[With each new season of the Church Year, the bulletins at Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, include a special word of welcome. This welcome will appear throughout the Season after Pentecost.]
Good morning and welcome to Living Water Lutheran Church!
Along with many other churches around the world, today finds us in the Season after Pentecost, which this year runs from June 15 to November 27.
Pentecost is sort of the “Now What?” season of the Church Year.
-At Christmas we celebrated God coming into the world in the Person of Jesus.
-On Good Friday, we remembered that, despite His sinlessness, He died, taking the punishment for sin we deserve.
-On Easter, we recall with gratitude and celebration that Jesus rose from the dead, claiming new and everlasting life with God for all who turn from sin and trust in Christ.
-At Pentecost, we remember that after ascending into heaven, Jesus has not left His people alone in this world and so, sent the Holy Spirit to those who trust in Him.
After all that, we might think, “That’s great! Now what?”
Pentecost is a season in which we consider practical questions like:
How do we live as Christians in our every day world?
How do we grow in our faith in Christ?
Questions like these will occupy us all through this season.
We would love to welcome you as we consider these questions by focusing on God’s Word together on Sunday mornings.
God loves you. The crucified and risen Jesus is the proof of that. May God’s Holy Spirit draw you close to God as we worship Him together this morning.
If you have questions about following Jesus, feel free to contact the church office and ask for the senior pastor, Mark Daniels, or pastoral assistant and director for youth ministries, Dan Mershon.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
This Beautiful Earth
Hit "full screen" and prepare to be awed by what God has created. Though marred by sin, it gives a foretaste of what God has in mind in His new heaven and new earth. To think that it's just a hint of what's to come is amazing.
The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.
The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.
Praying for Someone to Help
At the end of today's noon 'Mere Christianity' discussion group at Living Water Lutheran Church, we prayed that God would bring someone into each of our lives in the next 24 hours with whom we could share the love of Christ.
Late this afternoon, I went to my barber in Centerville. A man sat silent and aloof on the other end of the room. My barber asked how he was doing. He spoke a few words. Then my barber said, "Hey, you can tell your troubles to Mark. He's a pastor."
Within two minutes, this man was speaking animatedly about some of the trials of his life. He moved to a table closer to the chair where I was getting my hair cut. After the barber finished with me, he kept talking once he'd sat in the chair and I sat down at the table in the middle of the room to listen.
By his introduction, the barber may have made it easier for me. This guy knew that I was in Jesus' army and he decided he could trust me, even though at that point, neither of us knew each others' names.
In the cases of some people though, a wall would have been erected as soon as they'd heard I was a pastor.
But the bottom line is that God found a way, in my life anyway, to answer that prayer we offered together today in the church library.
Someone has said that the greatest ability God looks for in His people is availability. I've found that when we make ourselves available to God, He finds a way to use us...often after we've forgotten what we prayed about.
Oh, and offer a prayer for Bill tonight. God knows who he is and all about his needs.
Late this afternoon, I went to my barber in Centerville. A man sat silent and aloof on the other end of the room. My barber asked how he was doing. He spoke a few words. Then my barber said, "Hey, you can tell your troubles to Mark. He's a pastor."
Within two minutes, this man was speaking animatedly about some of the trials of his life. He moved to a table closer to the chair where I was getting my hair cut. After the barber finished with me, he kept talking once he'd sat in the chair and I sat down at the table in the middle of the room to listen.
By his introduction, the barber may have made it easier for me. This guy knew that I was in Jesus' army and he decided he could trust me, even though at that point, neither of us knew each others' names.
In the cases of some people though, a wall would have been erected as soon as they'd heard I was a pastor.
But the bottom line is that God found a way, in my life anyway, to answer that prayer we offered together today in the church library.
Someone has said that the greatest ability God looks for in His people is availability. I've found that when we make ourselves available to God, He finds a way to use us...often after we've forgotten what we prayed about.
Oh, and offer a prayer for Bill tonight. God knows who he is and all about his needs.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Why the Trinity is Important
[This was prepared to be shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, yesterday.]
Matthew 28:16-20
Today is Holy Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost.
When I was a boy, about eight, I remember going to my Mom and asking for an explanation of the Trinity, of how God could be one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Mom punted. She told me to ask our pastor, which I did.
I asked him to explain the Trinity. “Mark,” he said, “think of water. It can come in the form of a liquid, a solid (in water’s case, ice), or gas (in this case, steam). But whatever form it takes, it’s always water. Three in one.”
That helped somewhat. But the problem with that analogy is that as Christians, we don’t believe that God takes on different forms as though God were engaged in some eternal Halloween party, changing His costume from time to time.
We confess that God is always one and always three. God is always one being; God is always three persons.
Fact is, no analogy we draw is going to exactly explain something as mysterious as the Trinity. And, of course, only God can really understand it. It’s HIS reality, after all. How could we ever get that?
But the very notion of the Trinity is so difficult for us to get our brains wrapped around that some people give up on even talking about it. I heard one pastor, for example, say that the Trinity was difficult to understand, he'd decided to never talk about the subject.
But as I’ve gotten to know God better through the pages of Scripture, the fellowship of believers, and the Lord’s Supper, I’ve come to agree with a Presbyterian friend of mine (a petroleum engineer who’s a very good theologian) who wrote on his blog a few years ago, that there may be nothing more important for us to try to “get” as Christians than the Trinity.
Not the Trinity as a doctrine to be memorized.
Not the Trinity as a teaching propped up by arcane and sometimes meaningless analogies.
But the Trinity as a reality, the Trinity as something centrally important to how you and I live every day, the Trinity as a template for how to truly live as human beings.
The word “Trinity” is never used in the Bible. But repeatedly, by inference in the Old Testament and in plain words in the New Testament, the Bible affirms that three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are co-equal, co-eternal personalities of the one and only God the universe.
For example, in our first lesson, from Genesis, God the Spirit brings the life of the universe into being.
In our second lesson, recounting the apostle Peter recalls how ancient King David referred to the Messiah--the Christ--Who would come centuries after his own death as Lord.
And, look, please at today’s Gospel lesson. It contains the Great Commission. In verse 19, Jesus says: “...go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...” Jesus is putting Himself and the Holy Spirit on the same level as God the Father.
The Gospels also tell us that Jesus makes a point of placing Himself on an equal footing with God the Father many times.
“Before Abraham was,” He told skeptical followers, “I AM.” (“Before Abraham was,” in other words, “Yahweh,” using the Name with which God identified Himself to Moses and ancient Israel.)
“I and the Father are one,” He claims.
“Anyone who has seen Me,” He says, “you have seen the Father.”
Yet, Jesus isn’t suggesting that there are two or three Gods over the universe. Like centuries of Jews before and since, Jesus affirmed the truth of Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”
So, without ever using the word trinity, the Bible affirms that God is one God in three persons. By now, you may be crying, "Uncle! Enough already. The Bible teaches that God is one God in three Persons. So what?"
For those who recently read Mere Christianity, some what I’m about to say will sound familiar, but let me suggest why I think it’s so important.
You’ve heard the phrase: “I love humanity. It’s the people I can’t stand.” We find that funny because we know that there is no validity to our claims of being loving people in general if we are unwilling to love particular people in particular.
Love at its most basic level is not about affectionate feelings.
It’s not about an attitude of heart.
Love is a commitment to willing and doing what is best for the beloved.
Love that isn’t lived out practically isn’t love.
You can’t be loving if there is no object of your love. (Hang with me now.)
One of the most famous passages of the New Testament is 1 John 4:8, which says, in part, “God is love.” Now, John didn't write, "Love is God." God is not an abstraction. Nor is God tolerant of all our behaviors. Much of what we human beings is sinful and of those behaviors, God is completely intolerant, even though He never stops loving us.
In these three little words, John isn't giving us a rationale for doing whatever we want, irrespective of the will of God.
No, in saying that, "God is love," John is making an eternal statement about an eternal God.
Before God created the heavens and the earth, before Jesus died and rose so that all who believe in Him may be freed of their sins, before the Holy Spirit formed the Church, God is, God was, and God will be eternally loving. Love is at the core of God’s character and being.
But, that raises a question: Who did God love before the beginning?
The answer, I think, is that in eternity, before there was time, before there was a creation, God was already loving others. God the Father loved God the Son and God the Spirit and God the Son and God the Spirit each loved the other two members of the Trinity, have done so and will do so for all eternity.
Even the existence of this universe in which we live at least suggests that God is one, but is more than one person.
When I was twenty-five, we’d been married for five years and my parents were growing impatient. Where, they wondered, were the grandchildren we were supposed to be coming up with? Then, my dad, father of five kids, decided to have a heart to heart with me. He told me that if I were looking for the right time or the right reason for having children, to forget it. There’s never a right time. There’s never a good reason.
And that’s the point. Love doesn’t need a right time or a good reason. It’s in the very nature of love to forgo convenience to self and to give, to serve, to love, to stand by, to live for, even, if necessary, to die for. God has always known how to love.
