Temptation and the Only Way to Handle It

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 4:1-11
We know the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness almost by heart. It comes up every year on the First Sunday in Lent.

Fresh from the amazing moment of His baptism in the Jordan River, when a voice from heaven had said, “This is My Son, the Beloved, with Whom I am well pleased,” Jesus, goes into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

There’s comfort to be found in this incident. It reverberates with a truth to which the preacher in the New Testament book of Hebrews points when he says of Jesus: “…we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.”

As we go through the season of Lent, it’s good for us to remember that Jesus endured the wilderness and the Garden of Gethsemane and Good Friday and the cross—times of temptation, testing, and terror—not because He had to, but because He wanted to. He chose to endure these things for the same reason that He underwent John the Baptist’s baptism of repentance even though Jesus had nothing for which to repent. Jesus did all these things “to fulfill all righteousness,” to connect with us at the deepest and most intimate level, to go through all that we go through, so that having endured even death itself, He could be raised to life again and share His resurrection with all who turn from sin and trust in Him to give us new lives!

All of that is implied in the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. And it’s incredible!

But today, I want to ask you to try to look at this incident with fresh eyes. As you do, I’d like to ask you to keep two questions in mind:

• What is temptation? 
• And, How can temptation be handled? 

Jesus confronted three temptations from the devil: to turn stones to loaves of bread; to throw Himself down from the top of the Temple, betting that God and His angels would prevent Him from being hurt; and to take control of all the nations of the world simply for bowing down and worshiping the devil.

There’s nothing inherently wrong or evil in what the devil tries to entice Jesus into doing in these temptations. Jesus would, in fact, at different times later in His ministry, do things very similar to what the devil prompts Jesus to do in the wilderness. Jesus would later turn some fish and bread into a feast for a crowd of 5000. He would walk on water, something at least as amazing as levitating in the air after throwing oneself from the top of a temple. He would also be the one to bring the kingdom of God into the world.

So, what’s the difference between temptation and a harmless suggestion? Two things: Motivation and timing.

• When Jesus later fed the 5000, He didn’t do it for Himself; He did it for a crowd that He could see was hungry and Who needed to know Who the real bread from heaven is. 
• When Jesus walked on the water, He did it to foster and encourage the flagging faith of apostles to whom He would soon entrust the mission of sharing the gospel with the world. 
• When Jesus brought the kingdom of God to the world, He did so unencumbered by any debt to the evil from which He came to save a sinful, needy world. 

Jesus’ motivation was never to serve Himself, but us. Temptation is the enticement to do otherwise good things for the wrong reasons or at the wrong times or in the wrong ways and for ourselves.

But how do we handle temptation when it comes to us, as it does every single day? There are, I think, three ways we can choose to deal with temptation, only one of which works.

One of the wrong ways is logic. (We sometimes call this “common sense.”) If Jesus had used logic or common sense to resist temptation, He might have told Himself, “My mission is to live and die without sin. Only a sinless sacrifice of Myself on behalf of the human race will fulfill that mission. Therefore, I must withstand temptation.”

How do you think that would have worked? When you’ve been without food for forty days, logic doesn’t cut it. You want to eat! Jesus might well have become so desperate with hunger that He could have built an equally logical argument for caving in to the devil’s temptations. “After all,” Jesus could have thought logically, “My ultimate aim is to take control of the world’s kingdoms. What difference does the method make?”

Of course, had Jesus followed logic, the jig would have been up for us all. Sin and death would have kept their power over us and God, mired in sin Himself, would have been made powerless to help us. If we rely on common sense or logic to get us through our temptations, we will not stay true to God.

Another method people use to try to deal with temptation is to follow their hearts. We hear this advice all the time. “Follow your heart,” we’re told. Jesus could have tried this, but he didn't. Listen: Following your heart when it comes to life’s tests and temptations may be the quickest road to hell you can find.

Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse—who can understand it?”

Ecclesiastes 9:3 says, “the hearts of all are full of evil; madness is in their hearts…”

Our emotions are afflicted by sin. Had Jesus relied on His emotions when the devil tempted Him, He would have caved into the temptations in a heartbeat! Hunger and other desperate experiences affect our emotions and when we rely on our “heart” to guide us, we make really bad choices.

How might Ohio State’s football coach Jim Tressel have reacted to the emails sent to him by attorney Christopher Cicero if he had chosen not to let emotions (or logic) get in the way? I’m not picking on Coach Tressel. We’ve all tried dealing with life’s tests and temptations by following our hearts or our logic. The difference is that the media isn’t around to report when our bad decisions blow up in our faces.

There’s a third way to handle temptation and Jesus exhibits it in our lesson today. Please go to our Gospel lesson on the Celebrate insert and look at verse 4. To the devil’s suggestion that He turn stones to bread, we're told:

But he answered, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" 

If you have a pen or pencil handy, you might want to underline those words and take the insert home with you to consider during the week.

First spoken by Moses to the Israelites just before they entered the promised land, those words tell us how Jesus handled temptation and how we can handle temptation. Jesus knew that only the word of God gives us life! God’s Word that spoke creation into being also fills the pages of His book, the Bible. And so, to deal with temptations to diverge from God’s clear commands for human beings, commands that we can see clearly in the Ten Commandments, we steep ourselves in God’s Word. We spend time each day reading it, praying about it, discussing it with Christian friends. We consider it in its entirety and not just individual verses or aspects of it that please us or that we can use to justify doing the wrong we want to do. Emotions will lead you astray. Common sense will too. But the Word of God will never let you down!

A prominent southern California preacher told about a conversation he had with a young man about a night that changed the young man’s life.* Bored, he went to a bar and started drinking and flirting with a good looking woman. He was unmarried. She was divorced. “Let’s go to Las Vegas,” the woman suggested.

The young man immediately put his glass down, paid the bartender, took the woman’s arm, and headed for her car. She told him to drive and snuggled closely to him as they roared through the night.

But then, maybe remembering what he had been taught as a child, the thought crossed the young man’s mind that this was a pretty cheap thing for him to do. He caught sight of himself in the rearview mirror and remembered that he was, as the Bible puts it, “fearfully and wonderfully made,” a child of God with incredible potential for good. He began to feel disgust and self-loathing for what he was about to do, something he had done with other women many times before. He couldn’t do this.

He pulled the car off to the side of the road. "What are you doing?" she asked. “I’m getting out,” he told the woman. “It’s your car. Go on to Vegas if you want to…I’ll thumb a ride back.” He shut the car door and watched the woman speed away angrily. “Suddenly,” the young man told the preacher, “I felt ten feet tall! I never felt so good in my life!”

Folks: God wants to help you have moments of triumph like that, moments when you opt for the dignity that goes with being a citizen of God’s kingdom instead of just another hopeless sinner looking out for number one on the highway to hell.

Jesus Christ went to a cross for you. He rose from the dead for you. He did this so that you can share in His victory over sin and death. He gives those who believe in Him the same power to resist temptation that He had in the wilderness, the power of the Word of God.

He also promises to those of us who, unlike Him, aren’t perfect, the opportunity for second chances for godly living like that young man took when climbed out of that car and walked away from sin. (I've been taking Jesus up on second chances for over thirty years now!)

But Jesus offers even more to those who, through the power of God’s Word, face down temptations and evil. Please pull out a pew Bible and turn to page 557. Look at a single verse there, Matthew 10:22. Jesus says:

And you will be hated by all for My Name’s sake. But [the one] who endures to the end will be saved.

