Monday Morning Music Ministry

Easter, 2024

Every Christmas, Handel’s Messiah is Top-Ten in peoples’ lives. In concert halls, churches, and community sings; on radio and TV we hear the oratorio, or at least the familiar “For Unto Us a Child Is Born” and the “Hallelujah” Chorus. Even if only once a year, this is a good thing, culturally and spiritually.

Handel’s masterpiece encompasses, as its simple title proclaims, the entire life of the Savior, from prophesy to Resurrection. Handel lived his life in Germany, in Italy, and thence to England where he generally is embraced as a British composer. Messiah actually was first performed in Dublin. I was privileged to see his writing desk on display in the Writers Museum in the Irish capital.

More provincial than Handel was his landsman Johann Sebastian Bach, born the same year, 1685, only a few miles away, although the two musical titans never met. Bach’s musical reach, however, arguably is greater than Handel’s geographical realms; as great as that of any mortal who ever hummed a tune or wrote a melody.

They may be compared – just as Christmas and Easter may be compared in the business of our lives – but if their works may be compared, it is unfortunate that Bach’s supernal religious works probably are less celebrated than Handel’s Messiah. Anyway, less “familiar” to the ears of average folks, especially during holidays. This is regrettable, because Bach wrote music of astonishing power, musically and of deep emotional import. The B minor Mass; Magnificat; more than 200 cantatas; motets; and two Passions, St John’s and St Matthew’s.

It might seem like I have begun with a predictable tangent before I have even begun this Easter message. But, no; I want to draw attention to the amazing way the human race’s greatest composer presented the Easter story. I wish it were better known to people: more familiar.

For Holy Week vespers services in Leipzig, Germany, Bach wrote the St Matthew Passion and the St John Passion, which were each performed in the St Thomas and St Nicholas churches on alternate years for decades. Three other Passions apparently have been lost. Bach wrote about 1800 pieces of music in his lifetime, and about 1200 are extant. Approximately half of his output was Christian music.

His Passions were series of cantatas to be performed during Holy Week, and in parts during services. They were similar to oratorios or operas but without costumes or drama – singers were assigned roles, and there was a musical “narrator.” The straight biblical narrative was distributed among soloists (evangelists and individual figures including Jesus, Peter, and Pilate) and choirs (various crowds, high priests, Roman soldiers, and Jews). We can appreciate the spectacle that the congregation beheld: a combination of church and theater, Greek-style drama and opera, music and voice, emotive performances.

Two broad categories commend Bach’s favored Passion (possibly the work of which he was proudest of all his compositions), The Passion According to St Matthew.

Musically, it is a succession of amazing melodies, alternating gentle beauty, then tense drama, then profound emotion. It has musical motifs and phrases interlaced, reflecting the underlying themes and meanings of events during Holy Week. The combinations of solo instruments and voices; unique combinations and harmonies; and grand choruses of voices and full orchestral power are impressive.

All is outpaced, of course, by the spiritual message, the meaning of every scene and biblical phrase, and the skill of dramatization – the masterful presentation of the events – and the spiritual significance of every element. This is not a mere recitation of happenings, or a reading of Bible verses. The “Narrator” guides us, but Bach’s composition is a stunning re-creation of the agony and ecstasy of the Crucifixion story. By the verses and voices, the St Matthew Passion provides the points of view of all the participants and observers – including God, by quoted Bible prophesies; Jesus, by His words; and even us, dramatically through the eyes of the crowds in Jerusalem.

History came to call Bach “The Fifth Evangelist,” the accolade bypassing even his spiritual mentor Martin Luther, because of his clarity of spiritual understanding and the power of his musical talent. Some 15 years ago I wrote a major biography of Johann Sebastian Bach, and with every fact I researched, every work I listened to (and listened again and again) my awe increased. He was, in the end, a theologian who could write music, the greatest that humankind has produced or heard. It will be savored as long as men have ears, in the words of H L Mencken.

My friend the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Edmund Morris wrote me a note wherein he called my Bach biography superior to his own study of Beethoven, if you will permit me a little boast (well, I don’t give you a choice). However, he averred that I painted a portrait of Bach as being too much of a Christian; that spirituality was not a major component of Bach’s character. I am afraid that this opinion reflected more of Edmund than it did of Johann. For all of the old German’s success, Bach confessed that he was proudest of being a follower of Christ; then, a husband and father in his community; then, a music-maker.