He exists in what the theologians call a "triune" relationship of perfect love and doesn’t need more love. He’s always loved perfectly. He's always been loved. God doesn't need love. Honestly, He doesn't really need us.
But, because God is infinite and eternal in His love, God loved the universe into being. God the Word, Christ, spoke into the darkness and chaos and God the Spirit wended His Word and life sprang up.
We are the product of God’s love, unnecessary but loved nonetheless, superfluous but cherished.
Today, the Holy Trinity calls us to follow Christ right into the center of His loving fellowship. He calls us into a new relationship of love with Him and all that He has made. Sin and death and isolation from God and from others will be the last word over every human life unless people are washed clean of sin and made new through repentance and faith in Christ. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “...if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
Christ calls us into life abundant and eternal.
But there is no life without love.
This is no biological observation: the unloved child, abused by her or his parents isn’t experiencing life; the couple in a loveless marriage aren’t living; the teen subjected to bullying and putdowns is experiencing a love deficit that is, inherently, a life deficit; the visitors ignored when they worship at a church they’ve never been to before are being treated both lovelessly and as though they weren’t even alive.
And this is why the Trinity is such an important reality for us to experience.
We live in a fractured, fractious world. People are divided and often hateful. Love of neighbors, including love of our enemies, is a rare thing. It’s so rare, it seems, that only Jesus and the people who, by faith, draw life from Jesus really live it. God has created the Church, the fellowship of believers in Christ, to make disciples and to usher believers into a community of love that fills us with the power of God to move toward being the loving people we were made to be and promises us eternal fellowship with God and others. In the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest, Jesus prayed to God the Father that all who followed Him, “may be one...just as you are in me and I am in you...” God wants us to live in the same selfless fellowship with others He has always known. That’s what Jesus died and rose to give to those who dare to believe in Him.
If all of this sounds airy and theoretical, removed from the hard realities of your life, consider what C.S. Lewis memorably says about how the Holy Spirit is involved in every prayer offered in the Name of Jesus, even the simplest prayers:
God in His fullness, Who cares about us even though He doesn’t have to, Who is able to stand with us in every experience, also makes it possible for us to experience fellowship, community, with Him and with His family, the Church.
This is why the Church is so important. Only the Church has been designated to connect people with the Trinity.
And in a world filled with the idea of mashing others into oblivion and lifting ourselves to the top, of crushing and being crushed by selfishness and self-will, we need the liberation from self and the connection to God and to others that only the Holy Trinity can give us.
We need, truly, more than anything else, love that changes our hearts, our minds, and our eternities.
And only the God revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can give it. Amen
Matthew 28:16-20
Today is Holy Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost.
When I was a boy, about eight, I remember going to my Mom and asking for an explanation of the Trinity, of how God could be one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Mom punted. She told me to ask our pastor, which I did.
I asked him to explain the Trinity. “Mark,” he said, “think of water. It can come in the form of a liquid, a solid (in water’s case, ice), or gas (in this case, steam). But whatever form it takes, it’s always water. Three in one.”
That helped somewhat. But the problem with that analogy is that as Christians, we don’t believe that God takes on different forms as though God were engaged in some eternal Halloween party, changing His costume from time to time.
We confess that God is always one and always three. God is always one being; God is always three persons.
Fact is, no analogy we draw is going to exactly explain something as mysterious as the Trinity. And, of course, only God can really understand it. It’s HIS reality, after all. How could we ever get that?
But the very notion of the Trinity is so difficult for us to get our brains wrapped around that some people give up on even talking about it. I heard one pastor, for example, say that the Trinity was difficult to understand, he'd decided to never talk about the subject.
But as I’ve gotten to know God better through the pages of Scripture, the fellowship of believers, and the Lord’s Supper, I’ve come to agree with a Presbyterian friend of mine (a petroleum engineer who’s a very good theologian) who wrote on his blog a few years ago, that there may be nothing more important for us to try to “get” as Christians than the Trinity.
Not the Trinity as a doctrine to be memorized.
Not the Trinity as a teaching propped up by arcane and sometimes meaningless analogies.
But the Trinity as a reality, the Trinity as something centrally important to how you and I live every day, the Trinity as a template for how to truly live as human beings.
The word “Trinity” is never used in the Bible. But repeatedly, by inference in the Old Testament and in plain words in the New Testament, the Bible affirms that three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are co-equal, co-eternal personalities of the one and only God the universe.
For example, in our first lesson, from Genesis, God the Spirit brings the life of the universe into being.
In our second lesson, recounting the apostle Peter recalls how ancient King David referred to the Messiah--the Christ--Who would come centuries after his own death as Lord.
And, look, please at today’s Gospel lesson. It contains the Great Commission. In verse 19, Jesus says: “...go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...” Jesus is putting Himself and the Holy Spirit on the same level as God the Father.
The Gospels also tell us that Jesus makes a point of placing Himself on an equal footing with God the Father many times.
“Before Abraham was,” He told skeptical followers, “I AM.” (“Before Abraham was,” in other words, “Yahweh,” using the Name with which God identified Himself to Moses and ancient Israel.)
“I and the Father are one,” He claims.
“Anyone who has seen Me,” He says, “you have seen the Father.”
Yet, Jesus isn’t suggesting that there are two or three Gods over the universe. Like centuries of Jews before and since, Jesus affirmed the truth of Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”
So, without ever using the word trinity, the Bible affirms that God is one God in three persons. By now, you may be crying, "Uncle! Enough already. The Bible teaches that God is one God in three Persons. So what?"
For those who recently read Mere Christianity, some what I’m about to say will sound familiar, but let me suggest why I think it’s so important.
You’ve heard the phrase: “I love humanity. It’s the people I can’t stand.” We find that funny because we know that there is no validity to our claims of being loving people in general if we are unwilling to love particular people in particular.
Love at its most basic level is not about affectionate feelings.
It’s not about an attitude of heart.
Love is a commitment to willing and doing what is best for the beloved.
Love that isn’t lived out practically isn’t love.
You can’t be loving if there is no object of your love. (Hang with me now.)
One of the most famous passages of the New Testament is 1 John 4:8, which says, in part, “God is love.” Now, John didn't write, "Love is God." God is not an abstraction. Nor is God tolerant of all our behaviors. Much of what we human beings is sinful and of those behaviors, God is completely intolerant, even though He never stops loving us.
In these three little words, John isn't giving us a rationale for doing whatever we want, irrespective of the will of God.
No, in saying that, "God is love," John is making an eternal statement about an eternal God.
Before God created the heavens and the earth, before Jesus died and rose so that all who believe in Him may be freed of their sins, before the Holy Spirit formed the Church, God is, God was, and God will be eternally loving. Love is at the core of God’s character and being.
But, that raises a question: Who did God love before the beginning?
The answer, I think, is that in eternity, before there was time, before there was a creation, God was already loving others. God the Father loved God the Son and God the Spirit and God the Son and God the Spirit each loved the other two members of the Trinity, have done so and will do so for all eternity.
Even the existence of this universe in which we live at least suggests that God is one, but is more than one person.
When I was twenty-five, we’d been married for five years and my parents were growing impatient. Where, they wondered, were the grandchildren we were supposed to be coming up with? Then, my dad, father of five kids, decided to have a heart to heart with me. He told me that if I were looking for the right time or the right reason for having children, to forget it. There’s never a right time. There’s never a good reason.
And that’s the point. Love doesn’t need a right time or a good reason. It’s in the very nature of love to forgo convenience to self and to give, to serve, to love, to stand by, to live for, even, if necessary, to die for. God has always known how to love.
He exists in what the theologians call a "triune" relationship of perfect love and doesn’t need more love. He’s always loved perfectly. He's always been loved. God doesn't need love. Honestly, He doesn't really need us.
But, because God is infinite and eternal in His love, God loved the universe into being. God the Word, Christ, spoke into the darkness and chaos and God the Spirit wended His Word and life sprang up.
We are the product of God’s love, unnecessary but loved nonetheless, superfluous but cherished.
Today, the Holy Trinity calls us to follow Christ right into the center of His loving fellowship. He calls us into a new relationship of love with Him and all that He has made. Sin and death and isolation from God and from others will be the last word over every human life unless people are washed clean of sin and made new through repentance and faith in Christ. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “...if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
Christ calls us into life abundant and eternal.
But there is no life without love.
This is no biological observation: the unloved child, abused by her or his parents isn’t experiencing life; the couple in a loveless marriage aren’t living; the teen subjected to bullying and putdowns is experiencing a love deficit that is, inherently, a life deficit; the visitors ignored when they worship at a church they’ve never been to before are being treated both lovelessly and as though they weren’t even alive.
And this is why the Trinity is such an important reality for us to experience.