Persevere in trusting in Jesus. 

Read His Word and be ready to face all that life throws at you. 

Read His Word and walk more intimately with the God Who wants to save you from all that would destroy you, Who wants to give you life as God designed it to be lived. 

Hold onto Christ and His Word and you’ll hold onto life. Amen

*Retold here.

"The morning's gonna shine like a red rubber ball"

I had a great day off with my wife, Ann, even though some of it was taken up by an appointment with our dentist.

The highlight of that visit came when the doctor and I sang some of 'Red Rubber Ball' by the Cyrkle to his hygienist. She hadn't believed him when he mentioned this song and the band; she thought he was making both names up. Kids! (She's thirty.) I had to sing to vouch for his veracity.

By the way, the Cyrkle, an American band, was managed by Brian Epstein, the manager of the Beatles. They opened for the Beatles on what I think was their last tour of the US, in 1966.

'Red Rubber Ball' was co-written by Paul Simon, a melodic little pop tune that, as you can hear in the clip below, lent itself to pleasant harmonization.

Who Do You Put First?

[This was prepared for Ash Wednesday worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]

Matthew 6:16, 16-21

In tonight’s Gospel lesson, Jesus tells us, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them.”

He goes on to give three concrete examples:

• When you give charity to the poor, don’t make a show of it. 
• When you pray in public, don’t pile phrases one on top of the other in order to wow the people around you. 
• And when you fast—that is, give up food for a time, don’t let your outward appearance call attention to your “sacrificial” religious devotion.

Spiritual disciplines are meant to draw us closer to Christ, deeper into His orbit, and to create habits of dependence on God within us.

When we give, we’re trusting God to keep providing for our needs even though we have less.

When we pray, whether publicly or privately, we’re acknowledging our complete dependence on God and not ourselves.

When we fast, we’re seeking freedom from what we want and asking God to give us only what we need, what Jesus calls “our daily bread.” (And that, above all, means Him.)

Spiritual disciplines aren’t meant to give us bragging rights, so that we can show the world how faithful we are.

All of that is easy enough to understand. It’s easy to understand too, when Jesus says that those who make shows of their acts of religious piety get the very shallow, meaningless rewards they seek: People notice them.

But the notice of people, the applause of the crowd, won’t get us what only Jesus, Who bled and died and rose again for us, gives.

To those who turn from sin and entrust their lives to Him, Jesus gives the only rewards that last after the cheering has stopped, after the crowds have turned away. Those rewards include forgiveness of sin, eternal life with God, and purposefulness for the living of these days.

Don’t forfeit the only reward worth having, Jesus is telling us in tonight’s Gospel lesson, by allowing your life with God to boil down to things you do for show.

The fact is that what people think of us doesn’t matter. Jesus commands us to play to an audience of One. The opinion Jesus Christ has of our beliefs and motives is the only opinion that will count on judgment day, when He will return to the world to judge, as we say in the Creed, "the living and the dead."

The apostle Paul knew all of this. The first century church of Corinth that he founded, after a time, became a dysfunctional mess requiring him to send at least two letters of correction, both of which the Holy Spirit has inspired the Church to include in the New Testament portion of the Bible. One dispute among many that existed in the Corinthian church was between those who liked the teaching of Paul and those who preferred that of a preacher who came along after Paul left Corinth, named Apollos. Paul wrote to say that such arguments were silly. Paul hadn’t died for their sins and Apollos hadn’t risen from the dead for them. Only Jesus could save them, Paul reminded them.

In the midst of this conflict, some of the Corinthian Christians who aligned themselves with Apollos said nasty things about Paul. Paul couldn’t have cared less. He wrote, “With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you…I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord Who judges me.”

Paul knew well what Jesus is getting at in this evening’s Gospel lesson:

• Don’t worry about showing others what a good Christian you are; just be a Christian. 
• Don’t call attention to your acts of Christian devotion; just be devoted to Christ.

We could end the sermon right there, I suppose. But, as Lutherans, we believe that we can’t just take pieces of Scripture and leave them as isolated proof texts for the hobbyhorse of the day. Martin Luther said that we should let Scripture interpret Scripture. In other words, a single verse of Scripture, without consideration of the witness of the whole Bible, can be used or misused to say anything. Do that enough with single passages of scripture and you distort the whole Bible and the entire Christian faith.

The distortion to which Jesus’ words for us this evening often get subjected seems especially popular among we Lutheran Christians. Historically, Lutheranism has its roots among the people of northern Europe: Germans, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians. These aren’t folks known for being talkative or demonstrative. So, Lutherans have often taken Jesus’ admonition to not make a show of religious piety to mean that we're to never talk about our faith, never tell a friend what Jesus means to us, never invite others to come and see what God is doing in our church family. This is why Lutherans are sometimes called “the frozen chosen.”

But in what Jesus says to us tonight, He isn’t telling us not to live our faith in Him out in the open where the whole world can see it. Pull out a pew Bible and turn to page 553, please. Take a look at a passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount which we discussed a few weeks ago, Matthew 5:14-16. Jesus says: “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Now, turn to page 557 in the pew Bibles and look at Matthew 10:32-33. Jesus says: “Therefore whoever confesses Me before [people], him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before [people], him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.”

Then, turn to page 572, and find Matthew 28:19-20. There, the resurrected Jesus, about to ascend to heaven, gives the Great Commission to all who believe in Him. The Great Commission is of equal importance for us as the Great Commandment, which Jesus gives in Matthew 22:34-40, to love God and love others. In the Great Commission, Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

We are to live our faith out loud. We are to share Christ with others. We are to seek to make disciples of our neighbors, friends, and family members. Jesus commands us to do these things. But what He says to us this evening is a simple admonition: “Watch your motivation. If you’re out to glorify yourself and not Me, Your religious observances are meaningless.”

These are great words for us to remember as we begin the season of Lent. I knew a guy who gave up all sweets during Lent. He seemed to tell everybody he knew that he had given up sweets for Lent. “Want a cookie?” someone would ask him. “No,” he’d say, “I gave up sweets for Lent.” “Want a piece of cake?” Same answer. “Want a can of pop?” Same answer. The first twenty or so times he said, “No, I gave up sweets for Lent,” the response was predictable. People applauded him for his discipline and self-sacrifice and altogether upright behavior. He basked in their compliments. But after a time, people quit asking him if he’d like a cookie, a piece of cake or candy, or a can of pop. Without these offers and the opportunities they gave him to brag about his Lenten discipline, he found it harder and harder to stay away from sweets.

This fellow's desire for compliments isn't unique. Just yesterday, I read about a study conducted by scholars at Ohio State who determined that receiving boosts to their self-esteem was the thing that college students loved more than anything. The compliments of others can be addictive.

Taking on a discipline for Lent (or at any other time of the year) can be a fine thing. But, Jesus says, if it’s all about getting compliments, we’ve got it wrong.

The other night, Ann and I saw an interview on TV with an educated, middle clas Libyan man who had never before held a gun in his hand and, despite having so much to lose, had enlisted in the fight to bring down the dictator Moammar Gadhafi in his country. He said that, for him, it boiled down to a simple sentiment: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” We who confess Jesus as our God and Savior belong to the Kingdom of God. Tonight, Jesus challenges us to set our egos aside, to ask not what our acts of religious devotion can do for us, but how our acts of religious devotion can make us more submissive to the will of God and how they can help us to tell the whole world the story of the God Who loves all so desperately that He became one of us, died for us, rose for us, and gives everlasting life to those who dare to put Him first in their lives.