And here we meet the Easter theme. We must all be proudest – first importance in our lives; the focus of all we do – of “knowing Christ and Him crucified.” The Easter story, the dramatic Passions, should be read and listened to and meditated upon, every week of the year, not only during Holy Week.

Indeed, the message of the cross, the Resurrection, the Ascension, should be the themes of our lives. Church “days” are useful to help us focus, motivating our faith and devotion, reminding us of how the Savior of our souls suffered on our behalf. His sorrows and pain were endured to fully identify with broken humanity. His death was a substitute for the punishment we deserve as sinners.

God became flesh and dwelt among us, a sublime mystery. And – you know the story – His Incarnate Son’s resurrection from the dead is to show the promise of our eternal life. Unspeakable glory awaits us.

You can experience the story in what may be a new way. I recommend that you set apart a couple hours, open the link to the music video below, and let the story of Passion Week, the genius of J S Bach, and the mastery of conductor Karl Richter bathe your soul. The artistry of the performance matches the innovative music of Bach. Orchestra and choir are in a stark setting here. A giant cross above and behind the musicians changes its position amid bright and dark lighting, reflecting the tones of the unfolding Biblical text. I pray that you find the time to savor this.

And have an even more blessed Easter.

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Click: Bach St Matthew Passion BWV 244 Karl Richter in parts

Easter 2023, 4-10-23 message

There are many ways to think about Easter – including, I earnestly mean, ways for us to contemplate and meditate upon its significance.

Beyond its secular trappings and pagan associations, the eggs and candy and (once upon a time) Easter parades, and hunting for eggs. The bunnies. The “traditional” Easter menus.

Even, at our churches, the end of Lent with, for some Christians, its ashes and sacrifices, palms on Sunday and Good Friday observances. Even sunrise services and special hymns. Beyond all that…

I once had a Christian friend who was a faithful, lifelong churchgoer. An orthodox (but not Orthodox) Protestant. But to the extent he had a personal theology, he had some gripes with God. For instance, he always wondered how God could be a “God of love” who required that Abraham kill his boy Isaac as a sacrifice. Do you know the story? Neither did Abraham understand, but he obeyed. He took Isaac up on a mountainside and prepared to slay him. As we know, God intervened and told Abraham to let up.

The whole act seemed to my friend to be unbelievably cruel – from the strange command to the “tease” of calling off the bizarre command at the last minute. “God of Vengeance I understand,” my friend said about the “Old Testament” revelations of God; “Even a God of Judgment. But to torture a father in such a way, and to even present a scenario of preparing the boy to be killed… what kind of a God is that?”

Well, He is a God who evidently was not introduced to congragations over a lifetime of Sunday sermons. For between the lines of the Abraham-and-Isaac story is a God of love.

We can, perhaps, forgive my friend. Because despite the ancient Israelites always looking to the “coming Messiah” and receiving myriad signs and prophesies, very few of them understood the ways of the Lord. For that matter, even the Disciples who lived with Jesus for three and a half years, who witnessed miracles and listened to teachings, did not fully understand the message of the cross. Right down to the arrest and passion of Jesus; his crucifixion and death – even immediately upon His miraculous resurrection from the tomb – they did not fully understand what we are considering here: the meaning of Easter.

Jesus was God-Become-Man, the Incarnation. Not in order to live as much as to die.

His mission was only peripherally, however important, to teach and heal and bear witness to the Father. His mission was to be killed.

As the Christ he touched people’s lives as they happened to meet Him. But it was never meant to be that His life on earth would “draw all unto Me.” That was the purpose of His death, not His life – “If I be lifted up.”

The message of the cross and the meaning of Easter were in the sacrificial death of the spotless lamb, Jesus Christ. Unlike the sinless Jesus, all of humanity has sinned. And no one can stand sinless before a Holy God, “no, not one.” Rules, commandments, religious laws had not brought salvation to humankind. How many times a year (or a week, or a day) do you commit any sort of sin?