We live in a fractured, fractious world. People are divided and often hateful. Love of neighbors, including love of our enemies, is a rare thing. It’s so rare, it seems, that only Jesus and the people who, by faith, draw life from Jesus really live it. God has created the Church, the fellowship of believers in Christ, to make disciples and to usher believers into a community of love that fills us with the power of God to move toward being the loving people we were made to be and promises us eternal fellowship with God and others. In the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest, Jesus prayed to God the Father that all who followed Him, “may be one...just as you are in me and I am in you...” God wants us to live in the same selfless fellowship with others He has always known. That’s what Jesus died and rose to give to those who dare to believe in Him.
If all of this sounds airy and theoretical, removed from the hard realities of your life, consider what C.S. Lewis memorably says about how the Holy Spirit is involved in every prayer offered in the Name of Jesus, even the simplest prayers:
An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God [God the Father]. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God so to speak, inside him [God the Holy Spirit]. But he also knows that all real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God [God the Son]— that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying — the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on — the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. The whole threefold life of the three-personal Being [all three Persons of the Trinity] is actually going on in that ordinary act of prayer.The Holy Trinity can make a difference in our everyday lives if we will be open to His threefold ministry to us.
God in His fullness, Who cares about us even though He doesn’t have to, Who is able to stand with us in every experience, also makes it possible for us to experience fellowship, community, with Him and with His family, the Church.
This is why the Church is so important. Only the Church has been designated to connect people with the Trinity.
And in a world filled with the idea of mashing others into oblivion and lifting ourselves to the top, of crushing and being crushed by selfishness and self-will, we need the liberation from self and the connection to God and to others that only the Holy Trinity can give us.
We need, truly, more than anything else, love that changes our hearts, our minds, and our eternities.
And only the God revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can give it. Amen
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Pentecost Welcome
[This is the welcome included in this past Sunday's bulletin to all worshipers as we celebrated Pentecost.]
Welcome to worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church! We’re happy that you’ve come to worship God with us this morning.
Today we celebrate one of the three great festivals of the Christian year, Pentecost! (The other two are Christmas and Easter.) On this day, we remember that fifty days after Jesus rose from the grave and ten days after He ascended into heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit to His praying disciples. The Spirit made it possible (and makes it possible today) for sinners forgiven and given new life by grace through faith in Christ, to...
The third article of the Apostles’ Creed, that summation of Christian faith which we invite worshippers to confess each Sunday, tells us some of what the Holy Spirit does. It says that He is:.
If you would like to know more about the Holy Spirit, a very good basic yet thorough explanation can be found in the book, The Holy Spirit by Billy Graham.
Pray that each day can be a Pentecost for you, a day when the Holy Spirit fills you again and again with the new and everlasting life that Jesus died and rose to give to all who believe. Happy Pentecost!
Welcome to worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church! We’re happy that you’ve come to worship God with us this morning.
Today we celebrate one of the three great festivals of the Christian year, Pentecost! (The other two are Christmas and Easter.) On this day, we remember that fifty days after Jesus rose from the grave and ten days after He ascended into heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit to His praying disciples. The Spirit made it possible (and makes it possible today) for sinners forgiven and given new life by grace through faith in Christ, to...
...know God’s presence in their livesAs Christians, we believe in “the Trinity.” That word never appears in Scripture, but it describes the God to Whom witness is given there, One God in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
...be renewed and to grow in their faith in Christ
...to make disciples of all nations
...to become children of God in the first place
The third article of the Apostles’ Creed, that summation of Christian faith which we invite worshippers to confess each Sunday, tells us some of what the Holy Spirit does. It says that He is:.
..the Creator of the ChurchSomeone has called the Holy Spirit, “the shy member of the Trinity.” He never calls attention to Himself. Yet, in John 3:3, Jesus says we can only be born into the Kingdom of God He died and rose to bring through “water and the Spirit.” And 1 Corinthians 12:3, we’re assured that trust in God is so foreign to our inborn human nature that it’s only by the power of the Holy Spirit working within us that we can confess, “Jesus is Lord.”
...the One Who creates fellowship among the saints, the forgiven sinners who are part of Christ’s Church on earth and in heaven
...the One Who imparts Christ’s forgiveness to those who repent and believe
...the One Who will raise up believers when Christ returns
...the very Breath of life Who will allow believers in Jesus to live eternally with God.
If you would like to know more about the Holy Spirit, a very good basic yet thorough explanation can be found in the book, The Holy Spirit by Billy Graham.
Pray that each day can be a Pentecost for you, a day when the Holy Spirit fills you again and again with the new and everlasting life that Jesus died and rose to give to all who believe. Happy Pentecost!
Monday, June 09, 2014
Changed for the Better
Shared this song on January 25. It seems like a good time to share it again.
God's grace is imparted to us often by special people...and we are changed.
God's grace is imparted to us often by special people...and we are changed.
Sunday, June 08, 2014
"You make me want to be a better man..."
One of my all-time favorite movie lines, from As Good As It Gets.
It is a great compliment to pay someone, especially if it's true.
Once, I heard a guy say it to the people of the church of which he was a member and it was a moving moment.
It's amazing the positive effect that people can have on others, with honesty wrapped in friendship and tenderness.
It is a great compliment to pay someone, especially if it's true.
Once, I heard a guy say it to the people of the church of which he was a member and it was a moving moment.
It's amazing the positive effect that people can have on others, with honesty wrapped in friendship and tenderness.
What Exactly Does the Holy Spirit Do?
[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, today.]
Acts 2:1-21
Today brings us to the third great festival of the Church Year. There’s Christmas, then Easter, and now Pentecost.
Of course, Christmas and Easter get all the press. Churches are filled for celebrations of Jesus’ birth and His resurrection from the dead. But unless young people are being confirmed on Pentecost, as happens in many Lutheran congregations on this day, attendance is rarely higher on Pentecost Sunday than it is on most other Sundays of the spring or summer.
In the secular media, magazines and cable channels seem to always use Christmas and Easter as occasions for specials claiming that they’ve found “the real Jesus.” There’ll be no special Pentecost programming about "the real Holy Spirit" on CNN or the History Channel tonight.
Maybe that’s because the Holy Spirit, the One Whose coming fifty days after Jesus rose from the dead Pentecost celebrates, doesn’t really call attention to Himself.
He’s been called the “shy member of the Trinity,”--the third Person of the Three-in-One God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—Who seems always to be in the background.
Cartoonists may show God the Father as a white-bearded old man.
And Jesus has been the focal point of endless artistic renderings for the past two-thousand years.
Though the Scriptures insist that the Spirit has a personality—Jesus calls Him a Counselor, a Comforter, an Advocate, for example, and that He is equal to and co-eternal with God the Father and God the Son, it's been hard for artists, theologians, preachers, and Christians, generally, to find ways to portray Him.
The Holy Spirit is sometimes shown as a dove. That’s because Luke’s Gospel, for example, tells us that when Jesus was baptized, the Spirit came to Him in the bodily form of a dove, a bird that the ancient Jews thought was pure, without bile.
Sometimes the Spirit is shown as fire. This is appropriate, not only because in our lesson from Acts for today, the Holy Spirit rested on 120 praying followers of Jesus like tongues of fire, but also because of some properties that fire shares with the Holy Spirit. Fire enlightens, destroys, and purifies. The Spirit of God does all of these things, depending on our needs at the time.
And sometimes, the Spirit is seen as wind. This too, is appropriate. The word translated as spirit from the Old Testament Hebrew is ruach, a word that also means wind or breath. It’s God’s ruach—wind or spirit—that moves over the waters in Genesis to create the world. It’s also God’s ruach that God breathes into dust to make the first human being.
In the Greek of the New Testament, the word pneuma has the same multiple meanings as ruach. Pneuma can also mean wind, breath, or spirit. But the problem with trying to picture something like wind or breath is that, as Jesus told Nicodemus, you may hear the sound of it—and on the first Pentecost, the Spirit must have sounded like a freight train filling the house where the first disciples had been praying--but you can’t really see it. You can only see the evidence of it.
Maybe the Spirit’s shyness and His insusceptibility to being pictured are why we attach so little importance to Pentecost.
Maybe too, it’s easier to understand what Jesus does for us than it is to understand what the Spirit does for us. At Christmas, we easily understand that Jesus, God the Son, took on the burden of being human. At Easter, we understand that after dying on a cross for us, Christ rose to give life to all who turn from sin and follow Him.
But what exactly does the Holy Spirit do for us? A lot of things, really, if we will let Him do them for us.
If you want a good starting understanding of what the Holy Spirit does to and for believers, look at the Apostles' Creed, which Christians around the world agree is a faithful presentation of the basics of Christian faith. It used to be I misunderstood the Creed. I did get that it was divided into three sections or articles of faith. I understood that the first article talks about what God the Father does and that the second article about what Jesus, God the Son, does. But I got confused by the third article: I saw it as offering a perfunctory affirmation of the Holy Spirit at the beginning of a laundry list of things Christians also believe. But, in fact, everything listed in the third article are things that the Holy Spirit does. They include:
And the Holy Spirit does much more than these things in the lives of believers. I want to talk about two things the Spirit does for us today, as seen in our first lesson, which comes from Acts 2.