That’s the dare Christ lays before us this Lenten season, the dare He lays before us every day we live: Put Him first just as He did when He went to a cross for you two thousand years ago. Jesus characterizes His call to us in this way: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Don’t ask what’s in it for you; just follow the God revealed in Jesus, whether anybody else notices it or likes it or not.

May seeking God’s kingdom and the righteousness that belongs to followers of Jesus be our chief motivation this Lenten season…and our whole lives. Amen!

David Broder Has Died

See here.

My respect for Broder was boundless. The 2012 presidential election cycle will seem incomplete without his insightful, even-handed, fair reporting.

His enthusiasm for the American political process is something we could use more of in this era of corrosive cynicism.

Broder, of course, was not blind to the faults of our politicians or our political process. But he never seemed to have given way to the cynicism that infects so many who have spent decades covering the political activities of imperfect human beings.

He was great!

A clip of an interview conducted by Tim Russert with Broder and Robert Novak, all gone but not forgotten, about their long association with Meet the Press:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

For Ash Wednesday...

...a Franciscan blessing:

May God bless you with discomfort. Discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. Amen.

May God bless you with anger. Anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. Amen.

May God bless you with tears. Tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy. Amen.

May God bless you with foolishness. Enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done. Amen.

And the blessing of God, who creates, redeems and sanctifies, be upon you and all you love and pray for this day, and forever more. Amen.

 Thanks to students at Seattle Pacific University and the folks at the relief organization World Vision, for sharing this.

The work of World Vision inspires lots of people to be the blessings to others these Franciscan benedictions envision. Seven youth and three adults from our congregation, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, participated in World Vision's 30 Hour Famine on February 25-26.

They gave up food for thirty hours, raised money for world hunger relief, learned about the causes of hunger and what can be done about it, and shared some of their experiences with the congregation during worship on February 27. The youth set a modest goal of raising $150 through the famine and ended up raising $2055.

Our congregation's young people have taught me that we are blessed in order to be blessings to others, a lesson I think anyone--wherever they are spiritually or politically--can embrace.

Please do what you can for the poor, not just during Lent, but all through the year.

For Christians, Jesus makes it clear that when we serve others, we serve Him.

And I promise that it will make you feel good!

Even in the Wilderness

The Gospel lesson for this coming Sunday, the first in Lent, is Matthew 4:1-11.

In it, something strange happens that, in all my years of reading and studying the passage, I had never noticed until I saw it pointed out in a commentary I was reading last night:

• God's Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 
• Then, the devil takes Jesus to the temple in the holy city of Jerusalem.

That's sort of counter-intuitive, isn't it?

But it makes some important points:

• There's nowhere you can be that's so removed from God that He can't reach you.
• There's no place so holy that the devil won't try rob those who go there of life and joy.

The place in which you find yourself that you hate may be precisely the place you need to be to grow closer to God, stronger in your faith, finer in your character, more sure in your witness for Christ.

The place you find so comforting because you're certain that God's people, God's power, and God's presence are palpable may be a place of grave spiritual danger where unnoticed temptations more easily trap you and steer you away from dependence on God.

God can meet you (and help you) anywhere. Corrie ten-Boom, the Christian evangelist who, along with her father and sister, helped Jews escape the Nazi-occupied Netherlands and was later incarcerated in a prison camp for it, kept a daily prayer and worship appointment with God in the only place she could without being detected. It was the camp garbage dump and after a time, she said, it was the sweetest place she could imagine. God met her there.

Psalm 139:7-12 includes these prayer musings addressed to God:

Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
⁸If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
⁹If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
¹⁰even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
¹¹If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,”
¹²even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. 

So long as we live in the wilderness of this sin-saturated world, evil will tempt and trail us. But if we invite the God we meet in Jesus to live with us, evil won't have the last word over our lives. Jesus has given a promise to all who trust in Him: "I am with you always, to the end of the age." He's still good for that promise...even when you feel you're in the wilderness.

With Ash Wednesday Tomorrow, Lent Begins

Tomorrow, Christians all over the world will be celebrating Ash Wednesday. It begins a forty-day season of spiritual renewal and preparation that precedes Easter Sunday. The season is called Lent.

Actually, there are more than forty days between Ash Wednesday and Easter. But the Sundays that fall during Lent are never counted as part of that somber season. For Christians, Sundays are always "little Easters," days when the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is celebrated.

Lent emphasizes other aspects of Christian belief, most especially the need for total surrender to Christ so that the free gifts of forgiveness, eternal life, and purposeful living can be appropriated by those who turn from sin and believe in Christ.

The word Lent is from Middle English and means spring, the season of the year with which Lent somewhat corresponds.

According to Philip H. Pfatteicher and Carlos R. Messerli, writing in a book called Manual on the Liturgy, "Lent [as a season of the Church Year] derives from the [period of] preparation of [adult] candidates for Baptism [in the Church's early history]. By the middle of the fourth century at Jerusalem, candidates for Baptism fasted for 40 days, and during this period...[instructional] lectures...were delivered to them."

Of course, forty is an important number in the Bible. Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for forty days. The Old Testament book of Exodus says that God's people, the Hebrews, wandered in the wilderness for forty years. The rains that produced the great flood recorded in the book of Genesis lasted forty days and forty nights. So, it was natural that Lent would become a forty-day period.

Pfatteicher and Messerli say that after Christian faith was legalized in the Roman Empire in 313 A.D., "the period of preparation for Baptism became a general period of preparation of all Christians for Easter." That continues to this day.

Ash Wednesday itself, say Pfatteicher and Messerli, features a mood of "penitence and reflection on the quality of our faith and life." The goal is to call believers to remember their mortality, dependence on God, and need to seek God's help in disciplining themselves to surrender every part of their lives to  Christ.

At our congregation tomorrow evening, we'll begin our time of worship together with the singing of Just As I am, Without One Plea, followed by corporate confession, the reading of Bible lessons, and then, the imposition of ashes on the foreheads of the repentant. Each person will receive this sign with the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Ashes, in a Jewish and Christian context, suggest three things:

• judgment and God’s condemnation of sin;
• our total dependence upon God for life; and
• repentance, the joyful turning back to God.

As the cross of Christ is marked on our foreheads with ashes from the burned palm fronds used last Palm Sunday, we’re reminded of the words of the burial service: “Earth to earth and dust to dust.” (These are based on God's words to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:19.) Ashes remind us of our mortality and of our need for God.

Ashes are also a symbol of cleansing and renewal. This makes sense when you think about it. When I was a boy and would lodge splinters into my hands, I'd go to my dad. Dad inspected things and soon, got a needle from my mom's sewing kit, and pulled out his lighter. He turned the tip of the needle in the flame of the lighter for maybe thirty seconds and after that, wave the needle through the air to cool it off. Then, he picked the splinter out of my hand. Of course, the reason that Dad ran the needle through the flame was to kill off any bacteria that might cause infection.

In the Greek of the New Testament, the word for fire is pur, from which we get such English words as purge, pure, and purify, among others. When we open ourselves to letting Jesus Christ be in charge of our lives, He begins to purge us of all the old, destructive habits that previously blocked God's presence from our lives and He creates a place of purity where He can live with us and transform our lives. The old life is burnt away and a new life begins.

Just as baptismal water suggests death and brand new life with God...so do the ashes of Ash Wednesday.

[This is a piece I wrote several years ago. I hope you find it helpful.]

