Death and Easter

The evening service was finished and I made my way toward the back of the sanctuary. As I stepped through the back door I noticed a group of folks, forming a tight circle around someone and they were all praying. As the circle opened up it revealed the one who was the focus of all the care and support. I saw my friend, tears streaming down her cheeks, eyes puffy, swollen from much crying, nose rimed with redness, tender from all the tissues rubbing it, and she was barely able to speak.
As it turned out, she was very sad because unknown to all of us it was the one year anniversary of her father’s passing. He had died suddenly from a heart attack and my friend missed him so much.

What can you say? Probably the better part of wisdom is just to remain silent, offer a hug, and a sigh of sympathy.

Death is such a robber. I hate it. I hate what it does to people; I hate how it separates us from each other. It steals loved ones, it steals young and it steals old, rich or poor, strong or weak. It plays no favorites and is always just a breath away from each of us.

The Bible is full of the stories of death because the Bible deals with life as it really is. No rose colored glasses there! It even provides us with a window into the origin of death. It goes way back to Adam and Eve when death was allowed to enter the human experience after the first couple disobeyed God. First it appeared in the animal skins God made for them and then it manifested its full ugliness when Cain murdered his brother Abel. And death has been with us since then. It is the wages for disobedience to God.
Jesus came to destroy death. He came to die, the perfect and pure saviour for the imperfect and impure human race. He then rose from the dead, conquered it, because it could not hold him down. He rose victorious over death 3 days later. He offers life to all but only those who receive it for themselves are saved.

It truly is an amazing story of how death brought us life! How the death of one man, Jesus Christ, has offered life to all human kind. The truly good part is that every single human being has been forgiven of every single death wage ever paid out for sin. All we have to do is humbly receive this amazing gift that is offered to us freely.

As the bible asks, “Death where is your sting?” For all who believe the sting is gone and life forever more has come.

This is the true meaning of the Easter season.

The Cry of The City....

5 conversations within a 24 hour period; 5 conversations with a common thread running through each one; 5 conversations with complete strangers, new acquaintances and intimate friends; 5 conversations expressing pain, suffering, longing, brokenness and uncertainty; 5 conversations and the city cries!
First it was my earliest encounter of the new day at the checkout counter of the grocery store. I said "good morning" she responded, "I will hold on the good"... a tale of a cancer fright, alone, with added relationship strain... all this while the queue behind us grew... Then onto a stranded woman, bonnet up, looking frustrated... I stopped and helped and out tumbled long term relationship broken, job lost and no luck finding a new one... what to do... it's been like this for year... from there I went for a cup a coffee and one of staff plunks themselves down as says, "something is wrong with me, a friend says it could be my heart, I’m kind of scared, I’m always so tired and my job is stressing me out like never before...." then later on as a conversation grew out dropped, "I feel so undervalued, so underpaid, so blah... I know that there is so much more out there for me but I feel trapped, unable because of circumstances to stretch out my wings and find it.... finally, a little boy, a broken home, he started reaching out to daddy's new girlfriend, mom freaks out and tells him to never come home again... he's 10 years old.
Pain, suffering, longing, brokenness and uncertainty and the city cries. The bible recognizes this condition of all human kind and it offers hope to the hopeless. It really is full of promises, full of wisdom, and full of stories of the human drama that can offer insights and guidance when times are tough. For example it says “The groans of those who are dying are heard from the city. Those who are wounded cry out for help.” And then it offers this council, God doesn’t hear! God refuses to move! At least that is our perception of him anyway... and ain’t that that how most of us really feel most of the time! But it goes on to tell us that He is indeed there, he is in the midst of whatever we are going through, hoping our desperate situation will cause us to call out to him for mercy and for salvation. And everyone who comes to him he will in no way cast out! He will listen to the prayers of the destitute. He will not reject their pleas. His invitation is sure… "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me — watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

You've Been Robbed!

