Hey, Cincinnati folks! Below is the text of a press release we've sent out to media in our community. If you're able to be with us for this special, fun night, that would be great!

PRESS RELEASE
[for immediate release]
Comedian Marty Daniels, developing a reputation for being "clean, smart, and funny," will perform on Friday night, June 27, in the building facilities Friendship Church, 1300 White Oak Road, just west of Amelia. Doors open at 7:00 P.M. and Daniels begins his performance at 8:00 P.M. Cost for the event is $1.00 per person.

A veteran of radio and the music industry, Daniels is wowing audiences with his fun perspectives on life. He manages to get laughs without resorting to profanity or sexual innuendo. What's particularly remarkable is that Daniels is gaining attention for his talent not within what some call "the Christian ghetto," but at mainstream comedy clubs, venues at which coarseness and profanity are often accepted practice.

Marty harnesses the madness of life in ways that leave corporate groups, marriage conferences, and comedy club patrons doubled over in laughter without the guilt. "Okay," the comedian says, "with half the guilt."

Daniels is, as he would put it, "the much younger brother" of Friendship Church's pastor, Mark Daniels. "I'm glad that we're able to present Marty to our community in this way," says Mark. "He's a genuinely funny man and I think it's good for people who may associate Christian faith with prune-faced legalism to know that when Christ makes you confident that God loves you, you're able to laugh...a lot."

For more information about the performance or for directions to the church building, contact the Friendship Church office at 513-752-5265. For more information about Marty Daniels' comedy, go to www.martydaniels.com.

I'm re-posting this e-mailed request from my colleague, Pastor Glen Bengson, in order to give it "top-billing" for today. Jesus says that when we help those in need, we serve Him (Matthew 25:31-46). Here's Glen's letter:

Dear Friends,
Bread for the World has named June 16-20 as "National Call-In Days" in
support of the Millenium Challenge Account to increase foreign
assistance to fight hunger, especially in Africa, where many nations are
now undergoing a serious famine. This MCA was proposed by Pres. Bush and
has bipartisan support through Senate bill S. 1160. (Pres. Bush's
proposed budget also included a five year increase in spending to
address AIDS, but that is another item not directly connected to the
MCA.)

My request is that you take a minute this week to call your Senators
using the toll free line BFW has established and 1) urge their support
for S. 1160 establishing the Millenium Challenge Account, and 2) urge
them to make sure the MCA is funded at the President's budget level
request level of $1.3 billion in fiscal 2004, without making cuts to
other development and humanitarian assistance programs. In the midst of
other budget matters, citizen support for such humanitarian assistance
must be expressed, even when the President is in support of these
measures.

The toll-free number is 1-800-826-3688. This will get you the capitol
switchboard. Simply ask for the office of Senator..............Please
call June 16-20 when the toll-free number is operating.

You can call BFW at 1-800-82-BREAD for further info, or go to the BFW
website,

Thanks very much for considering this action.

Glen

I received this note from a colleague, Pastor Glen Bengson, today. He has given me permission to share it with you.

Dear Friends,
Bread for the World has named June 16-20 as "National Call-In Days" in
support of the Millenium Challenge Account to increase foreign
assistance to fight hunger, especially in Africa, where many nations are
now undergoing a serious famine. This MCA was proposed by Pres. Bush and
has bipartisan support through Senate bill S. 1160. (Pres. Bush's
proposed budget also included a five year increase in spending to
address AIDS, but that is another item not directly connected to the
MCA.)

My request is that you take a minute this week to call your Senators
using the toll free line BFW has established and 1) urge their support
for S. 1160 establishing the Millenium Challenge Account, and 2) urge
them to make sure the MCA is funded at the President's budget level
request level of $1.3 billion in fiscal 2004, without making cuts to
other development and humanitarian assistance programs. In the midst of
other budget matters, citizen support for such humanitarian assistance
must be expressed, even when the President is in support of these
measures.

The toll-free number is 1-800-826-3688. This will get you the capitol
switchboard. Simply ask for the office of Senator..............Please
call June 16-20 when the toll-free number is operating.

You can call BFW at 1-800-82-BREAD for further info, or go to the BFW
website,

Thanks very much for considering this action.

Glen

Another great thought from Pastor Glen VanderKloot. To subscribe to his daily e-mailed inspirations, contact him at pastor@faithlutheran.com. Here's his inspiring e-mail for the day:

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A Thought for the Day


There are times when the greatest act of kindness we can express
towards another human being is to swallow our own sadness, or to
refuse to make that sarcastic or impatient remark. Acts of kindness
such as these costs us ourselves, and when we agree to pay this
price it is a better, brighter world that we buy back.

Real acts of love never say, "Look at me!" Real Love never flaunts
herself, but quietly gives herself up for the sake of another.

-- Guy Finley

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Bible Verse
James 3:2

All of us do many wrong things.
But if you can control your tongue,
you are mature and able to control your whole body.
(Contemporary English Version)

Prayer

Lord, please put your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth. Amen

Another gem from my colleague, Pastor Glen VanderKloot from Faith Lutheran Church in Springfield, Illinois. To receive his daily e-mailed inspirations, contact him at pastor@faithlutheran.com...

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A Thought for the Day

Sometimes all a person needs is
a hand to hold and
a heart to understand.

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Bible Verse
Proverbs 18:24

Some friends don't help,
but a true friend is closer than your own family.


Contemporary English Version

Prayer

Lord, help me to be there for others with open hands and heart and
send people with open hands and hearts to be there for me. Amen.

A great site to visit every day is www.thehungersite.com. There, with a simple click of your mouse, you can insure that donations are made to hunger relief efforts throughout the world. Really! Several investigations of the web site have shown that donations truly are made by sponsoring organizations when you click. I try to go there every day. It's a simple way to do something good for others.

Worship: The Road to Significance
Holy Trinity Sunday, June 15, 2003
Isaiah 6:1-8
(Shared with the people of Friendhsip Church)

If I were to ask every person in this auditorium today, “What were you doing when the World Trade Center towers were attacked?,” chances are very good that all of you would be able to answer the question in detail. The attack of September 11, 2001 was a cataclysmic event that created uncertainty and fear in all of us. You remember a thing like that!

Our Bible lesson begins with a similar event. For the people of ancient Israel, the reign of King Uzziah had been a good era. They had prosperity and peace. Everything was going well. Then, Uzziah died. The result was uncertainty and fear.

On the Sunday after September 11, church buildings across America were packed with worshipers. A National Service of Prayer, where Billy Graham preached, held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. brought together all of the most prominent leaders of our country and attracted a nationwide television audience. When faced with overwhelming fear and uncertainty, the natural inclination of even the most hard-hearted person was to look for God.

The same was true in ancient Israel. After King Uzziah’s death, Isaiah sought solace and guidance by worshiping God in the temple at Jerusalem.

It was then that Isaiah saw a stunning vision. In contrast to the dead king of Israel, a mortal whose heart had stopped beating, Isaiah saw the living King of the universe, God almighty! Isaiah records his vision in our Bible lesson:

"...I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of His robe filled the temple... [Angels surrounded God] And one called—notice that they were calling, shouting—to another, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts [the hosts are the thousands upon thousands of angels that God commands]; the whole earth is full of His glory.'”

As Isaiah looks at this awesome vision, he felt the earth move beneath him. The “house”—the temple—fills with smoke.

Now, if during one of our Sunday morning worship celebrations, you and I caught a vision like this, how would we react? I tell you one thing: we wouldn’t yawn. We wouldn’t look down at our watches and wonder how long until the first inning of the ball game, either. Nor would we necessarily feel very comfortable.

Isaiah wasn’t comfortable either. Looking at God’s greatness, majesty, and perfection, Isaiah reacted as I think you and I would react if we had an ounce of sense. He said:

“Woe is me! [That means, “I’m a hopeless, done-for, condemned goner.”] I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Then, something really strange happens (as if what has happened so far weren’t strang enough). One of the angels attending God approaches Isaiah, holding a burning coal in a pair of tongs. He touches Isaiah’s mouth with that hot coal and tells Isaiah that, having acknowledged his sin and been purged of sin, he was no longer guilty. “Your sin is blotted out,” the angel tells Isaiah.

A moment before, Isaiah had been overwhelmed by his sinfulness, his unworthiness. He didn’t feel qualified to even stand in the presence of God. But now, freed of the power of sin and death, when God asks for a volunteer to do His will in the world, Isaiah cries out, “Here I am, Lord; send me!”

When I was a young man, I wanted to be a BMOC, big man on campus, and I wanted the world to be my campus. I thought that leading a life of significance meant achieving prominence. Some people hold onto that idea and let it propel them toward wealth, power, prestige, property.

Others, discouraged by the failures and setbacks we inevitably encounter in life, give up on having significant, meaningful lives. Their motto is, “You’re born. You hang around for awhile. You die.” These folks sneak through life, taking few risks and reaping little joy.

But here’s what God is teaching me: We should never give up on the quest for significance. Instead, we need to change our understanding of what that means. Having a significant life doesn’t reside in being a BMOC.

Isaiah shows us the road to living significant, meaningful lives in our Bible lesson today. A life of significance begins in worship. I’m not talking about going through the motions on a Sunday morning. I mean bringing our whole lives before God the way we all did on that Sunday after the September 11 attacks, the way Isaiah did after the death of a beloved king.