First, the Holy Spirit gives us the courage to live past our fears. Before the events recounted in our lesson, 120 followers of Jesus had gathered in a room to, just as Jesus had ordered them to do, wait and pray for the power of God to come upon them.
When the Spirit came upon them “like the rush of a violent wind,” they did something they probably couldn’t have imagined doing moments before: They hit the hostile streets of Jerusalem, moving out among some of the very crowds who, just a few weeks before, had cried for Jesus’ death. They told anyone who would listen about God's mighty deeds and conveying the message that all who call on the Name of the Lord will be saved.
The Spirit gives courage to people who pray. Years ago, we met a woman who was the mother of three children. Once, there had been four. The oldest child died at the age of two. After that tragic death, the woman had taken solace in two things: being a super-mom to her second child, another girl, and in using God as a lucky charm. When she wasn’t doting on her daughter, watching her like a hawk, she was immersed in church activities, intent on warding off anything bad that might happen to the child. One day, the woman turned her head for an instant and when she turned back, the little girl was gone. The mother looked everywhere. When she finally found her, the little one was at the bottom of their pool. She had been there for some time. Terrified, the woman, who had been sent to a waiting area once her child had been transported to a hospital emergency room, screamed out to God. Then, panting between her shrieks of terror, she heard, in her mind, a message that must have come from the Holy Spirit: “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
From the Holy Spirit, Who, Jesus says, convicts us of our sin and convinces us that Christ can forgive our sin and lead us down better paths, this woman learned that her “faith” had really been superstition, a ploy to be in control of a world not in our control. She had been worshiping her child. She needed to let go, letting God be God and letting both her daughter and her be children of God. Miraculously, the child survived. But, whether the daughter had survived or not, from the Holy Spirit, the mother knew that God had given her the courage to live past her fears. The Holy Spirit does that for us.
The Holy Spirit also gives us a reason for living. Often, elderly people will ask me, “Why hasn’t God taken me yet? What am I still doing here?”
Sadly, these questions often come from people who have been hard workers their entire lives but who are no longer able to do the things they formerly could.
And young people, tired of the seeming futility of their lives often ask me the same question. I try to remind these Christians that they (and all of us) are human beings, not human doings.
They (and we) have value not because of what we do, but because of who we are.
When we stand before the judgment seat of God in eternity, God won’t ask us, “How much money did you make? How many points did you score? How often did you clean your house, stay late on the job?” God won't even ask us, "Did you leave a happy and fulfilling life?"
Instead, God will ask, “Were you a believer in the Lord Jesus? Were you a repentant sinner? Were you a grateful disciple?”
All baptized Christians are given the gift of the Holy Spirit Who reminds us that by grace, God accepts us we are and helps us to move toward becoming who we were made to be and by that same grace, God gives us a reason for living no matter what our abilities.
The first followers of Christ must have wondered after Jesus ascended into heaven why they were still around. In Jesus, they’d glimpsed eternity and they wanted to be with Him. But here they were, stuck on a planet filled with people who would rather worship themselves, or possessions, or power, or prominence, rather than the God Who made them and died and rose for them. They were stuck living a life in which they would have to struggle and possibly suffer. They were stuck too, in their imperfections, still susceptible to sin.
But when the Holy Spirit came, He gave Jesus’ praying followers a reason for living this as fully as they could. In short, the Holy Spirit game them a vocation.
All followers of Jesus have the same vocation, whatever jobs they do, even if they can no longer do a scrap of work.
A village in southern Italy learned this in the waning days of World War 2. The German soldiers who had occupied their community after re-installing Benito Mussolini as the Fascist dictator of Italy, retreated in the face of the Allied military forces.
But as the Germans fell back, their artillery shattered a statue of Christ that had once stood in the village square. The local priest told the men of the village to search for the arms, legs, and head of the statue of Christ. In the meantime, the women would prepare a village feast.
At dusk, in despair, the men approached the priest. “Father,” one of them said, “we have tried to put the statue back together. But there are no hands for Jesus. They are in pieces.”
“Children,” the priest replied, “don’t you realize? You are His hands?”
You are the hands of Christ.
That is your vocation.
That is your reason for living.
And, as was true of the first followers of Christ, the Holy Spirit will give you the capacity to fulfill your vocation, to be Christ’s hands.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t get a lot of attention. Maybe He doesn’t want it.
He’s like the quiet saint content with a ministry of praying for others, or of giving an anonymous offering so that a child can go to a mission trip, or buying a devotional book for someone struggling with hurts in their lives, or of carting the food offerings to the local food bank.
The Spirit takes a backseat in the Trinity, content with supporting Jesus as He speaks to us, content with supporting us as we call out to Jesus, follow Him, and share Him with others. The Spirit never calls attention to Himself.
But He showers believers in Christ with gifts, including the courage to live past our fears and a reason for living, a vocation of pointing others to Christ, serving them in Jesus’ Name and inviting others to follow Christ, a vocation that lasts our whole lives.
Today, I want to tell you something you've probably not heard very often: Happy Pentecost!
May you keep in prayerful contact with the Holy Spirit so that you will have the courage to live past your fears and have a reason for living life--to be the hands of Christ, witnesses for Christ--every day of your life. Amen
Acts 2:1-21
Today brings us to the third great festival of the Church Year. There’s Christmas, then Easter, and now Pentecost.
Of course, Christmas and Easter get all the press. Churches are filled for celebrations of Jesus’ birth and His resurrection from the dead. But unless young people are being confirmed on Pentecost, as happens in many Lutheran congregations on this day, attendance is rarely higher on Pentecost Sunday than it is on most other Sundays of the spring or summer.
In the secular media, magazines and cable channels seem to always use Christmas and Easter as occasions for specials claiming that they’ve found “the real Jesus.” There’ll be no special Pentecost programming about "the real Holy Spirit" on CNN or the History Channel tonight.
Maybe that’s because the Holy Spirit, the One Whose coming fifty days after Jesus rose from the dead Pentecost celebrates, doesn’t really call attention to Himself.
He’s been called the “shy member of the Trinity,”--the third Person of the Three-in-One God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—Who seems always to be in the background.
Cartoonists may show God the Father as a white-bearded old man.
And Jesus has been the focal point of endless artistic renderings for the past two-thousand years.
Though the Scriptures insist that the Spirit has a personality—Jesus calls Him a Counselor, a Comforter, an Advocate, for example, and that He is equal to and co-eternal with God the Father and God the Son, it's been hard for artists, theologians, preachers, and Christians, generally, to find ways to portray Him.
The Holy Spirit is sometimes shown as a dove. That’s because Luke’s Gospel, for example, tells us that when Jesus was baptized, the Spirit came to Him in the bodily form of a dove, a bird that the ancient Jews thought was pure, without bile.
Sometimes the Spirit is shown as fire. This is appropriate, not only because in our lesson from Acts for today, the Holy Spirit rested on 120 praying followers of Jesus like tongues of fire, but also because of some properties that fire shares with the Holy Spirit. Fire enlightens, destroys, and purifies. The Spirit of God does all of these things, depending on our needs at the time.
And sometimes, the Spirit is seen as wind. This too, is appropriate. The word translated as spirit from the Old Testament Hebrew is ruach, a word that also means wind or breath. It’s God’s ruach—wind or spirit—that moves over the waters in Genesis to create the world. It’s also God’s ruach that God breathes into dust to make the first human being.
In the Greek of the New Testament, the word pneuma has the same multiple meanings as ruach. Pneuma can also mean wind, breath, or spirit. But the problem with trying to picture something like wind or breath is that, as Jesus told Nicodemus, you may hear the sound of it—and on the first Pentecost, the Spirit must have sounded like a freight train filling the house where the first disciples had been praying--but you can’t really see it. You can only see the evidence of it.
Maybe the Spirit’s shyness and His insusceptibility to being pictured are why we attach so little importance to Pentecost.
Maybe too, it’s easier to understand what Jesus does for us than it is to understand what the Spirit does for us. At Christmas, we easily understand that Jesus, God the Son, took on the burden of being human. At Easter, we understand that after dying on a cross for us, Christ rose to give life to all who turn from sin and follow Him.
But what exactly does the Holy Spirit do for us? A lot of things, really, if we will let Him do them for us.
If you want a good starting understanding of what the Holy Spirit does to and for believers, look at the Apostles' Creed, which Christians around the world agree is a faithful presentation of the basics of Christian faith. It used to be I misunderstood the Creed. I did get that it was divided into three sections or articles of faith. I understood that the first article talks about what God the Father does and that the second article about what Jesus, God the Son, does. But I got confused by the third article: I saw it as offering a perfunctory affirmation of the Holy Spirit at the beginning of a laundry list of things Christians also believe. But, in fact, everything listed in the third article are things that the Holy Spirit does. They include:
- Creating the whole Church on earth
- Creating communion among all forgiven believers in Christ
- Giving the forgiveness Christ won on the cross to repentant believers in Christ
- Resurrecting those with faith in Christ
- Giving eternal life to Christians
And the Holy Spirit does much more than these things in the lives of believers. I want to talk about two things the Spirit does for us today, as seen in our first lesson, which comes from Acts 2.
