With Ash Wednesday, Lent Begins

Today, Christians all over the world are 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 this 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, 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.]

God has taught me a lot today

For my morning Quiet Time with God today, I read Acts 15. The New Testament book of Acts, of course, is Luke's account of the life of the early Church, from Jesus' ascension through about 60 AD.

One of the things I love about Acts is that Luke never sugar coats conflicts and controversies that existed in the early Church. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Luke "tells it like it is," assuring us that even among believers in Christ who love each other, disagreements and conflicts arise.

In Acts 15, Luke recounts two conflicts, one theological with implications for the whole Church, the other personal.

The first conflict was over the threat posed by the so-called "Judaizers," Jewish Christians who, unlike Paul, Barnabas, and others, insisted that Gentile converts to faith in Christ had to submit to Old Testament Jewish ritual law. Paul and Barnabas felt that this added legalistic requirements to salvation and discipleship. The good news the early Church proclaimed is that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone and not by works of any kind. (This is the central teaching of the Christian faith.)

Paul and Barnabas therefore went to Jerusalem to meet with the apostles and elders, the leaders of the Church, to seek a resolution of the matter. This triggered what we now call the council of Jerusalem. What emerged after prayer and discussion was the directive that Gentiles need not become practicing Jews to be part of the Church's fellowship. A request was also made to the Gentile believers that, out of consideration to Jewish believers in their fellowships, they refrain from a few behaviors.

The conflict was resolved.

Oddly enough, a second conflict arose later in Antioch between Paul and Barnabas. Paul wanted to go to the churches in the cities that he, Barnabas, and their team had gone earlier, places where they had established congregations. The purpose would be to see how the congregations were doing. Barnabas was evidently amenable to that, but wanted to take a young Christian named John, also called Mark, with them. But Paul recoiled at the notion, not forgetting that during an earlier mission, while in Pamphylia, John Mark had abandoned them. Paul deemed him unreliable.

Acts 5:39-41 tells us:

The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and set out, the believers commending him to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

The question this raises is this: Was the conflict between Paul and Barnabas resolved?

I think that it was.

They agreed to disagree and they parted ways.

Sometimes, brothers and sisters in Christ can affirm the faith of those with whom they have conflicts but decide that it's best if they not work directly together. That's OK. Someday in eternity, when God's sanctifying work in us will have been completed, we won't have any personality conflicts; we'll just love the diversity of personalities that all bear the image of God. But this isn't heaven and for now, we can sometimes rub each other the wrong way.

In fact, I think that the split of Paul and Barnabas at this point ended up being a good thing for the mission and future of the Church.

Why?

First of all, by splitting, they covered more territory, encouraged more Christians, and probably won more new converts to Christ than they would have had they stayed together, going to the same places.

Secondly, Barnabas, was able to fulfill his most important calling as a Christian.

Barnabas' real name was Joseph. But his nickname, Barnabas, meant, essentially, son of encouragement.

It had been Barnabas who had taken the new convert Paul (previously Saul, a persecutor of the Church) under his wing, encouraged him, and introduced the new convert to the skeptical apostles.

After taking John Mark under his wing, Barnabas was used by God to encourage another young Christian, one who would later, tradition says, pen the Gospel of Mark.

All in all, agreeing to disagree and the parting of ways by Paul and Barnabas to which the two agreed turned out to be a very good thing.

Conflicts get resolved in different ways.

What Acts 15 tells us then about conflict, I think, is that it's not intrinsically a bad thing. 

Conflict is even an inevitable thing among people who are passionate about their faith.

Too many Christians operate with the false notion that Christians should never argue or disagree. The Bible repeatedly tells us, both overtly and by illustrative narration, that this isn't true.

When conflicts do arise among Christians though, there must be circumspection among the combatants. People need to ask themselves questions like:

• Why am I upset?
• What's really at stake?
• Is this conflict over a core theological issue (like the one raised by the Judaizers) or is this a personality clash (like the one over John Mark)?
• Would a compromise be faithful to God, Christ, and the Bible?
• Is this a conflict that requires the combatants to go their separate ways, even as they affirm each other's faith, and pray for personal reconciliation?
• Is this conflict great enough to warrant breaking the fellowship of the Church?
• Is this a time to invoke Jesus' formula for conflict resolution (Matthew 18:15-20) because you feel someone has sinned against you? 