Jesus became that sin offering; His death is substitutionary. “Believe in Me,” Jesus told us, “and ye shall never die.” That is – life eternal, forgiveness of those sins, acceptance by God. We only have to believe it in our hearts, and confess it with our mouths.

After Jesus died for the punishment we deserve, He rose from the dead to show that, indeed, sin and death have been defeated on our behalf. Then He, 40 days later, ascended bodily into Heaven, to finally confirm His divinity. Then the Holy Spirit came to believers – as it does today – on the day of Pentecost, to be God-within-us.

It sounds simple. Maybe even crazy, but no crazier than Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son. It was picture, a foretelling, a prophesy, of the Lord God’s willingness to sacrifice His own Son. Indeed, it stood as His promise to do so.

“Life” was, perhaps, viewed a little differently in Old Testament days; infant mortality was common. And in today’s world (ironically, especially in “Christian” countries) life seems cheaper all the time, as our culture of death normalizes abortion and euthanasia, trafficking and abuse. Yet the slaying of one’s child, directly, or planning it, as God ordered the Passion of the Christ… is a different matter.

If God the Father ever wept, it was then.

And the meaning of Easter is not only Jesus’s death, but all He endured – for us. The unjust arrest, the false accusations, the mocking, the whipping, the physical abuse, the crown of thorns, the carrying of the rough cross through streets, the spikes through wrists and feet, hanging, bleeding, suffocating. And, in my imagination, the most painful aspect might have been the Savior’s realization of betrayal by His closest friends and followers.

“What kind of God,” as my friend might have asked, “would write such a script?”

The answer is the Easter message: A God who loves us to such an extent.

That Easter message, ultimately, is a love story. Nothing more; and surely nothing less. The hymns we sing are love songs back to God. The unified story of the entire Bible, its centrality the hours between the cross and the empty tomb, was God’s plan for His incarnate Son. And for us.

But it’s not over. Jesus does not “merely” live today. There is a lesson of a little boy playing Jesus in a Sunday School Easter pageant, in his bedroom robe, jumping from the cardboard tomb and yelling “Here I come, ready or not!!!”

In fact, that is close to what Jesus says. It’s our turn now. “What kind of God” has been answered. Now the question is – What kind of people will respond?

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Click: Were You There?

4-3-23

This time of year we focus once again on Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Good Friday, Easter, the Resurrection, the Ascension. In fact we should meditate on these events – and the truths behind them – more often than once a year. What was a miracle on the morning called Easter is a miracle to cherish in summer, fall, and winter too, and every day of our lives.

In the same manner also I have learned to look “beyond the familiar,” regarding the events of this season, and all events recorded in the Bible, all passages that speak to us. To know contexts is to enrich the truths.

For instance, the story of Blind Man Bartimaeus has always been compelling to me. The setting is just before Holy Week as we call it; just before Jesus entered Jerusalem. We know from the Palm Sunday story that His reputation preceded Jesus. Multitudes of people thronged about Him – happy mobs, really. They knew of His miracles, heard about His teaching; shared in the popular adulation. We read of His entrance to Jerusalem, the crowds, the palms laid in His path, the Hosannas. (We know too how the mob turned, as mobs often do; that is for another time.)

On His way to Jerusalem Jesus passed through the city of Jericho. We know a little bit about Jericho – a city of sin and resistance where “Joshua fought the battle” and destroyed the walls; where, also and perhaps significantly, Jesus named it in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Three Gospels describe the “celebrity tour” (if we can picture it in today’s mode) of Jesus, His entourage of Disciples, and the cheering crowds, as they headed for Jerusalem.

In the midst of this hubbub, a lonely street beggar, blind and poor, became aware that Jesus approached; the Miracle-Maker from Galilee. Here I have always wanted to “go beyond.” There is so much to “unpack” in this seemingly simple story of one more of Jesus’s miracles.

Join me in the various examples of symbolism. “The rest of the story” as Bartimaeus was made to see, his eyes healed.

We can meditate on the significance: Physical blindness being a “type” of spiritual blindness. Even the Disciples, knowing Scripture and prophesies and hearing Jesus’ own references to His imminent fate, were themselves blind to the reality of what was about to happen… and its spiritual importance. Yes, we all need our eyes opened.