First, the Holy Spirit gives us the courage to live past our fears. Before the events recounted in our lesson, 120 followers of Jesus had gathered in a room to, just as Jesus had ordered them to do, wait and pray for the power of God to come upon them.
When the Spirit came upon them “like the rush of a violent wind,” they did something they probably couldn’t have imagined doing moments before: They hit the hostile streets of Jerusalem, moving out among some of the very crowds who, just a few weeks before, had cried for Jesus’ death. They told anyone who would listen about God's mighty deeds and conveying the message that all who call on the Name of the Lord will be saved.
The Spirit gives courage to people who pray. Years ago, we met a woman who was the mother of three children. Once, there had been four. The oldest child died at the age of two. After that tragic death, the woman had taken solace in two things: being a super-mom to her second child, another girl, and in using God as a lucky charm. When she wasn’t doting on her daughter, watching her like a hawk, she was immersed in church activities, intent on warding off anything bad that might happen to the child. One day, the woman turned her head for an instant and when she turned back, the little girl was gone. The mother looked everywhere. When she finally found her, the little one was at the bottom of their pool. She had been there for some time. Terrified, the woman, who had been sent to a waiting area once her child had been transported to a hospital emergency room, screamed out to God. Then, panting between her shrieks of terror, she heard, in her mind, a message that must have come from the Holy Spirit: “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
From the Holy Spirit, Who, Jesus says, convicts us of our sin and convinces us that Christ can forgive our sin and lead us down better paths, this woman learned that her “faith” had really been superstition, a ploy to be in control of a world not in our control. She had been worshiping her child. She needed to let go, letting God be God and letting both her daughter and her be children of God. Miraculously, the child survived. But, whether the daughter had survived or not, from the Holy Spirit, the mother knew that God had given her the courage to live past her fears. The Holy Spirit does that for us.
The Holy Spirit also gives us a reason for living. Often, elderly people will ask me, “Why hasn’t God taken me yet? What am I still doing here?”
Sadly, these questions often come from people who have been hard workers their entire lives but who are no longer able to do the things they formerly could.
And young people, tired of the seeming futility of their lives often ask me the same question. I try to remind these Christians that they (and all of us) are human beings, not human doings.
They (and we) have value not because of what we do, but because of who we are.
When we stand before the judgment seat of God in eternity, God won’t ask us, “How much money did you make? How many points did you score? How often did you clean your house, stay late on the job?” God won't even ask us, "Did you leave a happy and fulfilling life?"
Instead, God will ask, “Were you a believer in the Lord Jesus? Were you a repentant sinner? Were you a grateful disciple?”
All baptized Christians are given the gift of the Holy Spirit Who reminds us that by grace, God accepts us we are and helps us to move toward becoming who we were made to be and by that same grace, God gives us a reason for living no matter what our abilities.
The first followers of Christ must have wondered after Jesus ascended into heaven why they were still around. In Jesus, they’d glimpsed eternity and they wanted to be with Him. But here they were, stuck on a planet filled with people who would rather worship themselves, or possessions, or power, or prominence, rather than the God Who made them and died and rose for them. They were stuck living a life in which they would have to struggle and possibly suffer. They were stuck too, in their imperfections, still susceptible to sin.
But when the Holy Spirit came, He gave Jesus’ praying followers a reason for living this as fully as they could. In short, the Holy Spirit game them a vocation.
All followers of Jesus have the same vocation, whatever jobs they do, even if they can no longer do a scrap of work.
A village in southern Italy learned this in the waning days of World War 2. The German soldiers who had occupied their community after re-installing Benito Mussolini as the Fascist dictator of Italy, retreated in the face of the Allied military forces.
But as the Germans fell back, their artillery shattered a statue of Christ that had once stood in the village square. The local priest told the men of the village to search for the arms, legs, and head of the statue of Christ. In the meantime, the women would prepare a village feast.
At dusk, in despair, the men approached the priest. “Father,” one of them said, “we have tried to put the statue back together. But there are no hands for Jesus. They are in pieces.”
“Children,” the priest replied, “don’t you realize? You are His hands?”
You are the hands of Christ.
That is your vocation.
That is your reason for living.
And, as was true of the first followers of Christ, the Holy Spirit will give you the capacity to fulfill your vocation, to be Christ’s hands.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t get a lot of attention. Maybe He doesn’t want it.
He’s like the quiet saint content with a ministry of praying for others, or of giving an anonymous offering so that a child can go to a mission trip, or buying a devotional book for someone struggling with hurts in their lives, or of carting the food offerings to the local food bank.
The Spirit takes a backseat in the Trinity, content with supporting Jesus as He speaks to us, content with supporting us as we call out to Jesus, follow Him, and share Him with others. The Spirit never calls attention to Himself.
But He showers believers in Christ with gifts, including the courage to live past our fears and a reason for living, a vocation of pointing others to Christ, serving them in Jesus’ Name and inviting others to follow Christ, a vocation that lasts our whole lives.
Today, I want to tell you something you've probably not heard very often: Happy Pentecost!
May you keep in prayerful contact with the Holy Spirit so that you will have the courage to live past your fears and have a reason for living life--to be the hands of Christ, witnesses for Christ--every day of your life. Amen
A Promise for the Sad Times and Beyond
"What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?
Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised,
who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.
"Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
"Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
"As it is written, 'For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.'
"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:31-39)
"Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
"Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
"As it is written, 'For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.'
"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:31-39)
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
Suffering and the Christian
[This was prepared to be shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, this past Sunday, June1.]
1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11
“I can see that this is coming as something of a surprise to you.”
Those were the words spoken to me by a cardiologist four years ago, after he’d told me that I’d had a heart attack that destroyed 40% of my heart.
I was surprised.
Actually I was shocked.
I had none of the so-called risk factors. And I had tried to take reasonably good care of myself over the years. But a heart attack had come anyway.
When I look back on the events of that June four years ago, though--the 3:00 in the morning trip to a hospital ER in excruciating pain, the news that Superman (how I’d always thought of myself health-wise) had, of all things, heart disease--I wonder why I was surprised.
Did I think that I was exempt from the human condition?
Yes, I think that I did.
I think, in fact, that we all entertain that delusion sometimes. We rubberneck Interstate accidents with two thoughts coming to the fore at the same time: “It could have been me.” And, “That’s what happens to other people; not me.”
At one level, we are aware of our vulnerability to suffering and pain and death.
At another, we live in denial of our vulnerability, of our humanity.
But we live in a fallen and imperfect world. We are born with the fatal of condition of inborn sin, inborn alienation from God, inborn separation from the source of life. That must, inevitably, lead to suffering and death for every human being who draws breath on this earth.
Jesus raised His friend Lazarus from the dead, but eventually, Lazarus would die again, because there can be no resurrection to eternal life with God as Jesus won on Easter Sunday until we all cross the the threshold of death as Jesus did on Good Friday. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead as a sign that He (and He alone as God in the flesh) has power over life and death. But Lazarus still had to die again.
In other words, none of us is exempt from suffering.
Now, it’s easy for Christians to accept that truth when it applies to the the non-believing world. After all, non-believers haven’t trusted in the grace and promises of the crucified and risen Jesus. They haven’t taken Jesus up on His offer to be with them always, to give them life and that abundantly, to hear and act on their prayers. But the notion that no one is exempt from suffering is a hard pill for Christians to accept about Christians, especially themselves.
When cartoonist Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts and Charlie Brown, learned that he had cancer, he was dumbfounded. “How could God have let this happen this to me?” he asked friends, according to a documentary I once watched on PBS. “I taught Sunday School for years.”
His reaction isn’t unique. To a greater or lesser extent, probably every Christian has wondered about why God has allowed their suffering--be it physical, relational, emotional--when they’ve tried so hard to be faithful.
The book of 1 Peter, from which today’s second lesson is drawn, takes on the question of human suffering, particularly the suffering of those who trust in the God revealed in Jesus Christ. It does so, in fact, more than any other book in the New Testament: 42 times in the 27 books of the New Testament a word which can be translated as suffering or sufferings appears; 12 of those times occur in the book of 1 Peter!
As we’ve mentioned before, the apostle Peter wrote this letter to be circulated among the churches in first-century Asia Minor, a region that basically encompasses today’s Turkey.
From the outset of the letter, Peter makes clear that he’s going to deal with the question of sufferings--and he always uses the plural of that word--the sufferings of Christians. As we mentioned a few weeks ago, we don’t know if the Christians in Asia Minor were undergoing official persecution or simply the shunning of friends. But Peter may have had in mind much more than dealing with the opposition of other people to the Asia Minor Christians‘ faith, explaining perhaps the plural usage.
Even if he didn’t have all human suffering in mind, his words on the subject have application to us all, irrespective of the source of our sufferings.