God has taught me a lot today! My prayer is that God will help me to always have a healthy, faithful, and courageous attitude about conflict. 

Sleeping Patterns of Successful People

That's what this piece from NPR's web site purports to show us. I'm not sure what their definition of "success" is exactly, but the report on sleep habits of the 21 people they select as owning that descriptor satisfies curiosity about "how the other half sleeps."

The group's average sleep times vary significantly. The late Winston Churchill got about five hours of sleep each night. President Obama sleeps from 1am to 7am each day, six hours. Virgin chief Richard Branson gets 5 to 6 hours of sleep every night. A few NPR looks at get the usually recommended eight hours of sleep at night.

From the article:

The average amount of sleep per night from these successful people is 6.6 hours.
How does that compare to those of us who are not world leaders or titans of industry?

Turns out, the difference is pretty negligible — the "successful" people get 12 minutes less than the average American. According to this 2013 Gallup poll, the average American gets 6.8 hours of sleep every night.

So it appears hard to link "success" to any particular sleep pattern. Both the successful people and the average Joes are getting less sleep on average than what experts typically recommend, which is seven to nine hours for adults...

I've always been a guilty night owl. I love getting up really early and being productive. But I also love to stay up late and seem to do so even when I've only gotten a small amount of sleep the night before. So, when push comes to shove, I more often stay up late than get up early, which I've never really liked about myself. It appears to be how I'm wired though, as is true with most of my siblings, though one goes to bed very early each night.

The article contains a few other interesting tidbits about all Americans' sleeping habits. Read the whole thing.

The Doritos Ad and How To Disagree With Each Other

The reaction of the National Abortion Rights League (NARAL) to the Doritos Super Bowl ad in which two expectant parents see their child by sonogram was strange. They lamented how the ad "humanized" fetuses.

In a post on his blog, Russell Moore argues that it isn't parents who humanize the children they observe in a mother's womb, but God.

Then, Russell gives a warning against self-righteousness by those who consider themselves "pro-life":

...it would be easy for those of us who are pro-life to see this as merely more evidence of how abortion advocacy sears the conscience and blunts even common-sense moral intuitions. But our response here should not be self-congratulation. This small window into the way moral reasoning works ought to serve as a warning to us.

We cannot “humanize” what is already human, but we can certainly dehumanize the humanity around, or within, us. The abortion lobby wants the “fetus” to be thought of only in clinical language, as though he or she were merely an “it,” tissue to be disposed of. Those who oppress the poor want them to be thought of merely in economic categories, as drains on the “system,” not as image-bearers of God. Those who want to “consume” pornography want to think of those on the screen as images, not as people with stories and hurts and families. We too often want to think of our enemies—whether on the geopolitical stage or in our office coffee-room conflicts—as exemplars of total evil, not as each one a representation of God’s creation wisdom. We want to be justified in our actions, by reassuring ourselves that there’s no judgment to come.

He continues:

When those we dehumanize are seen, despite our best efforts, as human, we either repent or we become angered. That’s why Jesus’ hometown was enraged when he pointed to the truth that God, through his prophets, went outside the bounds of Israel to minister to a Syrian soldier (Lk. 4:27-28). I fear that some of us would have a similarly angry response to a sermon about ministry to a Syrian refugee.

In our sin, we want to keep our illusions–whatever they are–that enable us to silence the conscience within us. We want to, in short, walk in darkness. But Jesus is the “light of the world,” the light from Galilee that illumines the nations and ultimately the entire cosmos.

Abortion is a serious issue. And while there are times when it may be seen as, in the words of a statement from a Lutheran body that no longer exists, "a tragic option"--such as in the cases of rape, incest, or when a mother's life is in danger--it's sad and sinful when it's used as nothing but a belated form of birth control. A fetus is formed in the womb by the hands of God. And like all human beings, every fetus is made in the image of God. So, I think it's right to be horrified by the inhumane response of NARAL to the Super Bowl ad.

But the furor should also cause all of us, as Moore suggests, to be circumspect about how we view those who disagree with us as evil. Sometimes the people with whom we disagree are simply people with whom we disagree.

We are all sinners and none of us has any hope of anything like moral clarity apart from our submission to the loving Lordship of Jesus Christ. That realization should incite all of us to treat others with the love and consideration I believe is owed to babies in their mothers' wombs and to all people, no matter who they are.