Real worship means seeing God, as Isaiah did, through the eyes of a person totally in awe of God. When Isaiah showed up for worship in the temple that day after King Uzziah died, he felt vulnerable. He needed God and he knew he needed God. He knew that he was a sinner who didn’t deserve to live. He knew that He didn’t deserve to be in God’s presence. He knew that God is bigger than any of us. Once Isaiah was able to understand these things, he was ready to do something significant with his life. It’s only when we’re willing to admit our inadequacy without God that we can move toward doing all that God has in mind for us.

Millard Fuller’s life was a mess. He and his wife had all the financial rewards that can come to people. But their marriage was on the rocks and they were miserably unhappy. In humility and desperation, Fuller came before almighty God and asked for help. Do you know what God seemed to say? “Now you’re talking, Millard. Now I can do things in your life.” Fuller got rid of all his business interests. And together, he and his wife started Habitat for Humanity. Their marriage was saved and thrived because they turned away from thinking about themselves and turned their attention instead toward God.

Today is Father’s Day. I’m convinced that if we fathers would take our gaze away from being successful in the eyes of the world and turned toward God, we might not start worldwide movements like Habitat for Humanity, but we could have a significant impact on our own little corners of the world. All of us—singles, marrieds, childless, “child-full”—can have lives of significance when we dare to truly worship God and put Him first.

Three years ago, my family and I were in England. You may remember that our kids’ high school choir went on a concert tour there. The first place they sang was the former abbey in Shrewsbury, near the border with Wales, a place made famous in the fictional Brother Cadfael mysteries. The abbey is now a church. After Palm Sunday worship there, I was talking with one of the other choir parents. He leaned on one of the huge pillars, a piece of construction that’s eight-hundred years old. The guy said, “You know, some might think that the people who built this were primitive. But it’s been here since the thirteenth century. They must have done something right!”

After Isaiah’s encounter with God and his humble acknowledgment of God’s greatness and his own smallness, he volunteered to go wherever God would send him. He volunteered to share whatever message God would give to him. Isaiah became a prophet. Among the prophecies God revealed to Isaiah were details about the birth of the Savior of the world, Jesus, an event that would only happen seven centuries later. Those prophecies gave people hope even when things looked bleak. And two-thousand, seven-hundred years later, we still derive hope and inspiration from the Old Testament book of Isaiah.

Some people may think that a man of God who lived three-millennia ago was primitive. But I’ll tell you, Isaiah did something right for us to still be talking about him. The “something right” he did was build his life on the God that he worshiped.

If I were to ask another question, I’m equally confident of the answer I would get. The question: Do you want your life to count for something? I believe that all of us want to live lives of meaning and purpose. If that’s how you feel, the road to significance is clear. Use your whole life to worship the God we know through Jesus Christ. There will be times when you sin and fail and “crash and burn” along the way. I say that from bitter experience because sometimes I sin and fail and “crash and burn.” I am human and sometimes I let my agenda and my desires get in the way of God’s agenda and desires for me. That’s always a mistake. That’s why I’m so grateful that God allows us to repent—to turn from our sin and come back into His strong, loving arms just like Isaiah did that day in the temple when he saw his vision of God. When we build our lives on God, that’s when we’re on the road to significance. That’s when we’re living!

[The theme of this message was suggested by a message on the same text by Pastor Michael Foss, Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Burnsville, Minnesota.]

My brother, Marty Daniels, is a very funny clean comedian. Here are notes on some upcoming gigs where you can go see Marty and laugh like crazy!

In Columbus on Thursday, June 26, Marty will be appearing at Bingo's Comedy Club, 3820 Sullivant Avenue (that's on the west side). Doors open at 6:00 P.M. and the show begins at 7:00 P.M. Tickets are $5.00 each for adults and $3.00 for children. Snack foods and soft drinks are available for purchase at the venue. For more information, you can call 614-751-5388.

In Cincinnati on Friday, June 27, Marty will be appearing at our congregation's monthly 3N Party. That'll happen in our brand-spanking new church building (Friendship Church) at 1300 White Oak Road, one mile west of Amelia. Festivities begin at 7:00 P.M. For one dollar, you can come enjoy a clean comedy show and hang out with some of the nicest young people in the Western Hemisphere. There will also be refreshments.

For details on Marty's comedy and other places you can catch him in performance, check out his web site: www.martydaniels.com.

My colleague, Pastor Glen VanderKloot of Faith Lutheran Church in Springfield, Illinois, publishes a daily e-mailed inspiration. The Saturday editions are always a bit longer and I love them. Here, copied and pasted, is today's edition. To subscribe to OnLine with Faith, e-mail Glen at pastor@faithlutheran.com.


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WELCOME to the Saturday issue of ONLINE WITH FAITH. Saturday is intended for
youngsters but may also apply to those who are older. Some folks have
discovered that it works very well to read them along with or to your children.
Saturday editions are written by Pastor Juli Lejman-Guy of Grace Lutheran
Church, Springfield, IL.


ONLINE WITH FAITH is a ministry of Faith Lutheran Church, Springfield, IL,
Glen VanderKloot, Pastor.

If you have any questions, comments, or prayer requests please be in touch with
us at pastor@faithlutheran.com

You are encouraged to pass this on to others.
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THOUGHT FOR TODAY
TRANSITIONS

Transitions surround us. All around us people are in a state of change.
Things change and that is life.

Caroline finished second grade. Sarah is quickly finishing preschool in
anticipate of starting to Kindergarten next fall. Katie graduated from High
School last week and her sister Amy is getting married today. We celebrated
the Affirmation of Baptism (also known as “Confirmation”) as two young ladies
publicly affirmed their faith. Two weeks ago we baptized two infants and two
adults. Frances is dealing with health issues and an uncertain future. Hal is
moving into a senior center. Christy is waiting to become a new mother – again!

All around us people are dealing with change. People move. People have health
issues. People change jobs either out of necessity when a job is terminated or
by choice. We get older and we have decisions to make that affect others as
well. Transition surrounds us.

Transitions also help us grow. Transitions can challenge us. Transitions can
test us. Transitions can be painful. But transitions can also be good. We
grow and we learn. We may decide to do things differently. We might learn to
rely on others around us.

In the midst of all of the change around us, we must remember that Jesus never
changes. Before Jesus died, he promised to send his followers a helper. That
helper we call the Holy Spirit.

God calls all believers around the world to testify to the love of God through
Jesus Christ. That witness, that sharing, comes from your personal experience
with Christ. Jesus has been with you since the beginning of your life of
faith. You know Christ and you have the Spirit as your helper to give you the
words to speak about that relationship with Christ. The 16th chapter of John
assures all who believe that they will not face the future alone or
unequipped.

The Spirit keeps us connected to Jesus and to one another. According to Jesus’
Farewell Discourse in the Gospel of John, the Holy Spirit has five roles:

To be with us forever (John 14:16)
To teach and remind us of Jesus’ words (John 14:26)
To testify and witness on Jesus’ behalf (John 15:26)
To prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness & judgment (John 16:7-11)
To guide us into all truth (John 16:12-15)

Then the presence of the Spirit was necessary because the community of
believers was being persecuted. In Acts, the Spirit gave the believers great
powers and boldness in their witness. The Spirit gave and still gives the
followers the words to speak.

Jesus was telling the disciples that he had to go. They were sad because their
friend was saying good-bye. But Jesus also told them that it was to their
advantage that things change. Things would be even better because the
Advocate, the Spirit of truth would come to be with them.

Things around us change and life goes on. But we are never alone. We may not
be able to see the Holy Spirit. But Jesus has assured us that the Spirit is
with us today, tomorrow and forever.

BIBLE VERSE

"I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When
the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will
not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to
you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what
is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this
reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
John 16:12-15 NRSV

PRAYER

Dear Jesus, thank you for sending the Holy Spirit to lead and guide me in my
words and deeds. Amen

FAMILY ACTIVITY

Make a list of transitions you have had in your life. Be sure to include the
happy times as well as the sad. Pick one or two to talk about as a family.
What happened? Who was involved? How was the Spirit involved helping you
through that time? What was the outcome?

For example: the birth of a new baby can cause a lot of changes in a
household. While it is a joyous time, suddenly there is one more person in the
family. An older brother or sister might have to share space, toys, clothes,
mom and dad’s time and attention. Perhaps mom and dad are not getting as much
sleep as they are used to getting. Things have to be better organized to get
to work and school on time. But in time, the family learns to work together.
They grow closer and have another person to share in that love. AS they teach
that new baby about God’s love, they grow deeper in their own love for God.

When everyone is done sharing, be sure to thank God for those times, the people
who were there and the difference it has made in your life.

The Holy Spirit!
Acts 2:1-21
(Shared with the people of Friendship Church, June 8, 2003, Pentecost Sunday)

I had a strange, frustrating experience yesterday. Sarah, our exchange student from Germany, was scheduled to fly back home along with her mother, Martina, who had been visiting with us for the past three weeks. The flight was scheduled for 7:00 P.M.and we were advised by the airline to arrive at 4:30. We did that. Three days before, we had driven to the airport, triple-checking that everything was a “go” for Sarah’s return home. We were reassured that all the arrangements were solid.

