at all) out of dull habit; who never feel joyful when “Hallelujah” is read from the same old prayer book; who have “forms of godliness, but deny the power thereof”?

They quench the Holy Spirit, embarrassed to seek… reluctant to accept gifts… afraid to exercise the power it enables.

Instead – bringing it today – Christians complain about current events in the news. They feel helpless to do anything about them. They are lost, spiritually, in these uncertain times. In this time of threats and potential disasters facing us, they might even wish for some miracles.

You know what? It is as easy to pray for miracles, as to wish for them. And you have a loving Father who has stored up gifts you can access. Why, oh why, do people neglect the third Person of the Trinity?

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Since the Pentecostal movement is spread across the world, with no one denomination or pope – the Bible is sole authority – it is joyful to see the workings of the Holy Ghost everywhere… and especially, in these day of persecution, how the Spirit empowers traditional Christians, new believers, and persecuted Christians. Here, a group of Iranians who support underground Christians churches in Iran, singing of the sweet Spirit of God.

Click: Come, Holy Spirit

2-13-17

I heard about one of those Management Consultants who conduct weekend seminars, telling a story about his advice to a trainee.

“There are two… essential… things… never to forget…” and he paused some more – “when you set out… to navigate your… career.”

Annoyed by the strangely lugubrious rollout, the trainee insisted, “Yes? YES? Well???”

The instructor replied, “Patience.”

Point taken. But the trainee pressed on. “What’s the other thing???”

Before he could finish the question, the instructor interrupted: “Timing.”

Good advice, if we think about it. (By the way, you just saved two whole days, and a $300 registration fee, for the seminar!) (You’re welcome.) Like most good advice, the best source is not a Management guru, or even Life’s Experiences, but the Bible.

The famous verse – so famous that even irreligious people often quote it during their marriage ceremony – from I Corinthians 13, offers “patience” as the first of the words that define Love: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” Wow. “Patience” leads the list.

A verse we all should remember when things are wrong, or insecure, or bleak, or threatening, or dangerous… and we fret – “Be still and know that I am God.” How much simpler can an assurance of God be? My daughter Heather meditates on Psalm 46:10 by parsing its words individually: each phrase brimming with meaning.

“Be.” “Be still.” “Be still and know.” “Be still and know that I am.” “Be still and know that I am God.” Thus comes spiritual patience.

Then there is the closely related virtue, a sense of timing. Many of the Israelites’ woes, and their leaders’ mistakes, came from disobeying God’s directions, being impulsive, jumping the gun, so to speak.

Many Christians do this from mistaken confidence that they have God’s Will; are full of the Spirit; when often it is old-fashioned Pride.

Peter walked on water as his Savior did and instructed him to do… until he looked down. Impulsive.

Of all the Apostles, I identify the most with Peter, I must admit. Impulsive, sometimes too eager to please God, when all He asks is obedience. The “other side of that coin” concerns Peter, again, and those who were told to “wait” for the Disciple to replace Judas. They were impatient… they substituted THEIR timing for God’s… and drew straws. A guy named Matthias was chosen.

I describe him that way because we never hear of him again in the Bible. He was chosen by 11 men holding an election. But the Holy Spirit, in God’s timing, would APPOINT the successor: Paul.

Peter was an impulsive, bumbling, flawed follower of Jesus. After swearing he would never do so, he denied Jesus three times, leading to the crucifixion. But in God’s timing, Peter soon became a wise, inspirational, strong leader. A great Manager, in fact, of the early church, it could be said. On his confession of Jesus as Lord, the church had its foundation.

What changed? Obedience to God’s timing. In that timing, baptism played a role in the step-by-step timing we are to obey, ourselves. When Peter and the Disciples had been baptized in the Spirit – and as other converts were to experience in a tidal wave of belief after Pentecost – the promise of Zechariah 4:6 was confirmed: “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, said the Lord of hosts…”

Jesus Himself had no earthly ministry we are told about, for the first 30 years of His life. Then he was baptized in the River Jordan, according to God’s timing. The Holy Spirit came upon Him, and His heavenly ministry commenced.

Patience is a virtue. And timing? Always remember to set your clocks and watches to God-Standard Time.

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Click: Waiting On the Lord