Never Underestimate Our Common Enemy...and Never Underestimate the Power of Christ to Overcome!

Glenna Salsbury has some great insights on dealing with our common enemy, Satan.

When It Comes to Being Faithful to Christ, Nothing is Small

Even the smallest acts of faithfulness to Christ can result in huge blessings.

If the Devil is After You, You Must Be Doing Something Right

Satan tries to do his worst to you when things are going their best for you.

If you're hit by unexpected adversities or blindsided by others' roadblocks, it may be a good sign that you're on the right path. The closer you are to the God we know in Jesus Christ, the more opposition the devil will throw your way.

Job, whose story is recounted in the Old Testament, learned that the opposition of the devil and the condemnation even of those who he thought were his friends came because he was faithful to God.

If you're a follower of Christ confronting adversities or hatred, as someone I know discussed experiencing with me recently, smile. You're on the right track!

And remember, you're on the winning side of history. "In the world you face persecution," Jesus says to Christians, "But take courage; I have conquered the world!"

The best prescription: Pray for yourself and, if someone is vexing you, pray for them too. Jesus says that believers in Him are to pray for their enemies. (For the Christian, an enemy is not someone we hate, but someone who hates us.) Then, keep following Christ.

[See also Romans 8:31-39.]

Why We Call God "Father"

"We do not call God Father because we have had or have not had a positive experience of being a father's child. Rather, all human fathers are measured and judged by the Father's love of the Son [Jesus]. To pray to God as the Father challenges the status quo of human fatherhood, just as calling the church our family challenges the limitations and sins of our human families." [Stanley Hauerwas in Matthew.]

Two Short Pieces Worthy of Your Time to Read

Here.

Here.

Transfiguration: Really Seeing Jesus

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 17:1-9
I grew up in the city and because of that, believe it or not, I didn't see a sight that many of you may have seen many times in your life, until I was twenty-nine. It happened in Benzie County, Michigan, a place so small in population and size that it didn't even get its first traffic light until the late-80s. It's a place of real beauty with lakes and sand dunes that set next to Lake Michigan. Some people would say it's remote. Ann, Philip, and I spent a year there when I did my seminary internship. I'll never forget going to bed on the night we arrived, looking out the window, and seeing a shooting star flash across the sky. I'd had to get away from it all in order to see it, my first shooting star!

Maybe that was why Jesus took Peter, James, and John to the top of a mountain, as we’re told about in today’s Gospel lesson. Jesus may have wanted to give these three key followers, the ones He had chosen to be the leaders of His Church, the chance to get away from it all so that they could catch a clear vision of Who He is.

The account of what the three disciples saw that day also shows you and me Who Jesus can be for us.

And, what Peter, James, and John saw was spectacular! While standing on top of a mountain, Jesus was “transfigured...and His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” Then, two Old Testament figures showed up. One was Moses, the one to whom God had given the Ten Commandments and who had been Israel’s leader out of Egypt, through the wilderness, about 1500 years before the birth of Jesus. The other was Elijah, a prophet whose ministry began about 870 years before Jesus was born and came to an end when God sent a chariot to taxi him to heaven.

The two of them represent the two great strains of Old Testament tradition: the law and the prophets. It was the Law and the Prophets that, hundreds of years before Jesus was born, pointed to His coming. Now, in a moment of fulfillment, Jesus stood talking with Moses and Elijah, underscoring that Jesus is the center of history and the bringer of all our best hopes.

Peter and the others were understandably impressed by this sight! Peter was so impressed, in fact, that he spoke up, foot firmly in mouth as always, and said, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” That word translated as dwellings could mean everything from huts to temples. I think it’s safe to bet that Peter was thinking in grander terms at that moment. He wanted to build three religious shrines.

It didn’t take long for his suggestion to be vetoed. A bright cloud came down from heaven and from it, a voice--the Voice, the same Voice that had confirmed that Jesus was the Son of God when Jesus was baptized at the Jordan River--said, “This is My Son, the Beloved; with Him I am well pleased; listen to Him!”

This command to listen to Jesus would have hit Peter like a punch to the gut. Just six days before, Peter had confessed his belief that Jesus was the Son, or the very reflection, of God, on earth to be our Savior and King. Jesus applauded Peter's answer. But then He told Peter and the others that He was to be crucified in Jerusalem and rise again on the third day after His death.

The very mention of Jesus being crucified had been repulsive to Peter. "This will never happen to You, Lord," Peter tried to tell Jesus. But Jesus, angered by this well-intentioned attempt to thwart Him in His mission of dying and rising for us, turned to Peter and said, "Get behind Me, Satan."

"Listen," Jesus was telling Peter, "to what I'm saying; not what you want Me to say!" This past week, our son Philip sent along a quote from a theologian he'd run across. It addresses preachers of God's Word: "You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true." Jesus was emphatic that He would be our Savior in the way God chose, not the way we might prefer.

Now, on the mount of Transfiguration, after hearing the Voice from heaven command that he listen to Jesus, Peter may well have remembered the rebuke Jesus had issued to him six days earlier. Whatever was in his mind, Peter did the thing that made the most sense at that moment: He shut up and, along with the other two disciples, fell to the ground, understandably terrified.

Jesus went to them, touched them, and told them, “Get up. Don’t be afraid.” As the three lifted themselves off the ground and tentatively looked up, they discovered that, Moses, Elijah, the cloud, and the dazzling brightness were all gone. Only Jesus remained.

The same was true for those disciples as is true for us: When life frightens us or jolts us or throws us or hurts us, the only reliable helper guaranteed to be there is the compassionate God we know through Jesus Christ!

So, what was the point of this incredible incident? There were many points, I suppose. But I want to zero in on just a few this morning.

Point number one clearly was that Jesus is God the Son, in the flesh, come to earth with the full approval of God the Father. On the Mount of Transfiguration, He was revealed in the same way God was revealed on Mount Sinai to Moses and the elders of ancient Israel nearly fifteen centuries earlier.

Point number two is seen in God’s implicit rejection of Peter’s proposal to build three shrines. Several years ago, Ann’s mom took her and her family to the Mediterranean. Among their stops were Rome and the Vatican. I was interested in Ann’s impressions of the Vatican, with its grand basilica and priceless works of art. Ann, you know was an Art major who formerly worked for the art museum and the Arts Council in Columbus and is a talented artist herself. I shouldn’t have been surprised by her reaction, but I was. Like almost every person I’ve ever known to go the Vatican, my wife said that she was totally turned off by all the money spent on a religious shrine and wondered whether God was really glorified by it all.

It’s a good question. God isn’t necessarily glorified by buildings, icons, symbols, rituals, stained glass windows, or much-recited words. The Bible says that we followers of Jesus are temples of God's Holy Spirit, bought and paid for with the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross. In other places, it says that we’re to be living stones built on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ. Too often, our religious stuff may be nothing more than monuments to our own egos, designed to impress the world, not glorify God. But the God we know through Jesus Christ doesn’t build His kingdom with brick and mortar. He builds it in the lives of those who turn from sin and follow Jesus. That, I’m sure, is one reason that God cut Peter off when he offered to start building those three dwellings.

A third point that I think the disciples were to take from their experience on the mountaintop is maybe the most important one. It can be seen in that simple, moving moment when Jesus approached the frightened disciples, touched them, and told them to get up and not be afraid. The God we meet in Jesus Christ wants us to let Him into our lives. He wants us to welcome Him into all that we say and do and are each day. Jesus can do wonderful things when we do that.