When we arrived at the airport, a man at the ticket counter informed me that while her reservation remained in place, Sarah’s ticket was no longer valid. In order to board the flight, she would have to buy a ticket at the going rate of $2607.00. I tried to explain that on three different occasions, I had been assured by airline personnel that all was set for Sarah’s return. The agent was emphatic. So was I! I asked to speak to the agent’s supervisor. “It won’t do any good,” he told me, “he’s going to tell you the same thing I just told you.” “I want to speak your supervisor anyway,” I said.

The ticket agent turned out to be a prophet. The supervisor politely let me tell the whole story and then informed me that if Sarah were to take the flight in question, her mother would have to cough up $2600.00.

I didn’t give up at that. I called the airline’s 800-number. I called the organization that sponsors exchange students, including representatives in Ohio, San Francisco, and Germany. Ultimately, Martina boarded the flight and Sarah remained behind for a few more days. Try as I might, there had been nowhere I could go for help.

There are times and circumstances that come to us in our lives when we literally don’t know what to say, what to think, what to do, or how to interpret it all. Our Bible lesson records such an incident. As Ann mentioned to me the other day, the events of the first Pentecost are “strange and otherworldly.” You may remember those events. Fifty days after Jesus rose from the dead on the first Easter and ten days after He ascended to heaven, His closest followers—disciples—were together in a room, praying. In the midst of this quiet gathering, suddenly God’s Holy Spirit came upon the disciples like a violent nor’easter or a freight train barreling down the tracks. The disciples then started telling the thousands of people who were in Jerusalem from foreign places about all of God’s great deeds.

The international crowds in Jerusalem were hard-pressed to understand what was happening. They were as discombobulated and confused by what they were seeing and hearing as I had been by my time at the Cincinnati Airport yesterday. How to explain this? How could they understand simple people from the hick province of Galilee being able to communicate with people from every corner of the planet? Most of the crowd, we’re told, were “amazed and perplexed.” Others though, were sure they understood; they sneeringly dismiss what the disciples are doing and saying. “They’re drunk, filled with new wine.”

The sneering words of the cynics incite an unlikely volunteer to stand up and demand the crowds’ attention. Just fifty-three days earlier, the Galileean fisherman Peter had gutlessly denied even knowing Jesus. Now, even after he had seen how murderously the religious and political elites had gone after Jesus, Peter—who had seen the risen Jesus—clears his throat and tells the crowd, “These people aren’t drunk.” Instead, Peter says, the crowds were witnessing the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. He reminds the crowd that God had promised that one day He would pour His Spirit upon believing people and that through their words and actions, the world would see God’s glory and goodness.

On that Pentecost, the disciples were telling about all of the great things God had done through the centuries, most importantly the new life God offers to all with faith in Jesus Christ. But the punchline comes at the end of our Bible lesson for this morning. It’s the place where Peter says:

“Then everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved.”

I might not know who I can call to fix a confusing situation at the Greater Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport. But I do know who to call in order for my everlasting life to be saved. And so do you. We call out to the One Who gives life, the One Who gives new lives to sinners like you and me who are willing to turn from sin. We call the One Who became human and died and rose for us. We call out to the Lord we know through Jesus Christ.

Every week, I receive between two and five telephone calls from people with essentially the same request. They say, “I was wondering if you provide any help with rent money?” (Or utilities, or gas money, or whatever.) There are times when this congregation has provided financial help for people in need and we no doubt will do it in the future. But that’s not what the Church is essentially about. The events of the first Pentecost show us what the Church really is about.

We see what the Church is about first of all, in the very opening of our lesson. There, we’re told, “When the day of Pentecost has come, they [the disciples] were all together in one place.” They were praying. And what is prayer anyway? Prayer happens when people call out to God.

One of my favorite books was written by the Norwegian Lutheran theologian Ole Hallesby. It’s called Prayer. There, Hallesby says that there are two essential ingredients in genuine prayer. The first is faith. That makes sense. We have to believe that the One to Whom we pray is there and that He can be trusted.

The second ingredient in genuine prayer is more difficult though. It’s desperation. For true prayer to happen, we must realize that our only hope is God. So often, the words we jabber and call prayer lack desperation. We can be entirely too self-confident. We ask God to bless something that we’ve already decided to do. Or, we ask God to legitimize something we’ve already done. Or, we ask God to be a back-up insurance policy for something we’re sure we can do without His help anyway.

But when we’re really praying, we ask God for things that we know can only happen if He intervenes. Real calling out to God—real prayer—is brought by the person who recognizes the truth of the Old Testament passage that says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builder builds in vain.” Desperation is essential to our praying.

The early Church had reason for desperately calling out to God for help. They were terrified! No matter how reassuring Jesus’ resurrection was for them (or is for us), those disciples still had to live in a hostile, hateful, difficult world. The fact is that you and I live in a tough world, too. We need God’s help. We need to call out to God.

After the disciples called out to God for help, He sent the Holy Spirit. The Spirit brings comfort, hope, and power to followers of Jesus. He can still do that for you and me today. So many times in my own life when I have felt down or defeated, I have found God comforting me with hope for no accountable reason. And after I have prayed, I have often seen God change supposedly defeating circumstances in unaccountable ways.

The Church, first of all, is that community of believers who call out to God.

The Church is also that community that helps others call out to God. One of the most hated words around—and one of my favorites—is the word evangelism. This word, rooted in the Greek, really means good newsing. Evangelism is telling others the Good News of Jesus, telling people that God so loved the whole human race that even after it had fallen into sin and rebelled against God, earning a death sentence, God still sent His Son Jesus so that all who will turn from sin and follow Him will live forever with God. As we told our Catechism students this past Saturday, each of us are to be commercials for Christ, helping others to know that they too, can call on the Lord and live.

Our call as Jesus-followers is precisely the same as the call given to the disciples on the first Pentecost: we’re to let others know about the mighty, loving God we know through Jesus Christ and that they too can call out to Him and be saved from sin and death!

The truth of the matter is that no matter how desperate we may feel in our lives, there is always somewhere we can go. All believers in Jesus can call the Lord and He will hear and He will always care. That’s the promise of Pentecost. That’s the promise of Jesus. And it’s a promise that belongs to all who dare to believe in Jesus.

Easter After Tremors
The Truth That Can Change Your Life
John 17:6-19
[Shared with the people of Friendship Church, June 1, 2003]

One of the most inspiring things about being a pastor is the opportunity God gives to me to be with people in times of crisis or difficulty. It’s in these times that a person can most clearly see God at work in people’s lives—helping them, encouraging them. Often when I visit with folks going through hard experiences, I can tell them, “There are a lot of people praying for you.” And usually, they will tell me, “I know that. I can feel their prayers. There is no way I could have gotten this far without people praying for me.”

Our Bible lesson for today indicates that it isn’t just other people who pray for us. Someone has said that maybe the one thing that makes the Church unique is that it’s the only gathering of people for whom Jesus has prayed. As believers in Jesus, you and I are beneficiaries of His prayers for us. That includes all believers in Jesus, whether we feel that we are worthy of His love for us or not.

Some of you have heard me tell of my visit one day with an elderly woman in a nursing home. She was almost eighty, had a strong mind and while somewhat frail, still functioned well. When she knew that I was coming and would be offering Holy Communion, she got into her Sunday best and awaited my arrival. But after I had shared a passage from the Bible and spent a little time visiting with her, she refused to take Holy Communion. I asked her why. She told me that she was unworthy of receiving Jesus’ body and blood. She insisted that she was too horrible a sinner. I tried to explain that whatever her sins might be, if she truly repented—in other words, if she truly wanted to walk away from her sins—she could be sure that she could walk into the welcoming, forgiving arms of Christ.

Though we talked for a long time, she remained convinced that the God could never love or forgive her. But she was wrong. And if this morning, you think that God can’t forgive you, you are wrong.

In today’s Bible lesson, Jesus prays on behalf of all believers. At one point, He says, “I have made Your Name known to those whom You gave Me from the world.” The late, great Lutheran Bible commentator R.C.H. Lenski says that in this part of His prayer, Jesus is saying that, in His very Person—in Who He is and what He does—Jesus has revealed the heart of God. Jesus said as much at another time: “I and the Father are one,” He said. And near the beginning of the book of the Bible from which today’s lesson is drawn—the Gospel of John—we’re told:

“No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, Who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made Him known.”

Martin Luther said that if we truly want to understand Who God is and what God is like, we should look at Jesus on the cross.

In a dog-eat-dog world where we feel that we must always prove ourselves, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we must prove ourselves to God. What’s worse, we might, like the woman in the nursing home, think that our violations are too horrible for God to forgive. It may even be a so-called Christian who gave us this idea. But the Savior Who prays for us makes it’s possible for you and me to be forgiven. It’s possible for us to have a healthy, whole relationship with God. It’s possible for us to be freed from our pasts.

We could spend a lifetime talking about the wonderful things Jesus reveals about the heart of God to us. But I want to focus on just three of them this morning.

First of all: Jesus reveals that God is for us. In His famous encounter with a man named Nicodemus, Jesus said that He had come into the world not to condemn the world, but so the world could be saved from sin and death by Him. This will come as a disappointment to some judgmental people.