We can realize that what Jesus heard was not the poor beggar’s cries, but what Bartimaeus called out: not Jesus’s name, but His title: Son of David. This was (and not from the mouth of a temple scholar) the Scriptural identification of the coming Messiah. This was not Ancestry.com trivia, but an acknowledgment that this Jesus, passing by, was indeed the Son of God incarnate. Yes, we all need to acknowledge the Savior.

In some translations, the cry of Bartimaeus is “Have pity on me!” but in the original Greek it reads, “Have mercy on me!” (Thus Kyrie Eleison, “Have mercy on us,” in traditional liturgies.) Of course, both pleas are appropriate. The cry for mercy, however, speaks as much to the longing of his soul – for forgiveness – as for pity, concern for his physical state. Yes, we all have serious spiritual needs, no matter the condition of our health or comfort in life.

To me, an important lesson has been the nature of the Disciples’ efforts, as we read, to make Bartimaeus shut up. I can almost imagine them saying, “Who are YOU? This is the Master wanting to move on! (Implying, ‘WE are important too!’) Stop yelling out! We are trying to keep this parade organized…” But Jesus had other priorities, and other ideas about order and dignity. Yes, we all need to respond to Jesus Christ as He would have us do… not as people around us – or even people around Him – do!

In contemporary context, I will recall my own experiences. Growing up in churches where prayers – even “Hallelujahs” and “Hosannas” – were sleepily mumbled by writ, with no hints or feelings of joy. Many churches discourage “amens” and raised hands from the congregation when Good News is shared. At the seeming other extreme, some churches order joy and dancing, but likewise discourage weeping in conviction, or expressing needs for forgiveness

“Shut up, blind man! We’re having CHURCH here!”

Thank God, Jesus heard Blind Man Bartimaeus. And He stopped. And He healed. May we all call out to Jesus, laugh with Jesus, cry unto Jesus. Praise Him in whatever circumstance, and wherever you are. He is always ready to call out to us, laugh with us, and cry with us.

Jesus will even stop parades to be there for us.

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That was a meditation on what happened just before Palm Sunday and Holy Week. Here is a song about what might have happened just before Easter itself:

Click: The Night Before Easter

4-18-22

We have just passed through the darkest days of humankind’s history.

I don’t mean the headlines and videos of the war in Ukraine, or the travails and statistics of our contemporary challenges. I don’t mean, in sweeping reference, to the bloody horrors of the last century.

As we recognize events and commemorate moments of history, whether we learn from the past or pretend things did not happen; whether we honor people or invent heroes of distant days; whether we celebrate fictional events or ignore noble events – I think the most horrible… the coldest… the loneliest… the most confusing… the most frightening days of humankind were the days between the death of Jesus and His rise from the grave.

He died.

The life was gone from Him. The Roman guards pierced his side to make sure, and blood flowed from His heart. He was taken from the cross, and His dead body was cleansed, prepared for burial, covered in a shroud and placed in a donated rich man’s tomb, secured with a heavy stone. His mother and others tended to His burial. Officials placed 24-hour guards at the tomb to make sure that zealots, or His enemies, did not steal the Body.

At the moment that Jesus breathed His last breath, there arose stormy skies and winds. The earth shook. A giant veil in the Temple spontaneously ripped, ceiling to floor. Reports of citizens and contemporary historians, not only Scripture, told of these things.

Turbulent nature was reflected in the minds and hearts of His followers. Distraught that their precious Friend was tortured and killed – taken from them – was compounded by confusion. And terror.

Would they be next?

What of their “movement”?

Not remembering the prophecies of Scripture, or Jesus’s predictions – or His comforting promises – they wondered whether the past three years were a bad dream. Or a ruse, a plot, or a fraud.

They scattered in fear.

What to do? Where to go? Hide? Pretend the Man from Nazareth was a mere teacher, a persuader only, unreliable about all the wisdom He shared?

How to explain all the miracles… the healings, the supernatural wisdom, the changed lives – their changed lives???

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Those few days – after Jesus suddenly had been ripped from their lives and hopes and dreams – must have been the emptiest, coldest hours anyone could experience. Women weeping, men crying for blood, authorities threatening, and… His friends huddled, hiding, shivering in fear.