The late E. Stanley Jones was a missionary, evangelist, and author. In one of his books, he tells the story of a man known to be, “the biggest grouch in Trenton.” One day, this man called someone he knew in another town and said, “All Trenton’s different---everybody’s different this morning since that meeting in the high school last night where we heard [the evangelist]. Of course, only I may be different, but all Trenton seems different.”

When we let God into our lives, everything is different. We have a different relationship with God and so, we can build different relationships with those around us. We can face life with hope and openness. We live in the confidence that our sins, which would otherwise earn us eternal separation from God, have been forgiven and that God will help us resist temptation in this world and that in eternity, living directly in the presence of God, sin will have no more power to mar our characters or our lives. We can be like the backwoods Christian I’ve mentioned before who said, “I ain’t what I want to be and I ain’t what I’m gonna be. But I thank God, I ain’t what I was!” “If anyone is in Christ,” the New Testament tells us, “there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.” God wants us to let Him into our lives so that we can be made new.

But I think there’s another reason God wants us to let Him into our lives. A pastor was driving along a country road, came to a corner, and saw an elderly woman walking along with a heavy load in her arms. He stopped beside her, rolled down his window, explained that he was the pastor of a neighboring church, and offered the woman a ride. She recognized him and said that she would love a ride. She climbed into the front seat and closed the door. As they pulled away, the pastor asked her, “Why don’t you put that load in the back seat?” “Oh, it’s kind enough of you to give me a ride. I can still carry this, though,” she said. They rode in silence for a time and then the pastor said, “Thank you for giving me an inspiration for my next Sunday message.” “How did I do that?” the woman wondered. “Well, I think our relationship with God is a lot like you and that heavy package you’re still holding in your arms. We trust God to get us through life, but not to help carry the burdens.”

I could almost write a book about all the times I thought for sure my life was going to go bust. But each time that happens, I’ve learned the importance of letting the God we know through Jesus into my areas of deepest concern. When we do that, our burdens become lighter and He shows us what to do, if we only let Him.

The God Who came to this world and touched the frightened disciples on the mountain, Who went to a cross and rose from a grave, wants to come to you this morning and each day of your life. He wants to help you carry your burdens. He wants to be your chief counselor, the One you turn to even when the whole world seems to have turned away. This week, why not make this your prayer at the beginning of each day?:

Lord Jesus, all day long, show me when I’m wrong. Affirm me when I’m right. Help me to make good decisions. Make me an agent of Your love. Today, I choose to let You into every moment of my life.

And then, like the disciples becalmed by Jesus on the mountain, face your day with confidence!

Phil Expresses His View Without Saying a Word

Apparently, son Philip didn't want to be videographed while eating at Cosi a few days ago.

Feats of Impressive Physical Acumen

It all started when our great-niece turned somersaults on my mother-in-law's living room floor. I asked her, "Can you somersault backwards?" As soon as I said that, somebody asked me, "Can you?" Since I'm the videographer, there's no evidence; you'll just have to take my word for it, that I did.

At that, my brother-in-law asked us all, "Can you stand on your head?" None of us could. But, of course, we asked, "Can you?" 



Though unsuccessful on this attempt, he did, a moment later, stand on his head while braced against a couch.

Not to be outdone, our niece, mother of the first somersaulter and daughter of the head-stander, announced that she could turn cartwheels. You know what happened next.



Yeah, we're intellectuals.

Selective Mutism

Our daughter did a presentation on Selective Mutism in one of her Education classes this week. One web site begins to define this phenomenon in this way:

Selective Mutism is a psychiatric disorder most commonly found in children, characterized by a persistent failure to speak in select settings, which continues for more than 1 month. These children understand spoken language and have the ability to speak normally. In typical cases, they speak to their parents and a few selected others.

I hadn't thought of it, but Sarah immediately remembered Paul McCartney's song, She's Given Up Talking, to use as part of her presentation. She said that while most of her classmates were into country music, the song seemed to make the issue accessible to everyone. One of her classmates, Sarah said, was "rocking out" to the song.



"She's Given Up Talking" appears on McCartney's 2001 LP, Driving in the Rain. In an interview I heard at the time of the album's release, I remember Macca saying that the track was inspired by the experience of friends, whose daughter seems to have evidenced Selective Mutism.

It must be terribly frustrating to address, but, particularly given the increasing evidence of bullying in public schools, Selective Mutism can also seem like a very rational response to an increasingly irrational world.

Helter Skelter - Good Evening New York City

This is the live performance of the 1968 Beatles tune for which McCartney recently won a Grammy.

Classic!

The Dusty Baker toothpick holder bobblehead! It will be given away when the Reds take on the Indians this season.

Jesus and the Cross: The Only Way to "Winning"

In a world where a celebrity actor, obviously mired in addiction and the grandiosity it creates, says he's "winning" and finds people gullible enough to believe him, following Jesus is a radical way of life.

Following Jesus entails repentance, humility, honest self-evaluation, and sacrifice.

It also entails acknowledging the reality that we can't master sin, death, or our impulses toward self-destruction on our own.

We need Jesus Christ.

We need the way of the cross, which means letting Christ crucify our old sinful, death-filled ways so that He can replace them with the life He gives to all who repent and believe in Him.

That's the only way to resurrection and hope in this life. To "win" at life, we must first "lose" our delusions and denial.

Jesus puts it this way: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it" (Luke 9:23-24).

Julie Ackerman Link has some great thoughts on this topic, well worth taking the few minutes required to read it and the passage of Scripture on which it's based.

Here is the link to Link's piece.

Here's a great song by one of my favorite artists and satirists, Steve Taylor. It's called Jesus is for Losers. I aspire to be a "loser" who daily submits to the gracious reconstruction of my whole being Jesus offers, losing the death, the sin, and the futility that sticks to a life in which we pretend to be number one and in control. Get a clue, Charlie; get a life; grab hold of Christ!



Here are the lyrics:
If I was driven
Driven ahead by some noble ideal
Who took the wheel?

If I was given
Given a glimpse of some glorious road
When was it sold?

So caught up in the chase
I keep forgetting my place

Just as I am
I am stiff-necked and proud
Jesus is for losers
Why do I still play to the crowd?

Just as I am
Pass the compass, please
Jesus is for losers
I'm off about a hundred degrees

If I was groping
Groping around for some ladder to fame
I am ashamed

If I was hoping
Hoping respect would make a sturdy footstool
I am a fool

Bone-weary every climb
Blindsided every time

Just as I am
I am needy and dry
Jesus is for losers
The self-made need not apply

Just as I am
In a desert crawl
Lord, I'm so thirsty
Take me to the waterfall

And if you're certain
Certain your life is some cosmic mistake
Why do you shake?

And if you're certain
Certain that faith is some know-nothing mask
Why do you still ask?

They don't grade here on the curve
We both know what we deserve

Just as you are
Just a wretch like me
Jesus is for losers
Grace from the blood of a tree

Just as we are
At a total loss
Jesus is for losers
Broken at the foot of the cross

Just as I am
Pass the compass, please
Jesus is for losers
I'm off about a hundred degrees

Just as I am
In a desert crawl
Lord, I'm so thirsty
Take me to the waterfall

The Saint Matthew Youth Group's 30 Hour Famine

This past weekend, nine Saint Matthew youth and three Saint Matthew adults participated in the World Vision 30 Hour Famine. Giving up food for thirty hours, they experienced the hunger that many people around the world experience. They also raised money to be used by World Vision to feed malnourished and starving people.