Please take a look at the opening verses of the lesson, 1 Peter 4:12-14 (page 852 in the sanctuary Bible). Peter writes:
Now, I think it’s clear that it refers to the metaphor of the purifying fire that would come to believers in the times before the Messiah, the Christ, fully established His kingdom. Psalm 66:10 refers to a moment of happiness and victory following a time of testing and pain when it says: “For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver.”
“Don’t be surprised!” Peter is telling us, “when suffering and difficulties come to you. As you bear them with Christ at your side, He is using those moments of suffering and challenge to forge your character, to draw Him closer to you.”
Jesus makes clear in the Gospels that God isn’t the author of our suffering. Satan is.
But God can use the suffering of Christians to deepen our fellowship with God in this life and to ready us for life in eternity.
And, Peter is telling us, Jesus Christ suffers with us.
And the One Who cried out from the cross, “My God, why have You forsaken me?” understands our questions, even when they can’t be answered on this side of eternity.
“Are you mad at God?” I asked a woman who was dying. “I was,” she said. “But I remember that Christ is always with me.”
The Christ Who suffered for you on His Good Friday is also the Christ Who will suffer with you on your Good Fridays, if you will let Him into your life.
That’s what Peter gets to in the latter part of our lesson, starting at 1 Peter 5:6:
One of those is referred to by Peter here when he says: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
The God made known to the world cares for you. Among all the little gods and godlets, the idols that have sprung from human imagination, in both ancient and modern times, none cared for human beings. The Greek and Roman idols from which Asia Minor Christians had been freed by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, might, in the mythology about them, manipulate or use humans or fall in love with them or abuse them. But they didn’t care for human beings.
God though, the God Who made you in His image, does care for you, even when you sin. Romans 5:8 says: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Give your sins, along with your cares and your sufferings to Jesus. He will bathe you in the grace and forgiveness of God. He will stand with you. He will stand for you in the halls of heaven as you pray.
In my thirty years as a pastor, it's been my observation that suffering can do one of two big things to people.
For those with shallow faith, the kind of faith that sees Jesus as a rabbit's foot, suffering alienates them from God and embitters them.
For others though, suffering acquaints them with their weakness...and with God's strength.
In Saint Matthew in Logan, where I last served, was a young woman named Sarah. She learned when she was thirteen that she had leukemia. She fought valiantly through seven years, two bone marrow transplants, and five relapses. Once, when she was in the ICU, observing how she held onto Christ, not as a good luck charm, but as her Lord, I asked if she would preach the following Easter Sunday. Later, she joked that since, at the time, she'd been under the influence of pain-killers, she'd said yes to my request. But it was a powerful moment for us all when Sarah did preach the following Easter and reminded us that our hope is in Christ alone.
You may remember that once, the apostle Paul was suffering from what he called "a thorn in the flesh." We have no idea what it was. But Paul reported that he asked God three different times to take it away. God said, "No. My grace is sufficient. I'm all you need." And God explained to Paul that His power is perfected in our weakness.
Why was Sarah's witness for Christ so powerful? Why are those who suffer and die with Christ by their sides always a more powerful presence in our lives than those who seem to have the world by the string and no need of God?
For one simple reason: It's only in those courageous enough to acknowledge their weakness and need and defeat in the face of life that the full power and grace and life of God can be seen!
It's only in those who understand their own vulnerability and humanity and mortality that the crucified and risen Jesus can be fully manifest and exercise His gracious Lordship over a life transformed by His love. (I hope someday to be such a person of faith!)
Suffering in this life shouldn’t surprise us. But, as we humble ourselves under the Lordship of Christ, we will be surprised by how He can carry us even through the valleys where death shadows us.
Paul, knowing that he would die for his faith in Christ after decades of sufferings and of fighting and wrestling with himself in order to stay faithful to the Lord Who had given forgiveness, life, and eternity to him as free gifts through Christ (the greatest struggles Christians face will be with themselves), wrote this to a young pastor named Timothy back in the first century: “...the time for my departure [my death] is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”
Peter's challenge us today is this: To own our weakness and so, let the power of Christ sustain us in this life and prepare us for the one to come. Amen
1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11
“I can see that this is coming as something of a surprise to you.”
Those were the words spoken to me by a cardiologist four years ago, after he’d told me that I’d had a heart attack that destroyed 40% of my heart.
I was surprised.
Actually I was shocked.
I had none of the so-called risk factors. And I had tried to take reasonably good care of myself over the years. But a heart attack had come anyway.
When I look back on the events of that June four years ago, though--the 3:00 in the morning trip to a hospital ER in excruciating pain, the news that Superman (how I’d always thought of myself health-wise) had, of all things, heart disease--I wonder why I was surprised.
Did I think that I was exempt from the human condition?
Yes, I think that I did.
I think, in fact, that we all entertain that delusion sometimes. We rubberneck Interstate accidents with two thoughts coming to the fore at the same time: “It could have been me.” And, “That’s what happens to other people; not me.”
At one level, we are aware of our vulnerability to suffering and pain and death.
At another, we live in denial of our vulnerability, of our humanity.
But we live in a fallen and imperfect world. We are born with the fatal of condition of inborn sin, inborn alienation from God, inborn separation from the source of life. That must, inevitably, lead to suffering and death for every human being who draws breath on this earth.
Jesus raised His friend Lazarus from the dead, but eventually, Lazarus would die again, because there can be no resurrection to eternal life with God as Jesus won on Easter Sunday until we all cross the the threshold of death as Jesus did on Good Friday. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead as a sign that He (and He alone as God in the flesh) has power over life and death. But Lazarus still had to die again.
In other words, none of us is exempt from suffering.
Now, it’s easy for Christians to accept that truth when it applies to the the non-believing world. After all, non-believers haven’t trusted in the grace and promises of the crucified and risen Jesus. They haven’t taken Jesus up on His offer to be with them always, to give them life and that abundantly, to hear and act on their prayers. But the notion that no one is exempt from suffering is a hard pill for Christians to accept about Christians, especially themselves.
When cartoonist Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts and Charlie Brown, learned that he had cancer, he was dumbfounded. “How could God have let this happen this to me?” he asked friends, according to a documentary I once watched on PBS. “I taught Sunday School for years.”
His reaction isn’t unique. To a greater or lesser extent, probably every Christian has wondered about why God has allowed their suffering--be it physical, relational, emotional--when they’ve tried so hard to be faithful.
The book of 1 Peter, from which today’s second lesson is drawn, takes on the question of human suffering, particularly the suffering of those who trust in the God revealed in Jesus Christ. It does so, in fact, more than any other book in the New Testament: 42 times in the 27 books of the New Testament a word which can be translated as suffering or sufferings appears; 12 of those times occur in the book of 1 Peter!
As we’ve mentioned before, the apostle Peter wrote this letter to be circulated among the churches in first-century Asia Minor, a region that basically encompasses today’s Turkey.
From the outset of the letter, Peter makes clear that he’s going to deal with the question of sufferings--and he always uses the plural of that word--the sufferings of Christians. As we mentioned a few weeks ago, we don’t know if the Christians in Asia Minor were undergoing official persecution or simply the shunning of friends. But Peter may have had in mind much more than dealing with the opposition of other people to the Asia Minor Christians‘ faith, explaining perhaps the plural usage.
Even if he didn’t have all human suffering in mind, his words on the subject have application to us all, irrespective of the source of our sufferings.
Please take a look at the opening verses of the lesson, 1 Peter 4:12-14 (page 852 in the sanctuary Bible). Peter writes:
Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.For years, some scholars thought that the phrase “fiery ordeal” referred to the Roman punishment of burning Christians to death. But Peter’s letter was written years before that form of punishment was instituted.
Now, I think it’s clear that it refers to the metaphor of the purifying fire that would come to believers in the times before the Messiah, the Christ, fully established His kingdom. Psalm 66:10 refers to a moment of happiness and victory following a time of testing and pain when it says: “For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver.”
“Don’t be surprised!” Peter is telling us, “when suffering and difficulties come to you. As you bear them with Christ at your side, He is using those moments of suffering and challenge to forge your character, to draw Him closer to you.”
Jesus makes clear in the Gospels that God isn’t the author of our suffering. Satan is.
But God can use the suffering of Christians to deepen our fellowship with God in this life and to ready us for life in eternity.
And, Peter is telling us, Jesus Christ suffers with us.
And the One Who cried out from the cross, “My God, why have You forsaken me?” understands our questions, even when they can’t be answered on this side of eternity.
“Are you mad at God?” I asked a woman who was dying. “I was,” she said. “But I remember that Christ is always with me.”
The Christ Who suffered for you on His Good Friday is also the Christ Who will suffer with you on your Good Fridays, if you will let Him into your life.
That’s what Peter gets to in the latter part of our lesson, starting at 1 Peter 5:6:
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. [Even if this life is filled with the suffering which may come to human beings at any time in this world, we have the hope of resurrection life with Christ, where sufferings will be done and joy will be complete.] Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.Listen: Following Jesus is not an insurance policy against the realities of this life. “In this world,” Jesus says to those who follow Him, “you will have trouble...” If that’s a promise we’d rather not have from Jesus, remember that there are other promises that go with that one.