One disciple said that He had believed Jesus was going to start a revolt against the government. Another said He was sure that Jesus was going to strike the religious leaders and the Roman authorities dead. Another must have doubted that Jesus was the Messiah after all, as they had come to believe.

Surely some – certainly His mother Mary, at least – must have remembered Scriptures, like the symbolism of Jonah in the great fish for three days; or what Jesus said, confusing at the time, about the Temple: if destroyed, it would be restored in three days.

Then the women went to the tomb.

The women intended to honor the dead Jesus, leave perfumes and oils if they could.

The women found the guards gone. The women found the tomb empty. The women saw the burial cloths that had covered the Body… but there was no Body there.

The women returned to the cowering Disciples, sharing what they had seen. All ran, entered the tomb, and saw what the women had reported.

They returned to where they had been hiding, and began to discuss, and plan, and remember things Jesus had foretold, and, and… what? Was Jesus in fact alive? Where was He? Is there hope? Was this not a catastrophe, as they had feared? Was this not — God forgive them for their suspicions — all a strange game? Or was God doing something supernatural, again, in their midst?

Mary Magdalene, however, returned to the tomb. While weeping, a man asked why, and she wondered if “they had stolen” the Savior’s body. She assumed the questioner was a gardener… but she turned and recognized the transformed, resurrected, living Jesus.

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She and the women became the church’s first evangelists. The good news was shared with the Disciples, and then the groups of followers, then the city of Jerusalem and countryside of Galilee, then the world.

Supernatural? For the next 40 days, Jesus appeared spontaneously to individuals and crowds. Walking through walls, performing more miracles, dispensing more wisdom. And now He gave His followers “marching orders,” different than advice about merely how to act. He issued “The Great Commission” – that believers in Him should “go into all the world sharing the Gospel [literally, the good news] and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

Not that Jesus’s ministry was ever a game, but henceforth being a follower of Christ became a serious life-commitment.

He challenged His followers: Do you love Me?

He commanded His followers: Feed My sheep.

He promised His followers: Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

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Were they ready?

Are we ready today?

Are you ready?

The Life of Jesus is not a mere story. The ministry of Jesus was more than performances to impress crowds. The torture and death of Jesus is more than a lesson. The Resurrection of Jesus was more than proof that He overcomes death. The Ascension of Jesus will be confirmation that He was Divine. That He is one with the Father.

The world might still ignore Him, reject Him, deny Him, explain Him away, persecute Him (and us), in fact hate Him. And us.

The world can be savage against us – because of the Jesus who lives in us – or it can dismiss us; trivialize the Savior. It can call Christianity a game.

Let them do so. We can turn around and call the “game” Jesus played as something He virtually said that Easter morning:

“Here I come… ready or not!”

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Click: He’s Alive

3-21-22

We can think about Easter all year, and we should. But the Lenten season invites us, makes us ready. The Truth of Jesus’s incarnation… His teachings… His miracles and healings… His willingness – or determination – to be sacrificed for the sin-penalties we deserve… His arrest, imprisonment, and torture… His betrayal… His suffering and crucifixion… His death… His Resurrection… His Ascension: there are things that should be true to us on any and every day of the year.

I mean, Easter is not just for Easter; Christmas is not just for Christmas. The importance and relevance of every moment of Jesus’s life, and the Gospel, should burn to us and through us, every moment of our own lives.

So if we contemplate the details of Holy Week and Easter during Lent, it is a good thing. We can do the same thing around, say, May Day or Hallowe’en too; but here we are. I often find myself imagining what it would have been like to be one of the Disciples. The streaming series The Chosen – the fellowship of Jesus and His followers – is doing a good job of that.

It has always amused me when skeptics and agnostics say that they would find it easier to believe in Christ if only they could see Him; have some tangible proof that He lived and was the Son of God. Why am I amused? Because the Disciples themselves – never mind the multitudes who were taught, fed, and healed – lived every day with Christ. They saw Him walk on water, feed multitudes, heal the sick, raise people from the dead; more things than books could hold. For three and a half years! Day after day, week after week!

… and yet when Jesus was in jeopardy – as He even foretold, just days before – these Disciples fled. They scattered like dry leaves on a windy street. And we think that we would act differently?

I have further guessed that compared to the beatings, torture, whipping, thorns pressed down on His head and nails hammered through his wrists and feet… that the worst suffering felt by our Savior was the betrayal of His friends, their abandonment of Him.