There I was, walking along listening to my favorite podcasts on a beautiful late summer morning walk when all of a sudden I hear a voice from behind me. I turned to find a man in his mid 30's with a deeply concerned look on his face. As he spoke I immediately knew he was from South Africa by his accent and that he was not too happy about his current state of affairs. It seems that for whatever reason he had left his van unlocked during the night and for whatever reason he had left his wallet in there as well. In his hand he held his driver’s license and he was asking me if I had seen the rest of his wallet long the path I had taken for my walk. Apparently, what had happened is that when he went to hop into his van to go to work he noticed the door was ajar. He immediate made a search only to discover that his wallet was missing. He looked around, walked into a little park area where he noticed his driver’s license in the grass. He went a little further and discovered another piece of ID from his wallet. Evidently the thief had decided to chuck whatever he didn’t want from the wallet as he fled the scene of his crime. He told me his name and asked that if I see his wallet that I return it to him and I assured him that I would. We parted ways and i never saw his wallet along the rest of my journey home.
Theft is such a violation. Someone else invades your space and takes what belongs to you when you are not looking and makes it their own. The worst part about it is that they do this when you least expect it! You lock your vehicle 6 nights in a row and the 7th night you forget and that is the night someone decides to break in and steal from you.
Jesus used the image of a thief to describe what life is like. He stated that it is like a thief bent only on stealing from us, killing us and destroying us. But he said that he was the exact opposite of that. He claimed that he had come to give us life and that this life was not like anything that we’ve experienced before in this world. It is real life, more and better life than we could ever have dreamed of. He seems to be saying that anything less than what he was offering is a thief come to rip you off!
That is quite a claim. In fact the more you investigate Jesus the more you find him making these outlandish claims. As someone else has said, either Jesus was a lunatic, a liar or he was indeed telling us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!
Perhaps this week you could check into a local church near you and examine for yourself these claims.
I know you won’t feel like you just got robbed!

Breaking up the Fallow Ground

Our church moved it worship service from the traditional Sunday morning time slot to not so traditional (for us anyway) Saturday evening. As a family we really like this and are enjoying the change very much. So far my Sunday mornings have been relaxing and enjoyable and slow paced which is such a huge change of pace for me. I have preached on Sunday mornings for the past 17 years and so I have to admit a fleeting bit of uneasy guilt that comes over me every once in a while. Fortunately I can easily dismiss it as I take another sip from my coffee cup.

This morning however, I took advantage of a Sunday morning off to visit another church. Something I have wanted to do but just never got around to it until this morning. It was great to just go, relax, and take in the worship and hear a good message from the bible without having to give oversight to anything at all.

The message was just right for me. It comes from an ancient prophet named Hosea. He was writing to inspire the people back then (as well as us today) that it takes preparation from us as we understand and anticipate that God is desirous of birthing a new thing in us. The passage is found in Hosea 10:12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.

This struck a chord in my heart this morning. Fallow ground is just ground that has not been used for a while. It is good ground; it is just not ready for seed to be dropped into it. This can be like our lives. God is asking us to prepare ourselves, make ourselves ready to receive his new and often amazing plans for us. I see it as prayer, fasting, meditating on the passages of the Bible with a renewed sense of urgency.

I must begin anew to prepare myself for what it is the Lord is about to do in my life and the lives of those around me. I am excited to see where this will take me.

A Meandering Chat

Today I had a lunch date with my girlfriend. It has been a while since we just sat and enjoyed a nice sub sandwich and chatted about whatever jumped into our heads. I like how our conversation snaked its way along heading in one direction then another, then back the other way. There is something relaxing about a meandering chat. It was interrupted easily by whatever came along, a mouthful of sub or a cute little olive skinned girl or a slurp from the straw to wash down the food. I thoroughly enjoy the generally easy going nature of our relationship.

Cheryl and I will have been married 21 years in June this year and from where I am sitting it seems like just a few! Age has been very kind to her as she is even more beautiful than the first day we met.... now you know where my girls get it from!

The Legend of St. Valentine dates back as far as the mid third century AD. He was a priest who opposed the emperor Claudius II when he made a law that young men should remain single in order to build his army. Claudius thought that married men were not good soldiers so the order came down. But Valentine refused this order and secretly performed many marriages for the young men. Of course he was caught, arrested jailed and eventually martyred for his efforts. However, as legend would have it, he apparently performed a miracle and healed the daughter of the Roman Jailor at some point before he met his end. It was to this young woman that he scribbled one of his last notes addressing her as his beloved and then signing as "from your Valentine”.

Whether this story is the whole truth or part truth or just legend were not certain. The only thing we know for sure from the records is that there were several St. Valentines who suffered martyrdom for their faith during those early church years. This story comes from St. Valentine of Rome and is the one that most credit with the tradition of St. Valentine’s Day.

Whatever the case may be, I hope you have taken some time lately just to enjoy the special other person in your life. Somehow, I believe in our rush around world we forget to show appreciation to the ones we love most. Even if you missed Valentine’s Day don’t worry about it, just get out there and enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee or something of that nature and have a meandering chat.

Happy belated Valentine’s Day Sweetie!