One of those is referred to by Peter here when he says: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
The God made known to the world cares for you. Among all the little gods and godlets, the idols that have sprung from human imagination, in both ancient and modern times, none cared for human beings. The Greek and Roman idols from which Asia Minor Christians had been freed by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, might, in the mythology about them, manipulate or use humans or fall in love with them or abuse them. But they didn’t care for human beings.
God though, the God Who made you in His image, does care for you, even when you sin. Romans 5:8 says: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Give your sins, along with your cares and your sufferings to Jesus. He will bathe you in the grace and forgiveness of God. He will stand with you. He will stand for you in the halls of heaven as you pray.
In my thirty years as a pastor, it's been my observation that suffering can do one of two big things to people.
For those with shallow faith, the kind of faith that sees Jesus as a rabbit's foot, suffering alienates them from God and embitters them.
For others though, suffering acquaints them with their weakness...and with God's strength.
In Saint Matthew in Logan, where I last served, was a young woman named Sarah. She learned when she was thirteen that she had leukemia. She fought valiantly through seven years, two bone marrow transplants, and five relapses. Once, when she was in the ICU, observing how she held onto Christ, not as a good luck charm, but as her Lord, I asked if she would preach the following Easter Sunday. Later, she joked that since, at the time, she'd been under the influence of pain-killers, she'd said yes to my request. But it was a powerful moment for us all when Sarah did preach the following Easter and reminded us that our hope is in Christ alone.
You may remember that once, the apostle Paul was suffering from what he called "a thorn in the flesh." We have no idea what it was. But Paul reported that he asked God three different times to take it away. God said, "No. My grace is sufficient. I'm all you need." And God explained to Paul that His power is perfected in our weakness.
Why was Sarah's witness for Christ so powerful? Why are those who suffer and die with Christ by their sides always a more powerful presence in our lives than those who seem to have the world by the string and no need of God?
For one simple reason: It's only in those courageous enough to acknowledge their weakness and need and defeat in the face of life that the full power and grace and life of God can be seen!
It's only in those who understand their own vulnerability and humanity and mortality that the crucified and risen Jesus can be fully manifest and exercise His gracious Lordship over a life transformed by His love. (I hope someday to be such a person of faith!)
Suffering in this life shouldn’t surprise us. But, as we humble ourselves under the Lordship of Christ, we will be surprised by how He can carry us even through the valleys where death shadows us.
Paul, knowing that he would die for his faith in Christ after decades of sufferings and of fighting and wrestling with himself in order to stay faithful to the Lord Who had given forgiveness, life, and eternity to him as free gifts through Christ (the greatest struggles Christians face will be with themselves), wrote this to a young pastor named Timothy back in the first century: “...the time for my departure [my death] is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”
Peter's challenge us today is this: To own our weakness and so, let the power of Christ sustain us in this life and prepare us for the one to come. Amen
Friday, May 30, 2014
What Will He Be Like on the Clippers' Sidelines?
Steve Ballmer goes crazy in order to profess his love for the company from which he recently retired, some $20-billion richer.
It has to be an act; after all, who could love Microsoft?
But truly, this guy is obviously smart and aggressive, making me wonder how long he'll be satisfied with his franchise being a renter from the Lakers, losing out on the revenue an organization can generate from controlling its venue?
The Clippers will have to become a more consistently solid contending commodity before Ballmer or anyone else will be able to get a Clippers arena built, I think. Even with the $18-billion he has in his bank accounts, it's hard to believe he could take on the building of a new basketball venue on his own or from the revenues the Clippers (may) generate in the future.
But, I'm probably completely wrong. I'm a preacher; not a software mogul, Harvard graduate, or nearly-new NBA franchise owner.
BTW: One thing it's probably safe to say is that Ballmer won't be caught spewing racist rants and that's good.
It has to be an act; after all, who could love Microsoft?
But truly, this guy is obviously smart and aggressive, making me wonder how long he'll be satisfied with his franchise being a renter from the Lakers, losing out on the revenue an organization can generate from controlling its venue?
The Clippers will have to become a more consistently solid contending commodity before Ballmer or anyone else will be able to get a Clippers arena built, I think. Even with the $18-billion he has in his bank accounts, it's hard to believe he could take on the building of a new basketball venue on his own or from the revenues the Clippers (may) generate in the future.
But, I'm probably completely wrong. I'm a preacher; not a software mogul, Harvard graduate, or nearly-new NBA franchise owner.
BTW: One thing it's probably safe to say is that Ballmer won't be caught spewing racist rants and that's good.
This is Cool!
OK, I know I'm moderately OCD. (No guffawing, those of you who know me well.) But this video on how to fold a T-shirt is uber-cool!
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Mega Promises!
[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio on Sunday, May 25.]
John 14:15-21
In the first parish I served as pastor, a member was badly hurt in an accident. For some time, his life hung in the balance, meaning many hours waiting in the hospital for his family and friends. His wife had just given birth to their third child and was breastfeeding him. Because she needed to be at the hospital with her husband, this meant that she often retreated to a janitor's closet there, usually with her sister-in-law, to use a pump to get the milk to be sent back home to her son. While she did this, her sister-in-law read to her from the Bible, Christ in Our Home, and Guideposts magazine. Between readings, they would pray together. The women came to see the janitor's closet as a cherished spot, a place where they were sure they met God. They even gave the small closet a name. They called it The Pump and Pray Room.
Some people may hear that story and dismiss the women’s sense of God’s presence as an instance of two Christians talking themselves into a feeling. The women in their Pump and Pray Room, skeptics are likely to say, simply enjoyed one another’s company and the soothing words of Scripture. But, these skeptics would go on, they didn’t really meet God.
The follower of Jesus Christ would say otherwise.
And our saying so is more than wishful thinking.
Today’s Gospel lesson from John continues the words Jesus spoke to His disciples before His arrest. His ‘Farewell Discourse’ contained last minute instructions Jesus had for His followers as He looked ahead not just to His crucifixion and resurrection, but also to the days and years that would come after He ascended into heaven. Jesus wanted those first disciples—and you and me—to know that He would not leave His followers alone.
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you,” He promises believers like you and me. When we face the uncertainties of life, when we make decisions, when we wonder whether God can love us when we sin, this is an awesome promise to hold onto. God will never leave us as orphans!
But how can it be true?
How is it that the risen and ascended Jesus can actually be with us now?
In our lesson for today, Jesus gives two mega-promises to believers, promises that should tell us that when Christians sense that they’re being helped, guided, or accompanied by God, they’re not suffering from religious delusions. They’re experiencing God’s presence meeting them at the points of their deepest need.
I’ll talk about those two promises in a moment. But before I do, I need to point out something important about this passage. You may have noticed it already. It begins and ends with a condition for the promises Jesus makes. At the beginning, Jesus says, “If you love me, keep my commands.” At the end, He says the same thing in reverse order: “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me.”
Now, folks, I don’t want to go too deeply into the woods of Biblical scholarship. But it’s worth pointing out that whenever you have two similar verses bracketing a section of Scripture like this, it forms what the scholars call an inclusion, or an inclusio. Everything sandwiched between the two verses is related to them or amplifies or explains them. Jesus used this inclusio when He spoke to the disciples in order to make an important point. Jesus wants us to know that He will be with those who keep His commands.
Now, be careful here. Jesus is not rescinding what the Bible calls grace. There isn’t a single one of Jesus’ promises that we either deserve or earn. Every one of Jesus’ promises and blessings are free gifts we cannot earn. So, instead of concluding that Jesus is throwing grace overboard here, we need to pay close attention to the verb Jesus uses in both of those bracket verses. He talks about those who keep His commands as being the ones who truly love Him. The word translated as keep is, in the original Greek, tereo. Among the meanings of that word are: watch over, pay attention to, hold dear.
None of us can perfectly fulfill the commands Jesus or the Scriptures give. But every time...
We are living out our love and gratitude to the Savior Who died on a cross for our sins and rose from the dead to give us life.
We are, simply, giving first place in our lives to the Savior Who puts us first.
We are doing the hard work of loving Jesus, as Jesus has loved us, each day.
All of this--holding Jesus' commands dear, striving to live our lives like Jesus--is the precondition for the two mega-promises Jesus gives in today’s lesson.
So, what are those promises?
First, Jesus says, to those who love Him and keep His commands, He will send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. In the original Greek of the New Testament, the word translated as Advocate is paraclete. It means call alongside. The Holy Spirit comes alongside believers in Jesus and makes the presence and love and power of God unmistakably clear to them. Believers in Jesus can experience the presence of the Holy Spirit with alongside of them every single day.
Pastor Craig Barnes became ill soon after being called to serve as senior pastor of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.. “I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer,” he told a magazine interviewer. “The elders and I were tempted to keep it a secret. But we told everybody, and soon many people were holding me before God in prayer. It was great to be spiritually ‘held’ by a congregation — it cast out fear. My illness has been a tremendous life-changing experience: I try to live in the gift of the day, and not count on tomorrow.”