This was the first year our congregation's youth participated in the Famine. They set a goal of $150, hoping that maybe they could raise $300. But when the contributions were totaled on Saturday evening, they came to $2017!

During the Famine, we spent some time viewing videos about world hunger and efforts to combat it. We prayed that God would use the Famine experience to sensitize us to the needs of others. We prayed that God would help us to love others with the same love He has shown for the world in Christ.

We also made "Plumpy Nut," a concoction that has been described as the most important weapon in fighting famine and malnutrition in the world today. On Sunday morning, our kids shared it with members of the congregation.

We also had a lot of fun with Wii and Xbox games, board games, movies, and Arena Baseball.

Arena Baseball is something I've been playing with the youth of the churches I've served as pastor for the past twenty-five years. It's sort of a combination of baseball, pinball, and chaos. We like to use soft bats and soft, bouncy baseballs. Here are the basics of Arena Baseball:

• All balls that are hit are fair, even those hit behind home plate.
• First base is where third base usually is.
• Second base is where first base usually is.
• Third base is where second base usually is.
• Balls and strikes aren't counted.
• As in kickball, you can throw a person out by throwing the ball at them and hitting them. (That's why soft, bouncy balls are preferred.)
• The game is played indoors and the best rooms in which to play it are ones with lots of hard surfaces and numerous nooks and crannies, the better to cause the ball to bounce and rattle around crazily, creating general chaos and laughter.

The Famine began at noon on Friday, February 25. Participants didn't eat again until 6:00PM on Saturday. We broke the fast with a brief service of Holy Communion in the church chapel at 6:00. One of the youth read Jesus' words in Matthew 25:31-40. Two youth distributed the body and blood of our Lord. After the service, the youth and congregational members and friends who had joined us then enjoyed a great potluck dinner!

Throughout the Famine, I took videos on my cell phone and posted them on Facebook. The videos are embedded below.

In the first two videos, the kids rhapsodize about our white, squishy, bouncy baseball! It helps to be a little crazy if you're going to do a lock-in like this. 





As you'll see here, the young women were sometimes hesitant about being videographed while dancing with the Wii dance program.



Our young men were far more sanguine about being videographed. Here they are in their Man Cave playing a video game and listening to country music, courtesy of DJ Jacob.



The kids are gathered in the kitchen for the production of some Plumpy Nut. A report by Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes four years ago will give you some background on Plumpy Nut.



















The women's quarters before lights went out on Friday night. Two women from the congregation, both named Sarah. were with the girls throughout. I thank them and Jean, especially for all they did to make the Famine a success! I somehow deleted a couple of videos I had of the guys' quarters on Friday.



The ladies play a game of Pit, the commodities trading game. Stephen and I were taking a break from our game of Cornhole. (He trounced me.)



The two quarters on Saturday morning are shown below. The girls seemed to stir sooner than the boys, although the girls had stayed up later the night before. But the ome of the girls, owing no doubt to being tired as well as hungry, took naps later on Saturday, while the boys didn't.





Arena Baseball is our youth group's national pastime!



In the homestretch, the participants are mostly very quiet...but persevering. None of these kids complained once!





Below, each of the youth who participated reflect on the 30 Hour Famine experience.



















I talk with the kids as they write paragraphs on the Famine.



People gather for the Holy Communion service and the potluck, then I ask the kids how the food tastes.





To learn more about the 30 Hour Famine, go here.

Who is the Word of God? Why Should You Read His Book?

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church during worship this morning.]

John 1:1-3, 14
2 Timothy 3:16-17*
As you know, on Ash Wednesday, March 9, we begin a yearlong emphasis at Saint Matthew: Read the Bible in a Year.

The response to the announcement that we were going to read the Bible together in a year’s time has been gratifying! Some of our overachievers have already started reading the Bible. Several people have gotten or are looking at new Bibles, in translations that are more accessible. And I hope that those who, because of the current conditions of their eyes, find reading difficult will be able get an audio edition of the Bible, either through a vendor or at the library. (If you'd like help finding an audio Bible to purchase, let me know, and I'll try to help you with your selection.)

With Read the Bible in a Year coming in so short a time, I’m departing from my usual practice of preaching on the appointed lessons and instead today, focusing on two important passages of Scripture. I hope that they’ll help motivate and inspire you to join in reading the Bible this year. My aim is to do that by talking about two important questions:

• First, what do we Lutheran Christians mean when we speak of “the Word of God”? 
• And second, why should we bother reading the Bible?

So, let’s get to it. Please pull out a pew Bible and turn to page 611. There, you’ll find what’s known as the Prologue to John’s Gospel, John 1:1-18. We’ll consider just a few passages of the Prologue, verses 1 to 3 and verse 14. Read along with me silently, please.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” [Now, slide down to verse 14.] “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Long before the universe was created, there was the Word of God. This Word of God is not an “it.” Unlike an impersonal force, the Word of God can be known in the same way you know your family or your friends or your neighbors.

That’s why John says of the Word of God, “He was in the beginning with God” and “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made” and “We have beheld His glory.”

I’m not emphasizing the maleness of those pronouns. What I am emphasizing is that the Word of God is a Being with passions and preferences and a personality.

It’s this Personality that the Old Testament book of Genesis tells us spoke to chaos and brought the universe into being: “’Let there be light’ and there was light.” It was the Word of God that made the light and you and me and everything else.

The New Testament book of Colossians says of the One John refers to as the Word of God: “In Him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible…all things have been created through Him and for Him.” And it says that in Him “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” 

This Word of God, the One Who created the universe, took on flesh and, as John’s Prologue says, “dwelt, lived” among us.

The Bible confesses that Jesus is the Word of God.

God, it turns out, is the Great Communicator. He used His Word to communicate all that was needed to bring the universe into being.

And from the very beginning, He has communicated with His personal favorites, the apples of His eye, the pinnacles of creation, the only beings made in His image: the human race.

We human beings have often turned a deaf ear to the Word of God, of course. But God has never tired of communicating with us.

The Word of God ultimately came to us when He took on flesh, became one of us, bore our sin on the cross, and rose from the dead so His Word of forgiveness and new life could come to all who repent and believe in Jesus.

When we Lutheran Christians speak of the Word of God, we mean first and foremost, Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, Who sits on the right side—the power side—of God the Father. The Word of God is, above all, God the Son.

Some people claim to see a different God in the Old Testament than they see in Jesus in the New Testament. Lutherans never have seen such a difference.

And for good reason. When Jesus walked on this earth, He said that He and the Father were one. He quoted Old Testament Scripture and He said that He came not to abolish God’s Old Testament law, but to fulfill it. Everything He did and said was consistent with the Personality of God revealed in Old Testament times. The New Testament writers show how the law and the grace that Jesus communicated for all the world, Jews and Gentiles, was precisely the same law and grace God communicated to His people Israel in the Old Testament. The preacher of the New Testament book of Hebrews says of Jesus, the Word of God made flesh: “[He] is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

As Lutheran Christians, we believe that God speaks and has spoken to people with the same simple message through the centuries, one composed of two parts: Law and Promise.

The Law is the moral law as embodied in the Ten Commandments, which God has never rescinded, revoked, or amended.

The Promise is God’s promise of forgiveness and new life to all who will repent and believe in Him.

God has personalized that promise for the whole human race in Jesus. This is why Jesus has given us the great commission to make disciples of all the world.