A man was bitter about the wife who had left him for another man. He cornered me one night at a party and wanted me to tell him that his ex-wife and her new husband were both headed for hell. “I can’t say that for certain,” I told him. “But they sinned,” he said. “You’ve never sinned?” I asked him. The man allowed as how he had sinned. But he seemed to feel that their sins were worse than his. “Besides,” he said, “they’re still together. So, they’re just committing adultery every day.” I countered by saying that I had known couples who had begun their lives together in just that way. They regretted what they had done. But they were committed to not repeating their sin. They had turned to Christ and received forgiveness and the power to go on living with God in their lives. That man was disappointed because Christ shows us that God is for us. I tell you what: I’m not disappointed by that! I’m grateful for it because I’m a sinner grateful for the forgiveness I receive through Jesus Christ.

Second: Jesus reveals that God understands who we are and how difficult our lives can sometimes be. Once, you remember, Jesus came into the little town of Bethany, where three of his friends—the siblings Mary, Martha, and Lazarus—lived. Lazarus, he was told, had died. Jesus’ response? He wept. He wept for those who mourned without hope for the resurrection. He wept too for the dying his friend had experienced.

The New Testament book of Hebrews says that Jesus has experienced everything that you and I go through in our lives. The cross where He died confirms that. Yet, Jesus promises to be with us always. The Bible also tells us that nothing can separate us from the love God offers us through Jesus. Can Jesus forgive you and me? Of course He can; He understands who we are and how difficult our lives can be.

Third: Jesus reveals that God has compassion for us. Jesus was often surrounded by people hungry for His love and His touch. Once, the Bible says, He looked on the crowds and felt compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Life can sometimes leave all of us feeling that way: harassed and helpless.

Once, a man came to me to talk. He’d been sent by a counselor at a local agency. “Mark,” he told me, “this guy is at the end of his rope. He’s made a lot of mistakes in his life. Our sessions have gone pretty well. But I’ve realized that there’s a spiritual dimension to his problems.” When the man arrived, he looked haggard, disheveled. After awhile, we came to the nub of things. “I can’t believe that God will help me. I’ve screwed up too many times.” We talked for a long while. Eventually, as some of you who know me well will understand, I turned this man’s attention to Romans 8, where the preacher Paul writes, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

I’m not exaggerating when I say that as we read those words together, that man’s face lit up. “Would you write that down for me?” he asked. I wrote the passage down on a 3-by-5 card and handed it to him. I urged him to look at the card periodically each day. I don’t know what happened in that man’s life from that point. But I do know that it came as really good news to him to know that God has compassion on us and that while we may walk away from God, the God we know through Jesus Christ will never walk away from us.

Early in my ministry, a woman approached me with a big concern. It was about my preaching; she didn’t like it one bit! Why, she asked, was I always talking about how wonderful God is? Shouldn’t I be bawling people out more for their sin? Sin is serious business. God hates sin. But God hates sin because of what it does to us. It separates us from Him. It brings death. It destroys our relationships with others. It distorts our humanity. God is the loving Father Who wants to welcome us home today and forever. Every time we’re tempted to see God as a cold, distant deity, we need to remember that when God came to earth in the Person of Jesus Christ, He was loving, compassionate, and involved.

There are many mysteries in life—suffering that doesn’t go away, prayers that seem unheard, temptations that dog us, and others. But Jesus demonstrates beyond all doubt that each of us matters to God. Jesus’ resurrection says that in the end, God will act lovingly and decisively on behalf of those who believe in Jesus. The Savior Who prays for us will never walk away from us. We can count on that!

Easter After Tremors:
The Call to Love
First John 5:1-6
(Shared with the people of Friendship Church, May 25, 2003)

The whole thing began thirteen months earlier when young John Blanchard, about to ship off for duty with the Army during World War Two, went to a public library in Florida and checked out a book. He liked the book. But even more interesting to him were the notes penciled into its margins. Both the notes and the handwriting suggested a person of insight and thoughtfulness. In the front of the book, he found who had last borrowed the book, a woman named Hollis Maynell.

With determined effort, John Blanchard was able to find Miss Hollis Maynell’s address. She lived in New York City. John sent her a note and asked if she would be interested in corresponding. For thirteen months, they wrote to one another constantly and a romance blossomed. John asked Hollis for a photograph, but she refused. She told him that if he really cared, it wouldn’t matter what she looked like.

For John's return from Europe, they had arranged to meet for the first time at 7:00 one evening in Grand Central Station. “You’ll recognize me,” Hollis had written, “by the red rose I’ll be wearing in my lapel.” At the appointed time, John looked over the throngs of people “for a girl whose heart he loved, but whose face he’d never seen.”

Soon, he caught sight of a beautiful young woman with blonde hair, wearing a stunning green suit. She was gorgeous and John moved toward her without noticing that she wasn’t wearing a red rose. When they practically stood next to each other, the blonde affected a provocative smile as she asked John, “Going my way, sailor?”

It was then that John saw another woman wearing a red rose in her lapel. She was almost directly behind the girl. She was probably twice John’s age. She wore graying hair tucked under her hat. She was plump, had thick ankles, and looked matronly. John ached as from the corner of his eye, he saw the girl in the green suit walk away.

John did what he needed to do. He walked over to this woman whose words—first in the margins of a book and then in a yearlong correspondence—had so won his heart. “I’m Lieutenant John Blanchard,” he said, “and you must be Miss Maynell. I am so glad to meet you; may I take you to dinner?”

The woman smiled. “I don’t know what this is about, son,” she said, “but the young lady in the green suit who just went by...begged me to wear a rose on my coat. And she said [that] if you were to ask me about dinner, I should...tell you that she is waiting for you in the big restaurant across the street. She said it was some kind of test.”

Jesus was once asked what the greatest of God’s commands are. He said that it’s to love God and to love neighbor [Matthew 10:34-40]. That answer summarizes the meaning and theme of every commandment God has given. We’re called to love as we have been loved, even those we find unlovable [Matthew 5:47; First John 4:11]. I think that Hollis Maynell was a wise young woman because she realized that love isn’t worthy of the name if we aren’t willing to share it with everyone.

Our Bible lesson for today tells us:

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments...”

You and I have a strained relationship with our heavenly Father when we refuse to love all His other kids. Hollis Maynell tested John Blanchard’s love that day in Grand Central Station. The test of our relationship with God, which we confront every day, is our willingness to obey God by loving others.

I say willingness because none of us is perfect. If you think that you can wake up tomorrow morning and say, “Okay, God, this morning I resolve to be completely loving” and that you’ll be successful, you’re in for a big disappointment. The Bible says that “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” [Romans 3:23]

But God will take a willing person and lovingly—sometimes painfully—teach us to obey His call to love [Hebrews 12:7]. The closer a person grows to Jesus, the more they find that in sometimes understated ways, Jesus nudges them to obey His call to love.

And when we heed that call, good things happen. Some of you have heard me tell a true story I read a few years ago that came from a letter sent by a young person who had attended a Christian rock concert. She wrote to one of the performers to explain that before some classmates had dragged her to the concert, she had decided that on that very night, she would take her life. “Your concert saved my life,” she wrote. “I decided not only that I would not take my life, but that I would also follow Christ.” What changed that young woman’s life wasn’t anything the artist had said, either in his music or between songs. At some point in the concert, playing his guitar, the artist had looked into the face of that desperate young woman and he had smiled. In that simple, sincere smile, she had seen the kindness of God. She was loved back to life. That’s what Jesus did for us on the cross. Our call is to grow so close to Him that we become conduits for His love to reach others, even in things as simple as a smile.

Jesus’ call for us to love includes those we can’t stand. That isn’t an easy thing. But I have a little secret to share with you. I call it the Pastor’s Silent Prayer. You don’t have to be a pastor to pray it, although I’m sure it was a pastor who first did so.

Before sharing it with you though, I have to make a little confession. It’s this: I am human. I have a full complement of faults. I’m a sinner. I also have my own personality traits and characteristics. While I’m a people person who tends to like most people very well, through the years I’ve also learned that there are some people I like more than others. There are also people who like me and people who don’t like me. Because of my sinful nature, I find that I want to spend time with and love only the people I like and who like me. But Jesus has called us to love all people. So, when I’m put into situations where I have to be with people I don’t like, I say my little silent prayer, “Lord: Love these people through me. Don’t let me get in the way of their experiencing Your love.” I’ve found that Jesus answers that prayer.

Maybe that’s what John, the writer of our Bible lesson for this morning is getting at when he says, after looking at the sin and selfishness that pervades our world:

“...whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

We may be imperfect. But the powerful love of God, poured into the lives of those with faith in Jesus Christ, trumps and overcomes all our flaws and sins. God patiently works with the willing follower of Jesus to transform them into the loving people they were made to be. God made each of us to be indispensable members of a single human family knit together by His love. His love is so powerful that He can even use the willing Jesus-follower to love people they might find unlovable.

I sometimes get angry with myself. I feel like a spoiled son of God. He has lavished so much love, forgiveness, and grace on me. Yet I find myself forming harsh judgments of others and failing to extend love to others. Jesus commands me to love; but I can be cold and loveless. What I have to remember is that, in the words of the Bible, while we live this life, we only see through a mirror dimly [First Corinthians 13:12]. God isn’t finished with any of us yet. I guess I need to remember how loving my God is. He even loves me when I fail to love. He loves me when He upbraids me and condemns me for my lovelessness.