We fool ourselves – and dare to fool God – if we believe that we would have been any different than the Disciples in those days before the Crucifixion.

“Different” is the operative word. Let us understand that Jesus chose the Disciples because they were not different. They had different talents and backgrounds, yes; but they were ordinary people – no celebrities, no dignitaries – and they were no different than you and me. So we can identify. We can learn from their experiences, admirable and cowardly and… human.

A great lesson, drawn from the actions of the Disciples that week, is presented by the different choices of two of them, Judas and Peter.

Judas, from the little we know, was sort of the treasurer of the little group, at least handling affairs as Matthew also did. As is well known, Judas betrayed Jesus by accepting a bribe from Roman authorities to reveal Christ’s whereabouts, and further to identify Him by embracing Him, on cue, before centurions. Jesus was then arrested and thus began His “trial” and execution.

He betrayed Jesus.

Soon remorseful, he scattered those 30 gold pieces and hanged himself.

Peter, during those same hours of turbulence, was asked by authorities if he were associated with the Man who called Himself the Christ. Three times Peter denied even knowing this Jesus. When he heard a rooster, he was thunderstruck and remembered that Jesus recently had predicted, “Before the cock crows three times, you will deny Me.”

He denied Jesus. He knew Him… but denied knowing Him. Was it much different than betrayal? I don’t think so.

Peter, to me the most impulsive, sometimes random, and always most human of the Disciples, was remorseful too. But he did not hang himself. It is not recorded that he was at the cross – Jesus’s mother, Mary, remained faithful – but we know that he huddled in fear after Jesus died, with the remaining Disciples. He endured, avoiding the self-abnegation of Judas and the skepticism of Thomas… and he met the Resurrected Christ.

From the accounts, he was the “same” Peter while Jesus showed Himself and ministered and preached and healed for those 40 days after the Resurrection, and before Ascending to Heaven. And he seems to have been the same Peter, huddling in confusion in the Upper Room where Jesus had told them to wait.

Wait for what?

The Holy Spirit is recorded to have come upon them, and others, “as a mighty rushing wind.” After that, people were transformed. They spoke in “strange tongues,” the languages of angels and of foreigners. They were imbued with knowledge and power… and wisdom.

After that experience Peter became a mature leader. He might have remained impulsive, but now it was to establish the Church and plant communities of believers. On that day, the Feast of Pentecost, the Church was born, and lives yet today.

Judas had betrayed more than Jesus; he betrayed the hope of Salvation and Forgiveness that easily could have been his. Peter denied knowing Jesus, but he exercised that glimmer of hope that redemption was drawing nigh.

Are you a Judas, or a Peter? I don’t mean betraying or denying Jesus… because when we sin, as we all do, we betray Him and deny Him.

It is our choice, however, how to react; to be remorseful and turn inward like Judas, or to wait upon Jesus and His promises, His Resurrected power, to come to us. To embrace the hope of Christ’s forgiveness.

Easter is about that hope.

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Click: Whispering Hope

5-3-21

There is something about the life of Jesus that especially attracts my interest, partly because the church at large – indeed, the world – has neglected. It is, specifically, the life of Jesus after he rose from death. His life after Resurrection. He lives today, of course; but I mean the 40 days that the Bible records (as did many witnesses and contemporary writers like the Jewish historian Josephus) when the Savior walked and talked and preached and healed and was was seen by multitudes.

We have very few records of that, compared to the details of His ministry and the events of Holy Week. That is what is intriguing to me, and why I keep returning to it. Further, Ascension Day, at the end of those 40 post-Easter days, when Jesus rose bodily to Heaven, finally affirmed His Divinity. Once a major day on the church calendar, it is observed far less today.

The last verse of the last Gospel’s last chapter (John 21:25) tells us, Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.

Let us imagine Palestine in those days, similarly mysterious because we have been told so little. For 40 days Jesus showed the world that He lived again. The Sanhedrin had called Jesus a blasphemer, and others claimed His miracles were of the devil… but His 40 days in Jerusalem and surrounding areas, being seen by multitudes, was scarcely disputed at the time and afterward. A few generations later, the writer Eusebius interviewed many people who had known people who saw Jesus during these days, told of miracles, even cited sermons and letters of the risen Jesus.