For Jews and Christians, the obligation to love our neighbor is part of God's greatest commandments.

And for Christians, the ability to love others despite our differences is the litmus test of whether Christ really lives in us. When that happens, we can humbly listen to others' points of view, even when we disagree, and say with the apostle John, "We love because [Christ] loved us" (1 John 4:19).[Thanks to my son for posting a link to the Moore article over on Facebook. Please read Moore's really good piece.]
Here's the "controversial" ad.

I feel left out...

...because I haven't had any of this list of 25 weird things people have said to pastors and other church leaders said to me.

God's Encouragement

Luke 9:28-36

We were talking with a young person this past week and the subject of this year’s presidential election came up. She was equally glum about all the presidential candidates in both parties. “It doesn’t matter who we vote for,” she told us. “Nothing will ever get better again.”

I have to say that I share that young person’s assessment of whether the election of any person would significantly change our world for the better. 

Only a spiritual renewal will cause us to act differently toward one another. 

Only massive numbers of people coming to be disciples and to live as disciples of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, massive numbers of people daily repenting and daily believing in Christ, can move us out of what some are calling degenerative discouragement syndrome. 

It was discouragement to which that young person gave voice. 

And she isn’t alone, though some try, on their own, to make the best of it. Like people who say, “The world is going to hell. But I’m going to get what I can for me and my family.” 

Not, “The world is going to hell and I’m going to share Christ with whoever I can.” 

Not, “The world is bad, so I’m going to love my family and forgive those who sin against me.” 

Not, “I’m going to pray that God’s kingdom will come.” 

No, these people think, “Things are bad and I’m going to get as much good as I can, other people be hanged. Then I'll die."

The followers of Jesus Christ had observed many epiphanies--many manifestations of His power and Lordship--over the course of His ministry. 

Because of them, they were pinning their hopes for a better world on Jesus. 

For five hundred years, God’s people--the Jews--had suffered from a kind of degenerative discouragement syndrome. It had been that long since God had spoken through the prophets, through whom God had promised a Messiah, a Christ, an anointed King. 

Through those centuries, they endured injustice, foreign domination, and the enslavement of a grace-less religion. 

Many had given up hope that God would ever act. 

But now, as Jesus preached, taught, healed, raised the dead, and cast out demons, the veil of despair began to lift. Was God’s kingdom close at hand, after all? Was Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, God’s anointed king, come to make things right?

Eight days before the events recounted in this morning’s Gospel lesson, one disciple, the apostle Peter, was moved by the Holy Spirit to claim Jesus as “God’s Messiah.” [Luke 9:20] 

According to Luke, Jesus silently acceded to Peter’s confession, charged the disciples to say nothing to anyone because first, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” [Luke 9:22]

At that, the disciples must have felt that the small embers of hope just being brought to flame by Jesus were being doused by His cold wet blanket. 

Popular thought said that the Messiah--the Christ--would conquer foreign foes and ensure an era of financial prosperity. (The very things we expect of presidents, by the way.) The Christ, they thought, would govern justly and everyone would live happily ever after.

But Jesus understood that the people of His homeland--the people of the world, including you and me--are oppressed by much more than foreign threats or economic challenges, more than poverty or terrorism. All of those ills and many more come from a deeper human problem, the problem that Jesus came to conquer. The problem is sin, humanity’s inborn alienation from God, and death, the common enemy of every human being, that springs from death.

Jesus was telling Peter: “You’re right. I am the Messiah. And this is what the Messiah does. He bears the weight of Your sin and death on the cross, taking the punishment you deserve, so that if you repent and believe in Me, you will have eternal life in the kingdom of God.” 

The kingdom of God exists for all eternity, starting here in the hearts and wills of people who follow Jesus. Being a member of this kingdom today won’t erase the sins or tragedies of this fallen world. It’s still poisoned by sin and death. 

But being a member of this kingdom today will give us the faith and courage to live the Christian life: to love God, to love neighbor, to serve others with no expectation of return payment, to call others to follow Jesus with no expectation that they will say yes, to pray in Jesus’ name for those we love and for those who hate us. 

When the risen Jesus lives in us by faith, we can take a world going to hell in our arms and love it with the love of Christ. 

When you know that the story ends beyond the gates of death with eternal life with God, it changes how you do today!