On his deathbed, the painter Jean Renoir spoke of the use of light and color in his art and then referring to the lessons he’d learned, uttered his last words, spoken as an elderly man. He said, “I think I’m beginning to see...” On earth, we will never fully see what it means to be the loving person Christ died to make it possible for us to become. But I am convinced that the best lives are lived by those who, being born of Christ, spend their lives learning how to love.

[The true story of Hollis Maynell and John Blanchard is re-told by Max Lucado in Stories for the Heart. The true story of the teen who wrote a rock musician is something that I read more than a decade ago and I can’t remember where I read it; I do remember that the artist was Eddie DeGarmo, who went on to become a recording industry executive who developed such artists as dcTalk, among others. The story of Jean Renoir, which in my original message and in the original post of it, I identified as Marc Chagall is cited in Alan Loy McGinnis' book Confidence. I couldn't find the book at the time I was preparing the message and am now able to correctly identify the artist who uttered these words at the time of his death.]

Easter After Tremors
Really Living
John 15:1-8
(Shared with the people of Friendship Church, May 18, 2003)

When I was growing up, most of my friends liked horror movies. I could never get into them. One reason was that a recurring plot line in horror movies revolved around corpses being re-animated. And one universal element of the stories is that the moving corpses were never really brought back to life. Oh, they moved and breathed, growled and killed. But theirs was only a sort of a vague half-life. They weren’t really among the living.

I used to think that these movies were works of the purest fiction. Nobody, I thought, could have the appearance of being alive—walking, breathing, and so on—but really be dead. Jesus’ words in our Bible lesson today suggest that you and I live in a world filled with the walking dead. Some might even be part of a church.

A few years ago, a one-time member of this congregation approached me with a concern. Her father, by then in his seventies, was bringing a lawsuit against a woman whose car had brushed his in a mall parking lot, where he sat waiting for his wife. Even though both he and his car were fine, he claimed that he’d suffered physically. The daughter said to me, “Mark, this is the last straw for me! My dad has always gone to church, been on the church council, gone to Sunday School. But he’s also always tried to shaft other people in order to get some advantage. He even pushes people out of the way in order to be first in a check-out line. But I hadn’t realized how horrible he was until he sued this poor young woman who nicked his car. How can he call himself a Christian?”

When she asked me that, I remembered an old saying: Just because the mouse lives in the cookie jar doesn’t mean he’s a cookie. You can take up space in church activities and even be diligent about reading your Bible and praying, doing all the right religious things, and still not have life through Jesus Christ. You can be as far from the Kingdom of God as the mouse in the cookie jar is from being a cookie. That woman’s father was among the walkng dead—a dead man walking—that populate our churches.

Such people contrast vividly with a woman some of us have read about recently as we’ve studied John Ortberg’s book, The Life You’ve Always Wanted. Mabel was a resident of a nursing home, blind, nearly-deaf, and suffering from a cancer that was eating away at her face, hideously disfiguring her. Bedridden for twenty-five years, with no known relatives, Mabel should have been bitter, incommunicative, self-absorbed.

When a student chaplain, Tom Schmidt, decided to militate against his revulsion and try to present this awful-looking woman with a flower, he figured Mabel would be unresponsive. “Here’s a flower,” he said. “Happy Mother’s Day.” Mabel pulled the flower close to her face, attempting to smell it and then, in somewhat slurred speech, said, “Thank you. It’s lovely. But can I give it to someone else? I can’t see it, you know, I’m blind.” So, Schmidt rolled Mabel to another resident and heard her say of the flower, “Here, this is from Jesus.” “That,” said Tom Schmidt, “was when it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being.”

As Schmidt’s acquaintance with Mabel grew, so did his sense of awe. He felt each time he entered her room that he was walking on holy ground. Often, he would read a Scripture to Mabel and from memory, she would mouth the words along with him. Then, she might break into a song praising God. “I never heard her speak of loneliness or pain except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns,” Schmidt recalls. The student chaplain began going to Mabel’s room with pen in hand, ready to jot down the amazing things that she would say.

During one week, Schmidt says, he was stressing out, thinking about exams at seminary and a million other things when the question dawned on him, “What does Mabel have to think about—hour after hour, day after day, week after week, not even able to know if it’s day or night?” So, Schmidt decided to ask Mabel the next time he saw her. “Mabel,” he asked, “what do you think about when you lie here?” Listen closely to Schmidt’s recollection:

“...’I think about Jesus...[she said]’ I sat there, and thought for a moment about the difficulty, for me of thinking about Jesus for even five minutes, and I asked, ‘What do you think about Jesus?’ She replied slowly and deliberately as I wrote...’I think about how good He’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me, you know...I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied...Lots of folks wouldn’t care much for what I think...But I don’t care. I’d rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.’

Although Mable was blind, nearly deaf, suffering from cancer, confined to her bed, and living in circumstances that some might consider pure hell, she was more alive and happier and, as she said satisfied, than most of the people that you and I encounter each day at work, at school, in the mall, maybe even when we look in the mirror. She was truly living amid all the walking dead who populate this planet! What was her secret?

In today’s Bible lesson, Jesus uses interesting images to describe Himself, God the Father, and you and me. For those of you who have heard or read these words before, try to listen to them as though you’re hearing them for the first time and let the imagery sink in:

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in Me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit He prunes to make it bear more fruit...Abide in Me [in other words, draw life from Me]. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me...My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become My disciples...”

Life—abundant, everlasting, ever-loving life comes from Jesus Christ. Without Jesus’ life filling us, we are the walking dead, people without hope, joyless machines moving from day to day. But when we stay connected with Jesus, if we abide with Jesus, even when we’re as sick and old as Mabel was, we’ll be filled with life.

Jesus says that we’ll bear fruit. But what on earth does that mean?

Mildred Hondorf was an elementary music teacher in Iowa who also gave private piano lessons. After a long career, she hadn’t produced any musical prodigees, but because she demanded excellence from her students, they usually learned. Once, an eleven year old boy named Robby asked if he could take piano lessons. Although Mildred knew that Robby was tone-deaf and had no rhythm, she relented when he told her, “I want my mom to hear me play well just once.” Robby took lessons from Mrs. Hondorf and things went pretty much as she’d expected. Robby was terrible! There were a few recitals over the course of the year. Robby’s mom would be there, clap for her son’s performances, wave at the piano teacher, and make her exit.

Then, about six weeks before the big end-of-the-year recital, Robby stopped coming for his lessons. Mildred was frankly relieved. On the night before the recital, Robby called her though and announced that he wanted to play. He had to play. “But, Robby,” she said, “you haven’t had a lesson for six weeks.” “I know,” he said, “but I’ve just got to play well for my mom tomorrow!” Against her better judgment, Mildred tacked Robby on at the very end of the recital program. He showed up the next night, his hair a mess, his clothes all wrinkled, and before a virtually-silent auditorium, he sat down at the piano. He played Mozart’s Twenty-First Concerto in C-Major.

People couldn’t believe what they heard! Robby’s playing had every member of the audience listening with rapt attention. When he finished, they stood to applaud and Mildred, tears in her eyes, ran to Robby and said, “You’ve never played like that before! What happened over the past six weeks?” “Well, Mrs. Hondorf,” he explained, “my mother got really sick six weeks ago and I had to stay close to home. She died yesterday. But you see, she was born deaf and today was the first time she ever got to hear me play.”

Robbie’s performance at the piano recital that day was an act of love. Those are the kinds of acts that are the very fabric of life when we remain connected to Jesus.

Do you want to really live—and not be a dead man or dead woman walking? Latch onto Jesus, holding onto Him as your most important friend. Love will be the fruit you bear and even in adversity you’ll know joy. And no matter what, that’s an awesome way to live!

[The "mouse in a cookie jar" quote is something told to the late Corrie ten Boom by her father. Corrie, who along with her family, helped Jews escape from occupied Holland during the Second World War was baffled by her pastor's unwillingness to help with the effort. This was her father's explanation.

[The story of Mabel, as mentioned, comes from John Ortberg's phenomenal book, The Life You've Always Wanted. I highly recommend it! Mabel's is a true story.

[The story of Mildred and Robby was told by Pastor Gerald Mann in a message he gave at Riverbend Church in Austin, Texas. I may have the spelling of Mildred's last name wrong. But it's a true story.]

No Other Name

A Thought for Today:
There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12, New Testament).

A man named Peter, an early follower of Jesus, spoke those words to religious leaders in Jerusalem after he and another Jesus-follower, John, were ordered not to speak of Jesus again. They had also been beaten.

But Peter said that they couldn't help but speak of Jesus, no matter what the threats. Peter persisted in following Jesus because he had experienced Jesus' tough love and because he knew that Jesus had risen from the dead.

The process of dying will cause any person to fear. That's only natural. But the follower of Jesus has no fear about the time beyond the grave. We know that we belong to God forever!

That's why true Christians have always been in the forefront of fighting for what is right. Wilberforce and Newton fought slavery. Tutu combatted injustice in South Africa. Mother Teresa comforted the dead and stood against abortion as a form of birth control. Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church stood against Hitler and the Nazis. Billy Graham has continued to share Jesus Christ with the world in spite of almost constant death threats and the dismissive condescension of elites, both inside and outside the Church. Movements to establish hospitals and higher education have usually begun among those who confess Christ.

In spite of the hatred and threats heaped upon them, followers of Jesus have the "right stuff" to persist. That right stuff is an eternal relationship with Jesus Christ!