You see what happened? Barnes owned his need and soon, a whole church was calling the Holy Spirit to come alongside him and his family. The Spirit, in turn, came alongside Craig Barnes and called out God's love and power into his life. The Spirit transformed his response to his illness...and his life!
The Holy Spirit can do similar work in our lives each day, assuring us of the presence and compassion of God whatever the conditions of our lives.
There’s a second promise in today’s Gospel lesson. Jesus says, “I will come to you.” He goes on to say, “Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me…”
At one level, Jesus was telling His first followers that because they had believed in Him, because they had sought to love Him and keep His commands, they would see Him when He rose from the dead. Those who had rejected Him wouldn’t see Him.
But at another level, He was saying that in succeeding history, the people who dared to believe in Him, people like you and me, would also see Him. Not physically. But in their lives, they would recognize His presence. As Jesus told Thomas one week after Jesus had risen from the dead: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
For decades now, many western European and North American Biblical scholars, skeptical about the Bible, have engaged in what has been called “the quest for the historical Jesus.” Some of these scholars claim to be able to decide what portions of the Bible are true and which ones are not.
A few years ago, several of these scholars lamented the fact that, “African-American scholars really have taken no interest in the ongoing discussion of the historical Jesus. A black pastor [at the meeting where this lamentation was issued] got up and said, ‘I have been listening to you worrying about why our people aren’t really talking much about the historical Jesus. You know, it is not a big issue in the black church. Because, you see, we ALWAYS knew who Jesus was!’”
“We always knew,” he was saying, “that the risen Jesus is real and that He will not leave His people orphaned!”
No matter how many well-to-do white scholars with too much time on their hands and too much hubris in their souls to accept God’s ability to bring about resurrections and to give new life, Jesus’ promise stands for all who love Him and hold His commands dear. He will come to us. He will be with us!
Those who follow Jesus see Him working in their lives today because they know Who He is: God and Savior and the lover of their souls. They’ve been comforted by the presence of His Holy Spirit. When they call out to Him, they’ve experienced Jesus coming to them.
Jesus’ message for us today is, I think, simple: Put Jesus first in your life. He will send His Spirit to you and He will come to you. Even on the days when nothing makes sense, He will stand by you, filling you with life and peace. With Jesus, you will never be alone. Amen
John 14:15-21
In the first parish I served as pastor, a member was badly hurt in an accident. For some time, his life hung in the balance, meaning many hours waiting in the hospital for his family and friends. His wife had just given birth to their third child and was breastfeeding him. Because she needed to be at the hospital with her husband, this meant that she often retreated to a janitor's closet there, usually with her sister-in-law, to use a pump to get the milk to be sent back home to her son. While she did this, her sister-in-law read to her from the Bible, Christ in Our Home, and Guideposts magazine. Between readings, they would pray together. The women came to see the janitor's closet as a cherished spot, a place where they were sure they met God. They even gave the small closet a name. They called it The Pump and Pray Room.
Some people may hear that story and dismiss the women’s sense of God’s presence as an instance of two Christians talking themselves into a feeling. The women in their Pump and Pray Room, skeptics are likely to say, simply enjoyed one another’s company and the soothing words of Scripture. But, these skeptics would go on, they didn’t really meet God.
The follower of Jesus Christ would say otherwise.
And our saying so is more than wishful thinking.
Today’s Gospel lesson from John continues the words Jesus spoke to His disciples before His arrest. His ‘Farewell Discourse’ contained last minute instructions Jesus had for His followers as He looked ahead not just to His crucifixion and resurrection, but also to the days and years that would come after He ascended into heaven. Jesus wanted those first disciples—and you and me—to know that He would not leave His followers alone.
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you,” He promises believers like you and me. When we face the uncertainties of life, when we make decisions, when we wonder whether God can love us when we sin, this is an awesome promise to hold onto. God will never leave us as orphans!
But how can it be true?
How is it that the risen and ascended Jesus can actually be with us now?
In our lesson for today, Jesus gives two mega-promises to believers, promises that should tell us that when Christians sense that they’re being helped, guided, or accompanied by God, they’re not suffering from religious delusions. They’re experiencing God’s presence meeting them at the points of their deepest need.
I’ll talk about those two promises in a moment. But before I do, I need to point out something important about this passage. You may have noticed it already. It begins and ends with a condition for the promises Jesus makes. At the beginning, Jesus says, “If you love me, keep my commands.” At the end, He says the same thing in reverse order: “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me.”
Now, folks, I don’t want to go too deeply into the woods of Biblical scholarship. But it’s worth pointing out that whenever you have two similar verses bracketing a section of Scripture like this, it forms what the scholars call an inclusion, or an inclusio. Everything sandwiched between the two verses is related to them or amplifies or explains them. Jesus used this inclusio when He spoke to the disciples in order to make an important point. Jesus wants us to know that He will be with those who keep His commands.
Now, be careful here. Jesus is not rescinding what the Bible calls grace. There isn’t a single one of Jesus’ promises that we either deserve or earn. Every one of Jesus’ promises and blessings are free gifts we cannot earn. So, instead of concluding that Jesus is throwing grace overboard here, we need to pay close attention to the verb Jesus uses in both of those bracket verses. He talks about those who keep His commands as being the ones who truly love Him. The word translated as keep is, in the original Greek, tereo. Among the meanings of that word are: watch over, pay attention to, hold dear.
None of us can perfectly fulfill the commands Jesus or the Scriptures give. But every time...
- you and I confess our sins together or in private, or
- strive to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, or
- forgive others as God forgives us, or
- serve others as Jesus serves us...
We are living out our love and gratitude to the Savior Who died on a cross for our sins and rose from the dead to give us life.
We are, simply, giving first place in our lives to the Savior Who puts us first.
We are doing the hard work of loving Jesus, as Jesus has loved us, each day.
All of this--holding Jesus' commands dear, striving to live our lives like Jesus--is the precondition for the two mega-promises Jesus gives in today’s lesson.
So, what are those promises?
First, Jesus says, to those who love Him and keep His commands, He will send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. In the original Greek of the New Testament, the word translated as Advocate is paraclete. It means call alongside. The Holy Spirit comes alongside believers in Jesus and makes the presence and love and power of God unmistakably clear to them. Believers in Jesus can experience the presence of the Holy Spirit with alongside of them every single day.
Pastor Craig Barnes became ill soon after being called to serve as senior pastor of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.. “I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer,” he told a magazine interviewer. “The elders and I were tempted to keep it a secret. But we told everybody, and soon many people were holding me before God in prayer. It was great to be spiritually ‘held’ by a congregation — it cast out fear. My illness has been a tremendous life-changing experience: I try to live in the gift of the day, and not count on tomorrow.”
You see what happened? Barnes owned his need and soon, a whole church was calling the Holy Spirit to come alongside him and his family. The Spirit, in turn, came alongside Craig Barnes and called out God's love and power into his life. The Spirit transformed his response to his illness...and his life!
The Holy Spirit can do similar work in our lives each day, assuring us of the presence and compassion of God whatever the conditions of our lives.
There’s a second promise in today’s Gospel lesson. Jesus says, “I will come to you.” He goes on to say, “Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me…”
At one level, Jesus was telling His first followers that because they had believed in Him, because they had sought to love Him and keep His commands, they would see Him when He rose from the dead. Those who had rejected Him wouldn’t see Him.
But at another level, He was saying that in succeeding history, the people who dared to believe in Him, people like you and me, would also see Him. Not physically. But in their lives, they would recognize His presence. As Jesus told Thomas one week after Jesus had risen from the dead: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
For decades now, many western European and North American Biblical scholars, skeptical about the Bible, have engaged in what has been called “the quest for the historical Jesus.” Some of these scholars claim to be able to decide what portions of the Bible are true and which ones are not.
A few years ago, several of these scholars lamented the fact that, “African-American scholars really have taken no interest in the ongoing discussion of the historical Jesus. A black pastor [at the meeting where this lamentation was issued] got up and said, ‘I have been listening to you worrying about why our people aren’t really talking much about the historical Jesus. You know, it is not a big issue in the black church. Because, you see, we ALWAYS knew who Jesus was!’”
“We always knew,” he was saying, “that the risen Jesus is real and that He will not leave His people orphaned!”
No matter how many well-to-do white scholars with too much time on their hands and too much hubris in their souls to accept God’s ability to bring about resurrections and to give new life, Jesus’ promise stands for all who love Him and hold His commands dear. He will come to us. He will be with us!
Those who follow Jesus see Him working in their lives today because they know Who He is: God and Savior and the lover of their souls. They’ve been comforted by the presence of His Holy Spirit. When they call out to Him, they’ve experienced Jesus coming to them.
Jesus’ message for us today is, I think, simple: Put Jesus first in your life. He will send His Spirit to you and He will come to you. Even on the days when nothing makes sense, He will stand by you, filling you with life and peace. With Jesus, you will never be alone. Amen
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