But when you’ve lived for five centuries with degenerative discouragement and you’re told that your favorite myth about the Messiah is false, that the Messiah is going to suffer rejection and execution, that He will conquer your enemies by death and not warfare before He rises from the dead, you need encouragement. 

And so, our lesson tells us that God the Father supplied it! 

Verse 28: “About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. [God always shows up when we pray! Even if we’re discouraged, even if we can't sense Him coming close to us when we call Him. God will show up for us when we pray!] As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. [Already, this should be reminding us of the time in Exodus 24, when, centuries before, Moses took Joshua up to a mountaintop with him as he received God’s Law. When people looked at Moses, they saw the bright light of God on his face. Now back on this mountain with Jesus,] Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. [The word translated as departure here is literally exodus. Jesus is leading people who repent and believe in Him out of the wilderness of sin and death into the promised land of forgiven sin and new and eternal life.] Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.”

What a sight it must have been for the discouraged eyes of Peter, John, and James! The holiness, grandeur, and light of God emanating from every pore of Jesus’ earthly body. The lawgiver Moses, centuries dead, and Elijah, Israel’s greatest prophet, carried away by a chariot of fire centuries earlier, there to affirm that Jesus was the Messiah to Whom the Law and the Prophets and the Writings of the Old Testament all pointed. 

God was assuring the three disciples (and us) that despite the cross that awaited Jesus--that awaits who follow Him, He was still God and that the Messiah, after claiming His throne, would reign eternally over all who endure in believing in Him.

Verse 33: “As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters (The word in the Greek in which Luke wrote his Gospel is skene, literally meaning tabernacle or tent, also resonating of the Old Testament's account of God's people during their exodus from Egypt through the wilderness to the Promised Land.)—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ (He did not know what he was saying.) While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.’ When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone.”

Peter wanted to capture the moment, as though you could possibly capture the majesty and mystery of God in a tent, a booth, a tabernacle, a church, a cathedral, or a universe. God, who Peter was looking at in Jesus, is bigger than all the boxes we try to put Him in. 

Besides that, Peter seems to think that Moses and Elijah were on an equal footing with Jesus. Just so Peter doesn’t misunderstand, God the Father envelops the whole group in a cloud, like the pillar of a cloud through which He led ancient Israel through the wilderness, and then says unequivocally: “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to Him.” At that, the three disciples found themselves with Jesus alone. 

What was God telling Peter and the other two (and us)? Simply this: “This is all you have been looking for. This is the one to whom Moses and Elijah were pointing. This is your king, God in the flesh. This is your wandering hearts' true desire!” 

Jesus was and is the Messiah toward whom all of human history had been moving. 

As the book of Hebrews puts it in a passage I mentioned a few Sundays ago: “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.” [Hebrews 1:1-2]

For people discouraged by life, the events of the first Transfiguration Sunday give hope. 

They must have helped Peter, John, and James and the disciples they led through the pain of Good Friday and Holy Saturday. “Yes,” they could have said, “Jesus has died, but we saw Him on the mountaintop. We know that He is God. But hold on. Hold on!” 

And when they saw the risen Jesus, the Holy Spirit would help them to put the pieces of the mystery together. They would understand that the sinless Messiah had to die so that when He rose, He could claim us not for a kingdom that lasts for a few fleeting years, not a kingdom that may give us material prosperity and personal security before we die in our sins, but an everlasting kingdom filled with the righteousness and peace and presence and love of God. 

Take courage in the midst of this world’s darkness, hold on tightly to Jesus, because “the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” [Matthew 24:13] That’s the promise of Jesus’ transfiguration!

[This was shared today during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Bob Howsam's Connection to the Broncos

I never knew this about the architect of the Big Red Machine, arguably the best team in National League history.

I'm thinking Pharma doesn't want this guy as their public face

Contempt for sick people.

Contempt for less than wealthy people.

Obvious contempt for those he thinks beneath him.

Contempt for the Congress.

Contempt for justice.

Contempt for the human race.

It's disturbing. Praying for Martin Shkreli and praying that, until he can develop something like respect for his fellow human beings, he doesn't have access to power of any kind.

There's evidently more betting on Super Bowl teams...

...than there is praying for them.

'23 People Who Became Successful After Age 40'

Fun.