It was in response to Jesus' great commission and to help people know the Word of God personally and so, have the chance to repent and believe in Jesus, that John wrote his Gospel. “Jesus did many other things in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book,” John writes near the end of his Gospel. “But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in His Name.” 

Jesus is the Word of God and the Bible is the Word of God because, through the Holy Spirit, the Church has learned that the Bible perfectly reflects the message the Word of God has been communicating since Adam and Eve: Turn from sin, trust in Me, and live. The Bible is God speaking law and promise to us: the law to drive us to Him, the promise to reconcile us to Him for eternity.

So, if the Bible’s message can be summarized in a few minutes, why spend a year reading it?

It’s simple, really. The crush of life—what The Small Catechism calls, “the devil, the world, and our sinful selves”—can turn us into amnesiacs. We can forget all about Jesus, the Word of God, hurtling through our lives without a clue of how to live or what to do.

But in the Bible, God helps us to remember. God knows we need reminding.

That’s why Luther said that the born-again Christians of his day weren’t born-again enough. They thought of repentance and faith in Christ as a one-and-done deal. But Luther said, rightly I think, that if we don’t keep coming back to God each day to repent and be renewed in His forgiveness and love, we can drift away from God and from eternity with Him.

Reading the Bible regularly can help correct our courses through life.

That leads to a second passage of Scripture I’d like to ask you to look up in the New Testament, 2 Timothy 3:16-17. It’s on page 690 in the pew Bibles. It says:

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God [literally, it says all scripture is God-breathed; God invests His very life into the pages of this book!] and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the [person] of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. 

In the Bible, the Word of God—Jesus—gives us a treasury of tools by which God empowers us to live with faithfulness and to share God’s Word of law and promise that can bring eternity to all who believe in Jesus.

True story. Monique Govender grew up in a Hindu home in Durban, South Africa. Her family regularly worshiped numerous idols.

Then, in the space of twenty days, two of her siblings died. Monique’s mother became fearful and, maybe just to cover all her bases, began going to a church to secretly pray to the One the Christians said was the one and only God of the universe revealed in Jesus.

Monique’s father, an alcoholic and a physical abuser of his family, hated Christians. Maybe he’d met the kinds of counterfeit Christians who give Christianity a bad name. However it happened, he misunderstood Christian teachings.

Over the course of her childhood though, Monique encountered the Word of God at different times, each time having an impact on her. Once, at age four, she attended “a memorable church activity.” At seven, buying booze for her dad, she saw street performers do two skits: one about Jesus’ parable of the ten wise and foolish virgins and the other about Joseph, the son of Jacob from Old Testament times. Most influential of all was when she learned that her grandparents, lifelong Hindus, had come to faith in Jesus Christ and joined a local church.

At age 15, Monique herself came to faith in Christ. Then, her brother, after reading a Bible he had been given, came to believe in Jesus.

At first, Monique’s father was angry at his two children and refused to let his daughter worship at church. But, trusting in Jesus, the Word of God, Monique began to pray for her family, asking God to let her worship with other Christians and to help her father recover from his alcoholism and to stop being an abuser. “Eventually, she was allowed to go to church, and [amazingly] in time both her parents came to know Christ as well.”

Monique reflects on the goodness of God. “I am not sure of what God’s thoughts were for me, but in looking back, it seems like He’s been thinking about me. And it’s [amazing] to think that I was just an unknown girl…[But] God knew me, and even as a little child, I could feel that God was there with me.”

Jesus is the Word of God. The Bible is His book, written so that, no matter how “unknown” or alone or adrift or overwhelmed you may sometimes feel, God loves you.

God wants to be in relationship with you.

He wants to give you an abundant life here and in eternity.

He wants to guide you with His wisdom and love.

Read the Bible every day and let Jesus, the Word of God, speak His grace and truth into your life all the days of your life!

*The renderings of these two passages, as linked here, are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible. The Bibles in the pew racks of the Saint Matthew sanctuary are the New King James Version (NKJV). 

No Tears in Heaven

Several years ago, a woman approached me during a church fellowship hour. She was visibly upset about something that a friend had said to her.

"What did she say?" I asked.

"We were talking about heaven," she explained. "I said how comforting it is to know that my parents were in heaven. I told my friend: 'They have no more sadness and no longer cry or grieve.' But she said, 'That isn't true!'

"Then she mentioned Revelation 21:3, where it says that God 'will wipe every tear from their eyes' and said, 'They'll still cry. But God will wipe away their tears.'"

"Pastor Mark," she said imploringly, "is that true?"

I told the woman bluntly, "Your friend is wrong."

We were outside of a Sunday School classroom. I said, "Let's go in here for a second." I pulled a Bible off a shelf and turned to Revelation 21:3 and invited her to read that verse and the next one.

They say:

³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; ⁴he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4)

I explained to the woman that this passage is part of a vision that John received of the new heaven and the new earth that Jesus will establish after He's brought an end to this old heaven and old earth, which groans under the weight of our sin. All who have turned from sin (repented) and entrusted their lives to Jesus Christ (believed in Him) will be citizens of this new creation. There, God will live among His followers the way Jesus, God-in-the-Flesh, lived among the human race here on earth.

"You can see here that the tears God will dry are those from our lives in this old creation, with its sin and imperfections and tragedies," I told her.

The Bible doesn't sugarcoat how tough life in this world can be. But those who persist in turning from sin and trusting Jesus will enter the new creation, where God will wipe away those tears from the old creation.

"The promise is clear," I pointed out. "It says, 'Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.'"

The woman, visibly relieved, asked me why her friend would have said such what she did.

"She could simply be misinformed," I said. "But I've noticed that there are two extreme, unbiblical positions that Christians sometimes fall into when it comes to this business of suffering and pain.

"One group embraces a triumphant theology. A lot of the TV preachers seem to be in this category. They think that if you become a Christian, everything will come up roses in this life as well as the next. But Jesus says to Christians, for example, 'In this world you face persecution.' No sugar-coating there. Then he says, 'But take courage; I have conquered the world!' Jesus is going to give us a new world."

With a smile, the woman asked me, "I take it my friend is in the other group."

"She may be an exponent of what a buddy of mine used to call, 'wallow theology.' These folks take the Bible's theology of the cross, the belief that we must submit to crucifying our sins and that we must go through death with Jesus in order to rise with Jesus--which is what the Bible teaches--and take it in a wrong direction.

"They seem to believe that life is altogether bad and it always will be. Their idea of the resurrection, if they even believe in the resurrection, because a lot of wallowers don't believe in the resurrection, is that the new creation will just be more of what this life is like.

"Some wallowers also seem to think that the new creation will be a sort of eternal group therapy session in which we'll call up all the bad things we experienced in this life and cry over them."

By the way, Jesus does teach that one group of people will weep after the curtain has been drawn on the old heaven and the old earth. They're the people who have refused to repent in Jesus' Name or trust Him as their God, people who by this refusal have condemned themselves to hell. Jesus says that they will live in an "outer darkness," the twilight of death and aloneness that will be hell, where they will weep and gnash their teeth. "Gnashing of teeth" is a description of what people do when they regret their decisions. In hell, regrets will last for eternity. That's why there will be crying and unending grief there.

We can avoid the errors of triumphalists and the wallowers, by the way, when we:

• Read the Scriptures for ourselves; 
• Never interpret a single passage of Scripture in isolation from another, but pay attention to the witness of the whole Bible; and 
• Pay heed to what Martin Luther called "the plain sense" of a passage apart from a framework that someone with their own agenda may want to impose on it.