Karl Marx criticized religion as an opiate, insulating people from their own pain, preventing them from doing anything about injustice by focusing the religious on the rewards of a sweet by-and-by. Marx got it precisely wrong. Knowing that our eternities are secure gives followers of Jesus the freedom to live this life to the full.

When Archbishop Desmond Tutu fought against apartheid in South Africa, he received daily death threats. A reporter asked him why he persisted. Tutu replied that he couldn't help it; injustice was wrong and he would fight it. Besides, he added, death isn't the worst thing that can happen to a Christian.

God plants within the hearts of those who surrender themselves to Him through Jesus Christ, a love for the things God loves and a hatred for those things God hates. Although such passions will put them at odds with the prevailing values of the world, Jesus-followers will persist. They will, in that memorable phrase of Bruce Cockburn's, rise like grass through cement. Unafraid of death, appalled by the evil they see, they fight for what's right.

The greatest evil in the world is the imprisonment of sin that afflicts the human race. According to Psalm 51, we are born in sin. The Bible says that proper payment for our sin is death (Romans 6:23).

But God doesn't want us to die. He wants us to live with Him forever. That's why Jesus came into the world, lived a perfect and sinless life, died on a cross in our places, and rose from the dead. The most famous passage in the Bible quotes Jesus as He says, For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life (John 3:16).

Do you want to be free from the fears that hold you back and keep you from being all that God intended you to be--all that you know, deep inside, that you were meant to be?

Do you want to be free of those nagging feelings of inadequacy that dog you?

Do you want to experience peace in spite of the chaos?

Do you want to move toward becoming the loving person you dream of being?

Do you want to be confident about this life and the next?

Give your life to Jesus Christ and you will begin to experience these things. You will find yourself free to lovingly fight for what is right...free to act in loving ways toward others, free to enter the process of becoming the person God had in mind when He made you. And you will be unafraid of what is beyond the grave. You will belong to God. Surrender to Jesus Christ today and start truly living!

Continue to pray for healing for Isaac!

Please continue to pray for the people of Iraq and for the US and British military personnel who are there. Pray that God will grant that the occupation of Iraq will benefit the people there. Pray that the military personnel will be safe. Pray also for organizations like CARE and Samaritan's Purse, who are providing relief, asking God to keep them safe and to give their efforts success. Pray also that God will guide the leaders of the US and the UK, along with the leaders of the UN, as Iraq is rebuilt. Ask God also to grant that in the midst of this situation, Americans, Britons, and Iraqis will come to know and follow Jesus Christ, the only hope for our world.

Please keep Pastor Jim Dinkel and his son, Stephen, in your prayers. Jim's wife, Marti, died at 3:45 this morning. Pray that God will comfort Jim, Stephen, and all who mourn with the undying hope that belongs to all who follow Jesus Christ. Pray that God will give them strength, encouragement, guidance, and hope.

Easter After Tremors:
The Shepherd’s Life Style
John 15:1-8
(Shared with the people of Friendship Church, May 11, 2003)

Pastor Gerald Mann tells a true story that happened in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during the Second World War. Each day, details of Allied detainees would dig trenches. At the end of each day, the prisoners returned the shovels they’d been using. For obvious reasons, the shovels were then counted by the Japanese. This camp had 300 shovels. But the count at the end of one day was 299. The camp commander lined up all the POWs and said, “One shovel is missing. If the thief doesn’t step forward by the time I count to ten, every single prisoner will be executed on the spot.” But before the commander could begin counting, one prisoner stepped forward and said, “I’m the one who stole the shovel.” The commander cried out the order, “Shoot!” and the confessing prisoner was killed immediately. A short time later, for whatever reason, the shovels were counted again. It was learned that there had been a miscount. There’d been 300 shovels all along. None had been stolen. That prisoner had volunteered his life to save the lives of the other POWs.

I marvel at such stories of heroism and often wonder if, faced with similar circumstances, I would have the courage to lay down for others. According to the Bible, Jesus had that kind of courage. In today’s Bible lesson, Jesus describes Himself as the “good shepherd” and He says:

“The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep [that’s you and me and the whole human family]...”

Jesus’ voluntary death on a cross for us is really even more remarkable than the voluntary death of that POW. The POW was a mere garden variety human being like you and me. Like you and me, he had his faults. He sinned. According to the Bible, every sin we human beings commit—from lying and gossiping to taking God’s Name in vain and committing adultery in our minds—is a capital crime worthy of a death sentence. All of us—even that heroic POW—deserve death. But Jesus never sinned. Not even Jesus’ most implacable enemies were able to substantiate an evil thing He’d ever done. Jesus was both God in the flesh and a human being and the Bible tells us that He faced every trial you and I face in life, yet He did so without sin. But this perfect Savior volunteered to die in place of us on the cross. In another place in the New Testament, we’re told:

"Christ...presented Himself for [His] sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything [for ourselves]...And even if we hadn’t been so weak [from sin], we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put His love on the line for us by offering His Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to Him." (Romans 5, The Message translation)

Amazingly, inexplicably, wonderfully, compassionately, Jesus lays down His life for us. In our lesson for this morning, Jesus says that He lays it down so that He can pick it back up again (something He did on the first Easter Sunday). Having died in our places, Jesus guarantees that all with faith in Him will live with Him forever!

But that leads to a question: Why? Why does God go to all the bother of becoming human, of experiencing in His own body the very worst of human tragedies, absorbing all the poison of human sin, and dying a horrible death? Why does God give rebellious people like you and me a second chance at living with Him forever?

Some of you know my friend, Pastor Ron Claussen. Ron has preached at Friendship’s worship celebrations several times. Ron is wheelchair-bound. This past week, Ron and his wife Jane took a trip and stayed at two different hotels along the way. One was part of a less expensive chain. The other was a slightly pricier and more popular place. For Ron, going to the bath room away from home can be a major challenge. When he stays at a hotel, he has to make sure that he has a bath room where the toilet can accommodate him.

On the first night of their trip, Ron and Jane stayed at the less expensive hotel. When he went to the rest room, Ron immediately got a shock when the cheap plastic toilet seat collapsed under his weight. When Ron checked out the next morning, he told the desk manager what had happened. On the return trip, the Claussens stayed at the same hotel and in the same room. Ron was surprised to find that the toilet seat had not been repaired: instead, the whole thing had been replaced with a far more expensive and sturdily-built model. For three nights of their trip, Ron and Jane stayed at the pricier place. There was a problem with the toilet there as well: the whole thing literally tipped over every time any weight was put on it. The manager at the hotel was told about the problem three different times and never did anything about it! Ron surmises that the guy at the pricier place with the solid national reputation probably couldn’t be bothered with one bad toilet. His hotel rooms were occupied every night. He could afford to have a few disgruntled customers. The manager at the less popular place though, felt a greater need to make a good impression on his customers. He cared.

In today’s Bible lesson, Jesus contrasts Himself as the good shepherd who lays down His life for us with “the hired hand.” He says:

"The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand [Jesus says] runs away because...[he] does not care for the sheep."

Why does Jesus lay down His life for you and me? Because amazingly, inexplicably, wonderfully, compassionately, Jesus cares about us. He cares and so He offers His life so that sinners like you and me can receive forgiveness, be reunited with our Father, God, and start living with God’s eternal power in our lives right now, today!

But if you’re feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, please realize that while Jesus extends His love to you with no strings attached, He does give love to us with certain daunting, almost frightening, expectations. Today is Mother’s Day, a time to honor moms and I do. I know that the mom living in my house is particularly wonderful, so wonderful in fact that she’s made me a better dad than I possibly could have been without her.

A number of years ago, I don’t remember where, I read the true story of a mom who somehow became stranded in her stalled car in the middle of a raging blizzard. It was some time before the local sheriff’s department found this woman and her two little ones. When they arrived, the mother had died, frozen to death. But she had huddled herself and her clothing over the children to protect them and both lived.

Here’s the point: Jesus calls us to care for others as much as He cares for us. Our call is to love selflessly like Jesus and in many different ways, to lay down our lives for others. We’re called to adopt the life style of the Good Shepherd. In another place in the New Testament, we’re reminded:

"...whoever says, “I abide in [Jesus],” ought to walk just as He walked...[and] We know love by this, that [Jesus] laid down His life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another...[and] We love because He first loved us." (These passages can be found in First John in the New Testament.)

It isn’t easy to walk as Jesus walked, to love as Jesus loved. In fact, I can guarantee that this side of heaven, we will never totally succeed in doing that. But God calls us to receive Jesus and then spend our lives on this earth learning what it means to have Him living at the center of our lives. One day, when we see Jesus face to face, the Bible says, “we will be like Him.” (First John 3:2) Until then, as Jesus’ students—that’s what the word disciple means, by the way, student—we’re to spend our lives learning. God wants us to learn what it means to live, serve, and love like Jesus. Jesus calls us to care. When we let Jesus live in the center of our lives and priorities, God works on transforming us into our best selves.

God loves you, as the women’s choral group reminded us a little while ago. But it’s up to you and me to decide whether we’ll let that monumental fact change our lives and effect how we live from day to day. The New Testament book of Ephesians tells us that “God wants us to grow up...like Christ in everything.” Too often, people who call themselves Christians settle on a “what’s-in-it-for-me” mentality when it comes to their faith and involvement with their church. But we need to adopt a “Jesus-loves-me-so-now-I’ll-live-for-Him” style of life. That’s the Good Shepherd’s life style: a life of giving of oneself to God and others, a life of caring about God and others.