'Confessions of a recovering lesbian'

I invite you to read this with an open mind.

'About that mom [or dad] who's not bragging about her [his] kid'

Nancy Wolf explains why some parents, while proud of their kids, remain silent while other parents tout their children's latest accomplishments. She gives great advice at the end of the piece.

What 1915 Armenian Genocide by Turkey Teaches Us Today

Here. Very interesting.

'Why I Gave in to Barbie, Even Before Her Size Change'

We knew a man who worked for a major toy manufacturer. He hated Barbie. No matter how much research or work they put into their own versions of the 57-year old staple of the world toy market, Barbie always won.

Barbie hasn't been winning lately. Her whiteness and impossible measurements are blamed for aiding and abetting a culture that objectifies and idealizes white women, while discouraging them from using their minds or athleticism.

Many parents have been avoiding buying Barbies for years, meaning that lately, she hasn't been the market queen who bedeviled our friend.

That's why Mattel has recently unveiled, modestly more physically realistic versions of Barbie.

But Laura Goetsch writes that after she and her husband refused to give Barbies to their daughters, their opinion about the doll changed. It started with a gift given to one of their girls at a birthday party.

We threw her a butterfly-themed party, and one guest brought a present to match: a Barbie with extendable orange, pink, and black wings, like a monarch butterfly. This thoughtful neighbor, having recently arrived in the US, was likely unaware of our American angst over Barbie, and she clearly did not share it. She simply chose a toy that a little girl who was into butterflies would love. There was no question that we would embrace this thoughtful gift with gratitude and gladness.

The Barbie was embraced. But within a context of other messages, conversations, and examples for the the daughters.

I could have tried to quash my kids’ love of this svelte fashionista, but I chose not to. To express disdain for Barbie risks communicating to my daughters that their interests are frivolous, their delights are wrong. I won’t do this. At heart, is love of fashion and design not love of beauty? I believe that God himself planted this love of beauty, color, and texture in us.  

Playing house with dolls is a way to explore our own world. This is no less true when the doll’s proportions are unrealistic and her clothes a bit tight. If there had been another line of toys that I could have easily found secondhand with as many interesting accessories, I would have bought those. Instead, we have allowed our girls to relish the endless creative opportunities Barbie offers despite her downfalls.  

Like most American moms, I worry about my girls’ body images. I want them to view women as strong, wise, and gifted by God. In a society flooded with airbrushed pictures, no woman is immune from self-doubt and confusion. I wish that for the next 20 years I could hide all the commercials, billboards, and celebrity photos. I would love to create a world in which my kids only saw real women with realistic bodies.  

I’m grateful that the newly shaped Barbies help us take a step toward that world, but it’s only a tiny step and will likely make little impact on girls who learn early our cultural preference for skinny bodies. When I was wrestling a few years ago with whether to let my kids play with Barbie, I realized that to eliminate her would simply be to remove one trickle from a fire hose….at the cost of my kids’ favorite way to play and create. I decided that it was more important to foster their gifts and interests than to assuage my uneasy conscience (a conscience that on this issue was perhaps more informed by society's expectations of me as an educated Christian woman than by the Holy Spirit).
This is not to say that I am off the hook. My husband and I must still ask, how will we build up our daughters in truth and strength? How will we give them God’s vision for women? We’ll start off by ensuring that Barbie is not the only female figure they know and admire.  

We surround them with godly, brave, gifted women. We read biographies of Corrie Ten Boom and Harriet Tubman. We play soccer, practice math, and make art. We call them to love God with their hearts, souls, minds, and strength. We push them to love their neighbors as themselves. And yes, we discuss their Barbies’ absurd proportions. 

We talk of building sharp minds and strong bodies, soft hearts and deep souls. We cheer their ingenuity. We root them in a rich faith community. We play with Legos and with light sabers. We laugh and delight in what delights them. We tell the stories of Scripture. We trust that God is using their creative play with Barbie to develop their unique gifts.

In my years as a pastor and a parent, I've found that it's possible for parents to discuss anything with their kids, so long as you love and support them. Girls will even accept your criticisms of Barbie's impossible body, her obsession with beauty, and her dependence on a man for validation, if they know that you love them and when you teach them that God has gifted them to use their minds and that adhering to a false image of womanhood is both destructive and unnecessary. Read the whole thing, please.

Sign Her Up!