In other words, some people might not have joined the Christ-followers – although believers multiplied rapidly, even in the face of persecution soon thereafter – but very few people disputed that He rose from the dead. They certainly were active days.

Yet as busy as He must have been, I have a picture in my mind of Jesus alone, also; maybe when darkness fell, down lonely paths, maybe through storms and cold silences, walking the dark hills, not always responding to the curious crowds, but sometimes seeking out the troubled and the hurting individuals.

This is a plausible picture, because Jesus still does this today.

It was in His nature: Remember the “ninety and nine,” and the one lost sheep the shepherd sought. Remember Christ’s words, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock”… and how often do we think of how patiently He waits and knocks and waits and knocks? Remember His story of the father rejoicing over the prodigal son who repents and returns and is restored. Remember His admonition to be “fishers of men.” Remember Him weeping over Jerusalem. Remember the promise that “Whosoever” believes should not perish but have eternal life.

He walks the dark hills, looking for us – piercing the gloom with a joyful hope that may be ours. He seeks us out.

And, continuing to reconstruct an image of what Jerusalem and surrounding areas must have been like those 40 days, abuzz with talk of the Miracle Man, let us also remember that we don’t have to respond to a shout from the street – “Come! They say that Jesus is down by the river! Let’s see Him!” No… He will come to us.

And it is especially the case, I believe, if you are one of those people who is skeptical, or has “heard enough,” or cannot crack the shell of hurt or pain or resentment or rebellion or fear, or all the other hindrances that prevent you from experiencing the love of Christ. Know this, He is closer than a shadow, no matter what you think, or what you might prefer to believe. He will not leave you, even though you ignore Him.

“God walks the dark hills, To guide our footsteps. He walks everywhere, By night and by day. He walks in the silence, On down the highway; God walks the dark hills, To show us the way.”

The risen Savior, Lord of Creation, walks the dark hills, seeking out… me? and you? where we are? in our hurts, in our messes? That’s the real miracle of the Miracle Man, to me, still –- that He loves you and me. Looking for us; finding us; hugging us; loving us; healing us; teaching us; saving us.

Those 40 days were a practice run for eternity – His and ours.

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A favorite gospel song is the haunting “God Walks the Dark Hills,” embodying mystery even in its own origin. It was written by a lady named Audra Czarnikow, who lived in Liberty, OK. Little is known about her; she apparently wrote no other hymns or songs. Small groups sang her song, and others recorded it; eventually it became a signature song of the Happy Goodman Family; here it is sung by the appropriately haunting voice of Iris DeMent.

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Please listen to this message’s reflection in this song and video:

Click: God Walks the Dark Hills

4-4-21

He’s Alive.

Those two words are the most consequential in humankind’s long history, or ever will be.

He’s Alive.

For Christians, these words overshadow everything, for if there be no Resurrection, our faith is in vain.

He’s Alive.

For believers in any, and every, other religion, there is not one founder or leader about whom it is claimed that once dead, that figure came back to life.

He’s Alive.

For agnostics and atheists, you simply must confront the Biblical record, eyewitness accounts, and words of people like the historian Josephus, who recorded acts of the risen Christ.

He’s Alive.

For the skeptical, if you think the life, ministry, and resurrection of Jesus was a hoax, tell us how Christianity spread like wildfire after the Resurrection; and why so many people – including 11 of the Disciples – would endure their own torture and death… for a hoax.

He’s Alive.

For the wise, study His words, and explain how Jesus was anything but one of these: a brilliant swindler; a delusional fool; or… the Son of God.

He’s Alive.

For the logic-minded, calculate the odds of multiple hundreds of prophecies and predictions, written over centuries by many hands in many lands, that came true to the finest detail and timing.

He’s Alive.

For those who don’t “believe in miracles,” like the acts He was recorded as performing, or that He fulfilled by rising from the dead, start counting the number of other things you can’t explain in life, but “take on faith.”

He’s Alive.