You and I have a choice: Will we let Jesus invade our everyday decision making or will we put Him in a box marked, Open Only on Sundays? Will we let Jesus establish our priorities in life or will we go our own ways? Will our faith life consist of one hour in a nice new building once a week or will we let the living Jesus Christ be our constant companion, God, and shepherd? The people you and I know who are really living are the ones who are living off the power of Jesus and His love. They let Jesus into their lives so that they live the life style of the Good Shepherd. With Jesus’ help, that’s how I want to live my life too. How about you?

When You Have Pain
[column submitted May 6, 2003, written for Community Press newspapers]

Once, when I was working in a steel fabricating plant, I caught my finger in a punch press. The bone was broken and tore through the skin. My father-in-law, an engineer at the same place, took me to the hospital and asked me about what happened.

"When I first looked at my finger," I explained, "I thought it was just a bad cut that wouldn’t stop bleeding. But then, it kept stinging." "Yeah," he said matter-of-factly, "pain is a pretty sure sign that something’s wrong." I laughed at that sage observation.

Ironically, about ten years later, my father-in-law ignored months of constant pain before finally seeing a doctor. By the time he did, it was too late. He had cancer and lived only four more weeks. Pain really is a sign that something’s wrong.

This is as true of emotional, psychological, or relational pain as it is of the physical variety. And just as it’s smart to look for help when we have physical pain, we should also look for help when we confront these other sorts of discomforts. When we have emotional, psychological, or relational pain, we need to do three things. We need to look in, look out, and look up.

We need to look in and see what we're doing to contribute to our own pain in life. People who enroll in Twelve Step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous call this taking a "fearless moral inventory" in which they honestly look at themselves, faults and all. Even if the immediate cause of pain is, for example, an insensitive, uncaring spouse, people must look at themselves to see why they become and live with the role of victim. This sort of honesty is a key to healing, just as an accurate diagnosis leads a doctor to make the right prescription.

In Old Testament times, King David had an affair with another man’s wife and then had the man murdered. After a period of dishonest concealment, David was confronted for his sins. He confessed that he was in the wrong. David came to know that failing to look inside oneself causes pain. He writes in Psalm 32, "Happy are those...in whose spirit there is no deceit. While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long...my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer" (Psalm 32:2-4).

We also need to look out. When we have pain, we need advice from trusted people in order to experience healing. That might mean going to a psychotherapist, a pastor, a friend, or better yet, to many different such people. Proverbs 11:14 says, "Without good direction, people lose their way; the more wise counsel you follow, the better your chances."

Finally, we need to look up. A few weeks ago, I was going through a painful time. I was at wit’s end, not knowing what to say or do. This had been going on for several months. It finally dawned on me what I needed to do. I found a quiet place and had a heart-to-heart talk with God. (Some people call that prayer.) I told God everything: I recapped the situation, named what I’d tried to do to remedy things, listed ways I’d contributed to the pain of it all, and told God just how helpless I was feeling. Finally, I said to God, "Lord, I’ve been so incapable of changing things for the better. I just give the situation to You. I can’t handle it any more. You’ll need to fix it."

While the painful situation hasn’t completely turned around, I can say that the very next day, I detected marked improvements.

When God walked the earth in the person of Jesus Christ, He said, "Ask and you will receive..." (John 16:24). Why would we want to carry pain on our own shoulders, when simply for the asking, God is willing to bear it with us?

If you're dealing with pain in your life, it's a pretty sure sign that something's wrong. You need to remember that simple formula: Look in. Look out. Look up. God can use these steps to set you down the path to healing.

[Mark Daniels is pastor of Friendship Church. You’re invited to worship at Friendship any Sunday.]

Please pray for the people whose homes or businesses were destroyed by yesterday's tornadoes, asking God to help them to rebuild their lives. Pray also that God will comfort everyone who mourns as a result of deaths caused by the tornadoes.

Easter After Tremors:
Seeing the Blessings Jesus Brings
Luke 24:36b-48
(Shared with the people of Friendship Church, May 4, 2003)

Did you hear about the joker who woke his wife up in the middle of the night, yelling, “Honey, I can’t see! I can’t see!” His wife awoke and asked, “Why?” “It must be that I’ve got my eyes closed,” he said. In most jurisdictions that husband’s bad joke would have been the basis for justifiable homicide. But he also makes a good point: You cannot see if you keep your eyes closed.

In our Bible lesson for this morning, the risen Jesus is shown trying to help His disciples see some very important things. Several times in today’s Bible lesson, Jesus tells His disciples to see. It seems to me that there are three major things that Jesus wants you and me to see as we encounter Him today.

First: Jesus wants us to see that His resurrection spells the end of our anxiety. The first thing He tells the disciples as He meets them today is, “Peace be with you.” Knowing and following the risen Jesus brings peace. That doesn’t mean that we might not have times when we confront things life depression or anxiety. But over the long haul, the follower of Jesus Christ lives with peace at the core of their beings. There’s good reason for that.

A few years ago, there was a TV show called First Edition. The premise was simple. Every morning, a guy would receive a newspaper outside his door. But it was the newspaper for the next morning. He had a clear view of the future, a clear idea of what he needed to accomplish. Jesus is our first edition, our clear view of the future. The Bible tells us for example, that while we may not know all the particulars about heaven, people who follow Christ will be like Jesus. Those who follow Jesus know where their futures are headed and He makes clear that our greatest accomplishments come when, just like Him we make love of God and love of neighbor the number one priorities of our lives. Knowing that we belong to God forever puts day to day life in perspective and helps us to move through each day unafraid.

One year ago, this building was little more than a dream and some scratches on paper. We broke ground on May 18. But site work wasn’t really going until July. The arches in this core section weren’t up until the Tuesday after Labor Day. Yet, we had our Boeing 747 Christmas Eve worship—that’s what I call the worship when those CO2 blowers went off, making this place sound like the runway at an international airport. But God has graciously allowed us the use of this facility and is helping us to use it as a tool for reaching out to our community with the Good News of Jesus. God always makes a way for those who surrender their lives to Jesus Christ even when we can’t see it. Jesus’ resurrection spells the end of our anxiety.

Second, Jesus wants us to see that, no matter what setbacks or griefs we may endure, His resurrection shows that God is in control and that God’s good plan for us is right on schedule. That’s why in today’s Bible lesson Jesus says to His terrified followers:

“Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?...These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about Me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled...Thus it is written that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day...”

Last November 21, a gunman killed missionary Bonnie Penner Witherell as she started her work day at a clinic in Sidon, Lebanon. This Christian clinic helps pregnant women and new mothers from low-income households and from Palestinian refugee camps. Today, Bonnie Witherell is still having an impact on many people’s lives. People at her home church in Lynden, Washington sew soft flannel receiving blankets that are distributed in the clinic in Lebanon where Bonnie once worked. Hundreds have been produced! In spite of her grief, Bonnie’s mother, Ann Penner, sees that God is being glorified through her daughter’s life and death. One of Ann’s sources of strength is Psalm 139, which finds King David telling God confidently:

"...it was You Who formed my inward parts, You knit me together in my mother’s womb...[and] In Your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them yet existed."

Nothing catches the God we know through Jesus Christ off guard. When Jesus died on a cross, it was part of God’s plan. So was Easter Sunday morning. The gunman who killed Bonnie Witherell may have thought that he was thwarting God’s good plans. But God will not be thwarted. His love can’t be killed off. No matter what tragedies or challenges may happen in this world, God is unbowed. He keeps loving, keeps helping, and keeps moving all with faith in a heaven-ward direction, empowering us to live lives that reflect His goodness. God is in control and God’s good plan for us is right on schedule. We can be confident of that!

Third, Jesus wants us to see that because He is risen from the dead, we’re to share Christ with the world, beginning with those who are closest to us. In our lesson, He tells His first followers that they are His witnesses starting in the very town they were in, Jerusalem. Jesus says that as His witnesses, we’re to tell others about “repentance and the forgiveness of sins” in His Name.

Sin, you know, is a condition of the heart and mind. It’s separation from God that prevents us from being the people God made us to be and ultimately, results in death. Sin is like static that we get on a radio. It keeps us from being clearly tuned into God, from knowing God’s will for our lives, from loving God and loving neighbor. When we tune into Jesus, we’re in synch with God and with God’s plan for us. Our call as followers of Jesus is not just to follow Jesus; we’re also to tell others and show others by the lives we live how to “tune in” to God. Jesus puts it simply in our lesson this morning: “You are witnesses...”

It’s interesting how Jesus puts that. He doesn’t say, “I’d like you to be witnesses.” Or, “At 10:00 on Sunday mornings, you’re My witnesses.” He says, “You are My witnesses.” And here’s what I’ve observed: Folks out there in the world are watching us. They’ve seen enough of people who claim to be Christians but exhibit the most un-Christian behavior. People see us at work, at play, at the PTO meeting, in the church lobby. But when they see us do they see Jesus in us?