This is fun! Good on Billy Hamilton.

"Discrimination against people should be unlawful, but not against ideas."

Here.

It's true to say, as the writer claims, that Jesus never specifically condemned the practice of homosexuality.

It's also true that Jesus claimed to have come to not to abrogate God's moral law, as revealed in the Ten Commandments, but to fulfill it.

It's also true to say that every statement Jesus made about marriage was predicated on the premise that marriage is a covenant under God between a man and a woman.

(HT: Ann Althouse)

"Thrilling is fine. Mattering is more important."

He mostly writes about business, but this short post by Seth Godin is about life.

Jordan River Baptism Creates International "Incident"

Love this.

Are first-borns smarter?

I always told my siblings I was smarter than them. The study mentioned here claims it's possibly true, that there's a 1.5-point decline in IQ with succeeding each child in a family. In honesty though, I told my daughter, who sent the link for this article to me earlier today, that I'm skeptical of the findings. (By the way, she sent the link to me because she found the article "funny." She's the second child.)

NY to London in 15 Minutes

Wish I could book my flight now! (HT to my son, who linked to this piece over on Facebook.)

The Authority to Change Eternity

[This was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, yesterday, January 31.]

[You can listen to the message by clicking here.]

Luke 4:31-44

At first, today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 4:31-44, may seem like a hodgepodge narrative of two days in Jesus’ earthly ministry. But the incidents recounted here are really linked by two strong themes.They’re important for us to remember.

The first theme is authority.

The lesson takes place in the Galilean town of Capernaum. Jesus is preaching in the synagogue and Luke tells us that, as Jesus does so, the people “were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority.”

Many people try to speak with authority. In this presidential election year, we see that a lot. But when Jesus taught and preached, it was unlike anything the people had heard.

In Jesus, whether people knew it or not, they heard the voice of the One Who had once said, “‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” That’s authority! 

Later in the passage, a man disrupted Jesus’ teaching in the synagogue. The man was filled with a demon.

We need to stop here for a second because as post-moderns, we may be skeptical about the existence of demons. I don’t share this skepticism about the existence of demonic forces in our world, though.

A few years ago, our son Philip went with his now-wife on a mission trip to Haiti. One day, Philip’s young translator took Phil on a tour of the town close to the school where they were working and later, the translator took Phil to his own home. Near the end of their visit, the translator introduced Philip to his sister. Phil shook her hand and felt that the sister was there, but not quite. Her eyes had a strange look. After they left her, the translator turned to Phil and said, “She has a demon.” Philip knew it was true.

In a culture like ours that has come to doubt the existence of Satan (which suits Satan just fine; he doesn’t want you to think he exists), the forces of hell and the demonic operate more subtly. Satan, the serpent of the garden who was described by Genesis as the most subtle or crafty of creatures, is a master marketer. He understands exactly what is most likely to drive people away from God in any given culture.

In first-century Judea, as in twenty-first century Haiti, one marketing ploy that Satan commonly used to frighten them into thinking that the devil was more powerful than God and that God couldn’t help them was (and is) demonic possession.

But even in the face of demonic possession of a human being, Jesus is authoritative. Verse 35: “‘Be quiet!’ Jesus said sternly [to the demon]. ‘Come out of him!’ Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him. All the people were amazed and said to each other, ‘What words these are! With authority [there’s that word again] and power he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out!’”

Whatever evil afflicts you, whatever temptation dogs you today, whatever sin has overtaken you, Jesus can have conquering authority over it, if you will let Him.

Not long ago, I was talking with a man who told me that over the course of several years, there had been a steady, almost imperceptible decline in his faith life and his character. He was still in worship. But he didn’t pray very often. And he found himself toying with temptations and sins he never would have previously considered. In the process, he became more cynical, more critical of others, less patient, more selfish.

The horrifying thing is that he was enjoying it. His increasing slavery to sin felt like freedom to him. This is how sin and the devil can mess up our thinking!

Fortunately, the man still did occasionally feel prompted to pray. (Remember that our prayers are always responses to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. We wouldn't know or feel drawn to pray otherwise!)

One day he was praying. In the middle of giving God a laundry list of things he wanted in his life, he stopped cold.

“I was walking into my living room,” he told me, “when suddenly, there were tears in my eyes. I felt totally convicted by God for how I was living. I called out to God, ‘I don’t want to be far from You, Lord. Help me to be a man of God again!’”