I prayed that in our conversation, I eased this woman's mind. I hope too, that in presenting her story, you've been helped.

This old creation isn't perfect, though even here we can know the healing, help, and hope that only Jesus brings.

But the new creation Jesus has secured through His death and resurrection for all who follow Him, will be perfect. Our old tears will be dried. Death, mourning, crying, and pain will be in our rearview mirrors. And we will be with God forever!

You Go, Sarah!

Snapped this picture of daughter Sarah last night. She was among Dean's List students honored last night at Hocking College, where she's getting her Associate's Degree. She'll be a student at The Ohio State University in the fall.

Guardians of THE Story

Riffing off of Fahrenheit 451, that's what Deb Grant says that Jesus-Followers are meant to be. Excellent!

Servanthood Deserves Applause

Read about this "outstanding woman you should know" from Hilliard, Ohio, near Columbus. Small things done in the Name of Jesus Christ have an impact, though they rarely get noticed. I'm glad the many things Colleen Barta does for others in Christ's Name are being noticed. I've been privileged to know thousands of people like her through the years. They are the great ones among us!

Especially Thankful for George Washington Today

Watching what's happening in the Middle East, where sick men have held onto power for decades, I'm thankful to live in the United States.

Here, we take for granted the peaceful transition of executive power.

The human instrument by which that incredible blessing has come to us was George Washington.

As I've pointed out before, Washington turned down the offer of absolute power more than once. Most notably, of course, he did when he resigned his commission as general of the US Army at the close of the Revolutionary War and then again, when he refused to hold onto the presidency, instead voluntarily retiring to Mount Vernon, his home in Virginia.

The pressure on Washington, who, except for periods when the American cause appeared lost during the Revolution, was an almost deified public figure, to become a dictator was almost constant. In one famous incident during the war, Washington learned that American officers, disgusted with Congress' failure to pay them their salaries, were plotting to overthrow Congress and give absolute power to Washington. In his typically self-controlled manner, Washington called the officers together and defused their plot, calling it shocking. Always a master of political theater, Washington won the day when, as he prepared to read a letter from the Congress, he paused to pull out a pair of eyeglasses. Nobody had ever seen Washington wear glasses before. He explained, “Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.” Grown men who had watched Washington's heroics during the war and loved him, began to weep. The plot was extinguished and this country's trajectory toward becoming a true republic was established.

In their book, The American President, Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., Philip B. Kunhardt III, and Peter W. Kunhardt, observe that in its formative years, the United States, a nation that declared itself into being, but whose constituent states had little experience of working together or of seeing themselves as part of a single nation, had little in the way of a national character. The galvanizing Washington, they say, lent his character to the United States. The new country took shape largely in his image.

That's a very good thing. Had the United States borrowed Thomas Jefferson's character, for example, one could see it quite quickly devolving into what the founders called "mobocracy," a chaotic and splintered mess. Had it borrowed the character of of John Adams, it likely would have broken apart under attempts at too much centralization. Washington, as general and as first US president, exercised the incredible self-control and focus of purpose that was his trademark to allow an unlikely collection of independent colonies to become what it has become (and still strives to be): a place in which liberty and mutual accountability are held in balance to maximize the freedom of people, a model for most of the democratic nations of the world.

Washington was not perfect. While it's clear that he was moving toward a belief in emancipation of slaves, he shared the blindness of whites in his time to the sin of racism. As a general, he was less of a military tactician, his plans often bogging down from their Rube Goldberg-complexity, than he was a political general, recognizing fairly early in the war that his main obligation was to keep his army intact and win a battle of attrition against an empire he hoped would tire of fighting.

As president however, Washington had perfect pitch. Always good at listening to the best counsel from the best minds and then making the best decisions, he showed this capacity throughout his eight years. Recognizing that the United States needed time to develop free of outside pressures, he wisely steered clear of aligning the country with either Great Britain or France in their struggles. Knowing the country needed to be established as a unified entity, he embraced Alexander Hamilton's plan for assuming the massive debts the states had incurred during the Revolution, thereby knitting the country together. Sponsoring Hamilton's broader economic plans, Washington ensured that free enterprise would flourish in the United States.

During most of his second term, Washington endured vicious--and anonymous--attacks on his character sponsored by Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, among others. But Washington, as always, bore it and overcame it, comporting himself with dignity.

My son once asked me who my greatest heroes were. You have to be careful about naming heroes. I never want to engage in hero worship; the only Person I worship is the God made known in Jesus Christ.

I esteem the apostles, who carried the Gospel of Jesus into the world. Martin Luther and Billy Graham are also special figures to me.

But in the political realm, George Washington is without peer, a man who overcame his own rugged upbringing, his lack of formal education, and volcanic passions, learning to control himself and so, becoming the farmer-statesman he early envisioned himself becoming. I agree with historian Garry Wills, who, in an interview on CSPAN once said that George Washington was the greatest political leader of all time.

I think that's indisputably true. And even King George III, the monarch from whom independence was gained in the American Revolution, seems to have agreed. Informed by American painter Benjamin West that it was Washington's intention to go home to Mount Vernon at the end of the Revolution, King George said, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." Washington did and in his time, he was.
 
Below are links to some of my favorite Washington biographies.

Be Perfect? Are You Talking to Me?

If you're like me, when you read or heard the last verse in today's Gospel lesson, you may have felt  intimidated. In Matthew 5:48, Jesus says, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

Perfect? I'm not that!

Is Jesus just toying with us the way a cat plays with a mouse it's going to kill?

No.

The word translated as "perfect" from the original Greek of the New Testament is "teleios." It means things like true, sincere, truthful, or loyal. It doesn't have the meaning of flawless moral perfection or any other kind of flawless perfection, for that matter.

During the 3rd. and 2nd. centuries BC, Jewish scholars living in Alexandria produced a Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint. (This is often referred to by the Roman numerals, LXX.) Jesus Himself was no doubt knowledgeable of this translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, as were the writers of the New Testament. This is important because the use of the word, teleios gives us insight into how the word is meant when used in the New Testament, including in Matthew 5:48.

For example, the Septuagint version of Genesis 6:9 tells us the Noah was true or loyal to God, unlike the rest of his generation. In the Septuagint's rendering of Job 1:1, God boasts of Jobs sincere loyalty to Him. And in Deuteronomy 18:13, part of Moses' sermon to the people of Israel as they're about to enter the promised land, Moses encourages the people, as the NRSV well translates it, to "remain completely loyal to the Lord your God."

Only Jesus has led a perfect, sinless life, of course. It's only through Him that our sins can be forgiven. In essence, Jesus gives His perfection to those who turn from sin (repent) and believe in Him, covering our sins with His perfect sacrificial life and death. In response to this incredible gift, believers in Jesus are called to be true to Him. This entails living in a lifestyle of daily repentance and renewal: a life of turning honestly to God each day, owning our faults, and receiving the forgiveness of sins and the help of God in facing off temptations in the future.

Jesus makes a tremendous promise to those who remain true to Him: "The one who endures [in believing in Him] to the end will be saved" (Matthew 24:13). Teleios loyalty to Jesus is nothing other than faith in Jesus.

Breathe easy. Jesus isn't playing with you. Be sincerely loyal to Jesus Christ and, despite your faults, all eternity will be opened to you.

[A helpful source: Matthew (The Anchor Bible Commentaries) by W.F. Albright and C.S. Mann.]