I’ve told the story before of what happened to Walt Kallestad, a Lutheran pastor in Arizona. He stopped into a convenience store and made a purchase. The clerk gave him his change and after he’d cruised down the road a bit, it dawned on him that she had given him too much money back. He decided he needed to go back to the convenience market. “Here,” he told the clerk once he’d arrived, “you gave me too much change.” “I know,” the woman said, “I was at your church for the first time last week and you talked about honesty. I just wanted to know if you meant it.”

Whether we realize it or not, for good and ill, those of us who go to worship and claim to be followers of Christ, are witnesses twenty-four, seven. The person who truly lives securely in the Kingdom of the risen Jesus Christ wants to live authentically. We’re not perfect. But even our imperfect lives can tell the world whether following Jesus really changes a human being from the inside out. We are witnesses.

Chuck Colson, the one-time Watergate conspirator became a follower of Jesus Christ, went into prison ministry, and is a leading voice for Jesus Christ today. Interviewer Larry King once asked Colson how he has been able to avoid so many of the moral pitfalls into which Christian leaders fall. Colson responded, “I tell people, ‘Don’t follow me. Follow Jesus!’”

That’s our call from God! Jesus wants us to see that through Him, the power of anxiety is banished from our lives; that through Him, we know that God is in control and working right on schedule; and that because of His resurrection, we are His witnesses. But before we can see any of these things, we must open the eyes of our hearts and stay focused on Jesus. We need to follow Him, all day, every moment of every day! We need to be completely, totally, unreservedly surrendered to Jesus Christ. That’s what I want to challenge you to do this morning: to make it your life’s work to open the eyes of your hearts and follow the risen Jesus always.

[The true story of missionary Bonnie Penner Witherell is told in the May-June, 2003 issue of Prayer Point, published by Samaritan's Purse. Walt Kallestad tells the story of what happened to him at the convenience store in one of his books; I can't remember which one. The Colson quote comes from a sermon by Robert R. Kopp which appears in The Abingdon Preaching Annual: 1997 Edition. The notion of sin as static, a very good way of illustrating the Biblical concept of sin as seen in Psalm 51, is something that Robert Schuller does in one of his books; again, I can't remember which one.]

Some books that help me live better:

Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis

Prayer Ole Hallesby

The Life You've Always Wanted John Ortberg

any of the seven volumes of The Chronicles of Narnia C.S. Lewis

The Purpose Driven Life Rick Warren

Soul Salsa Leonard Sweet

any book by Laurie Beth Jones

any book by Alan Loy McGinnis

The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis

more in a later post...

Prayer in Jesus' Name is our point of contact with God. God wants to hear from us and wants to answer our trusting prayers. I would appreciate your prayers for the following:

(1) Pray for Isaac. He's a four-and-a-half year old member of our congregation who needs healing.

(2) Pray for real peace in Iraq, for protection of US military personnel, and of Iraqi civilians.

(3) Pray for wisdom for leaders around the world and for the courage to act on that wisdom.

Thanks for praying with me!

Easter After Tremors:
Seeing Jesus
John 20:19-31
[Shared with the people of Friendship Church, April 27, 2003]

When I was a young man the thing that kept me from following Christ was the Easter story: the Church’s insistent proclamation that Jesus had risen from the dead. I couldn’t believe and I couldn’t understand how any rational human being could believe, that Jesus had been resurrected. I liked Jesus. I thought that what He had to say and the way He loved others was attractive. But I had never seen a human being come back from the grave. So, how could I possibly believe?

After attending worship at what would eventually become my home congregation, Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Columbus with Ann, I started to investigate, reading a number of books that presented evidence to convince readers rationally that Jesus had risen from the dead. Today, you can find lots of books like that. Many of them are very good. But it was my experience that for every piece of evidence one could present supporting Jesus’ resurrection, there was a counter-argument just as compelling.

Nonetheless, something led me to trust not only that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, but also to trust Him as my Lord and God and Savior. That “something” came in all the people whose lives I had seen changed when they followed Jesus Christ: The person who wrestled with mental illness for decades and finally found peace and purpose for life in the arms of Christ. The elderly contractor who cared for his ill wife for decades and provided that care with cheerfulness. The reluctant congregational president who, when forced to make almost impossible decisions, forged ahead with a love and passion that one would have hardly expected to see in someone who seemed so ordinary. The parents of high school classmates who knew what a loser I had been but still accepted me, encouraged me, and to this day, remain my loving boosters. What led me to believe in the risen Jesus was all the people I saw who lived with Him in the center of their lives.

Pinchas Lapide is a Jewish scholar who studies the New Testament, the portion of the Bible which Jews reject because it affirms Jesus’ resurrection and that Jesus is the Savior of the world. But Lapide, after extensive study, concludes that God the Father really did raise Jesus from the dead. Listen to what he writes in his book, The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective:

When this scared, frightened band of the apostles which was just about to throw away everything in order to flee in despair to Galilee; when these peasants, shepherds, and fishermen, who betrayed and denied their master and then failed Him miserably, suddenly could be changed overnight into a confident mission society, convinced of salvation and able to work with much more success after Easter than before Easter, then no vision or hallucination is sufficient to explain such a revolutionary transformation.

What ultimately convinced this Jewish scholar that Jesus really rose from the dead was that he observed the risen Jesus living in the people who first claimed they’d seen Jesus resurrected from the dead. He believes in Jesus’ resurrection because of the way the lives of Jesus’ followers—ordinary women and men—changed after the first Easter morning.

Have you seen the risen Jesus living and active in ordinary people like you and me?

Are people able to see the risen Jesus in you and me?

There are times when we can feel confused and upset by the seeming absence of God from our lives. We wonder, “If Jesus is risen and living, why has this happened in my life? Or, why has tragedy befallen someone we care about?” We must remember in times like those, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, that this isn’t heaven. This world is imperfect. Horrible things happen. But if we open our eyes, we can also see that the risen Jesus is alive and at work in the lives of people who follow Him.

Hector Vasquez is a Lutheran pastor who once lived and worked as a missionary in Guatemala. There, he says, he and his wife Mirtha “learned an important lesson—the success of any church is not dependent on great decisions or great wisdom, it depends on the ability and knowledge of [God’s] Holy Spirit [working in] each one of us.”

According to Hector Vasquez, early one morning, he found a group of people standing outside his home. They represented several indigenous communities where he and his wife were starting to do community work. These people had a request:

They said, “Pastor Hector, our communities sent us so that we can ask you to send us pastors and teachers to teach us and our children. We know that what you do is good and, therefore, what you believe must also be good.”

When people observe the risen Jesus living in us, animating our lives, they want the same intimacy with the Savior that you and I enjoy!

The Church is the family of the risen Jesus. When we let the risen Jesus be our Lord and God, the whole world sees Him! When we allow Him to unleash His passionate love in us, we see Him too! "Love God and love neighbor" are more than mottos stitched on a pillow somewhere; they are our way of life when the risen Jesus takes up residence in our lives!

I don’t understand how Jesus’ once-dead tissue and organs were brought back to life on the first Easter Sunday. And it’s only natural for us to wonder how and even if, it all can be possible. That’s certainly how Thomas, one of Jesus’ first followers felt.

According to our Bible lesson for this morning, the risen Jesus had made several appearances to His followers. They had excitedly shared their news with other followers who hadn’t yet seen the resurrected Jesus. One of those who hadn’t yet seen Jesus was Thomas.

“Unless I’m able to see Jesus and touch the scars left behind by His crucifixion and by the sword that pierced His side, I’m not buying this whole story,” Thomas tells the others. On the Sunday following Easter, a Sunday like this one, Thomas gets the shock of his life. Gathered in a locked room, probably listening disbelievingly to his fellow Jesus-followers yammer on about how they had seen the risen Jesus, Thomas looks up and there stands Jesus. Thomas falls down on his face, worshiping Jesus, calling Him, “My Lord and my God.” And then Jesus addresses Thomas:

“Have you believed Me because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Jesus is risen from the dead whether we see Him or not.

Jesus is with and is blessing those who follow Him whether they can point to Him or not.

Jesus is alive and at work even when we don’t know it.

Like a doubting Thomas, I sometimes wonder what good it does, for example, for me to write my columns for the local newspaper. I try to lift Jesus up so that people will know and follow Him. There are times though, when I think that all I do is provide liner for bird cages. But then, I get reminded of how the risen Jesus is at work even in my meager words. A few months ago, a woman approached me and said, “You’re Mark Daniels, aren’t you? I work in this bar and somebody tacked up one of your columns on the bulltein board in the entryway. People talk about it all the time.”

Can you imagine a more unlikely scenario? A yellowed fragment from a bird-cage liner that proclaims the Good News of a Savior Who loves sinners like us, Who turns those sinners into God’s friends through His forgiveness and the power of His resurrection...that piece of newsprint is somehow used by the risen Jesus to give people hope. Somehow, the risen Jesus can even show up on the bulletin board at a bar. He really is risen!

Whether they know it or not, the people of today's world world are desperate for the hope that only the risen Jesus can give. When in our everyday lives, you and I let Jesus take control of who we are, what we do, and what we say, both we and the world around us see the risen Jesus. Then, like Thomas, people will feel compelled to worship at Jesus’ feet and like him and us, to call Jesus, “Lord and God.”

[The Lapide book is cited by Pastor Brian Stoffregen in his weekly e-mailed exegesis. Hector Vasquez recounts the incident here cited in an article appearing in the Spring, 2003 issue of Voices of Congregational Life.]