That man gave me permission to tell his story so that you will know that there are more subtle ways of becoming demon-possessed than the way recounted in today’s Gospel lesson.

The God we know in Jesus Christ will never force Himself on you; God only goes where He’s invited.

And when almost imperceptibly, we walk away from God--neglecting worship, the study of God’s Word, prayer, receiving the sacraments, or caring for or serving our neighbor--we create vacancies in our souls that become footholds for sin, darkness, and the devil.

When that man came to God in Jesus’ name, even though he prayed selfishly, he was actually inviting Jesus back into his life. For the first time in a while, this man felt truly free of the sins that were destroying his character, his relationships, his self-esteem. Jesus has the authority to do this in all of our lives.

Jesus speaks the Word of God with authority. Jesus also speaks with authority to defeat Satan. But that’s not the end of the authority theme in our lesson.

Starting at verse 38, Jesus enters the home of Simon, the apostle Jesus would rename Peter. There, he found that Simon’s mother-in-law was ill with a fever.

This was no demonic invasion. This was physical illness. Illness is another manifestation of evil in our fallen world, but most physical illnesses don’t come to us because, like the man I just mentioned, we’ve sinned. People get the mumps or chickenpox or cancer usually simply because illness happens in a fallen world. Physical illness is a consequence of living in an imperfect world. One day, those who entrust their lives to Jesus Christ will live in an eternity beyond the reach of illness. But this isn’t heaven.

Yet in Jesus, heaven comes to this world, as it did that day in Simon’s house. Verse 38: “...Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.”

In His own authority, Jesus signified the power He ultimately will wield over our common human enemies--sin, death, darkness--by restoring the health of Simon’s mother-in-law.

Jesus still conquers illness today.

Great doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals know this.

In hospitals here in Dayton, I have experienced more than in any other place I’ve served, doctors, nurses, and anesthesiologists who join patients, families, and me in praying before surgical procedures.

When competent, trained medical professionals also pray in Christ’s name for their patients, those patients can great confidence that they are in God’s hands as He guides human hands.

After healing Simon’s mother-in-law, Luke says that Jesus brought healing and deliverance to many more in Capernaum.

Early the next day, He went off to a quiet place. Crowds found him and tried to convince Him to stay. But in verse 43, Jesus says: “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”

And this is the second important theme of today’s Gospel lesson. The preaching of Jesus, the exorcisms He performed, the healing He brought, and everything Jesus did that day in Capernaum and everything He did while on earth, were really about one thing: To bring the good news of new and everlasting life to all who dare to turn from sin and believe in Him. Every miraculous thing Jesus ever did was meant to be a sign pointing us to Him as the way, the truth, and the life, to Jesus as God the Son and Savior.Every person Jesus healed, brought back from the dead, or from whom he exorcised demons, had one thing in common. They all eventually died to life on this earth. Jesus exercised His authority in these ways not because life could ever be made perfect in this imperfect world, but to point to the good news that can change the person who believes for all eternity!

No doubt many in Capernaum wanted Jesus to stay because they saw Him as the cure for their earthly afflictions. We human beings are always more impressed by flashy, easy to observe, earthly things. You’ll remember that Jesus once sent His disciples out to replicate His ministry--to heal, to cast out demons, to preach and teach. They came back to Jesus excited about the authoritative signs that they’d performed in Jesus’ name. But Jesus told them, “...do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” [Luke 10:20] These are good words for us to remember!

In this life, nothing will ever be perfect.

Our prayers will often seem to go unanswered.

Evil will often seem to win.

We may be tempted in the face of these realities to wonder whether God is there or if He is there, whether He cares.

But every time, in the name of Jesus, sin is forgiven, relationships are mended, healing is granted, God uses us to feed hungry people or helps us tell a friend about Jesus, whenever God empowers us to fight for justice for our neighbors, and whenever lives are made eternally new through faith in Christ, we are given signs that, beyond this life, those made righteous by faith in Christ will live a resurrected life with God and in the company of the saints and that all that hurts us--that hurts God Who stands with us--will be gone for eternity.

In the meantime, may we live under the authority of Christ Who saves us from sin and death and may we share the good news that all who turn from sin and surrender to Christ can have this same everlasting life with God! Amen