For those who are tempted to think that this God or this Jesus might have been real once upon a time, and acted 2000 years ago, but not now…

Talk to someone whose life has been transformed;

Talk to someone who suffered awful depression, but now lives joyously;

Talk to a sinner who has turned from his or her ways;

Talk to someone who endured a fatal disease or injury… and has been healed;

Talk to an addict who now is “clean”;

Talk to someone who hated… and has learned to love;

Talk to someone who could not forgive, and was touched by someone else’s forgiveness;

Talk to someone who carried oppressive burdens of guilt, but now feels free;

Talk to that little baby who smiles back at you;

Talk to…

Well, talk to Jesus. He will answer you if you listen. He will lead you if you need. He will love you as if He has known you all along.

… because He has. He’s been waiting. When He left that tomb, by some sort of miracle, He came out looking for you.

He’s alive.

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Click: He’s Alive

6-8-20

I write this as the third part of an informal tracking of a neglected but essential part of church history – the period after Jesus’s crucifixion and death; Resurrection and 40 days of preaching and witnessing; His bodily Ascension into Heaven, confirming His divine nature; then came the day of Pentecost.

It was the promise of Pentecost – what we have come to call the Pentecostal experience – and Jesus’s careful explanation that it was good that He leave earth, because He would then send to believers the Helper, the Healer, the Comforter: One who would empower and instruct. The Holy Spirit, third manifestation, the third Person, of the Trinity. We shared how the Spirit first fell on worshipers in the upper room, how they received a strange gift of speaking in unknown languages, but understood or interpreted.

This was the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit,” this spiritual joy and maturity. It was not a one-day event in history. It was merely the first time.

I write this in the midst, whew, of the worldwide pandemic’s fears, afflictions, and social disruption; and in the equally chaotic riots following a police suspect’s death. And… what’s next? People are right to be unsure if not unsafe. Or vice-versa.

As a natural skeptic, I wonder whether we will look back on the shutdowns, this virus, and feel blessed, feel relieved, or feel scammed. And these riots – will we look back and see an explosion of righteousness, or a period of anarchy and looting?

I will keep to my promised theme. I can write about things we see and don’t know are true; or I can write about things we cannot see, but know are true.

Things were different, once the Holy Spirit came. Peter, for instance, had been a bumbling and impulsive disciple who denied knowing Jesus three times when things were dicey – scarcely less an offense than Judas’s betrayal. Yet after the Spirit came upon him in the upper room, Peter became the mature leader of the new church that formed, and a powerful preacher.

What happened to Peter 2000 years ago can happen to believers today, and does happen to believers today. Can you have salvation without the “baptism” of the Holy Spirit? Yes. The gifts are… extra. But who would reject gifts, especially from Almighty God? Would children at birthday parties reject gifts?

Yet, some Christians do. If God chose to express Himself in three ways, we need to remember they were equal manifestations. Jesus was all God and all man; and so is the Spirit.

This same Spirit was explained by this same Peter after he was blessed with gifts of wisdom. He recalled, and shared, the passage from Joel chapter 28 (500-800 years earlier) – And it shall come to pass… says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams…. I will pour out My Spirit in those days…

Now it became clear. “Greater is He that is within you [the Holy Spirit], than he who is in the world [Satan].”

Some Christians claim that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were only for that first crowd. But that is to doubt Jesus and limit the Father, not to mention denying the subsequent evidence. I know because I have experienced the Baptism, and I have witnessed miracles; I have received the gifts. Many people have.

Other Christians believe that sudden outbreaks of tongues, ecstatic worship, and miracles broke out in Wichita around 1900 and in a black church on Asuza Street, Los Angeles, in 1906 is where it started. And then, as we shared, Pentecostalism spread to half a billion people around the world, second only to Roman Catholicism among Christians. Not for now? How would that explain miracles, church growth, healings, and blessings over the following 2000 years?

There are accounts (described by no less a person than Theodore Roosevelt in his classic book The Winning of West) of pioneer camp-meetings and revivals where worshipers would gather for several days, overtaken by ecstatic worship and strange tongues. In the 1700s, similar responses in Philadelphia to public sermons of Charles Whitefield; Benjamin Franklin recorded these. In the 1800s, a similar reaction among lunchtime worshipers on Wall Street, of all places. The blind hymn-writer Fanny Crosby prayed in “the language of angels” only she and her Lord knew. And so forth, all before Azusa Street.

After that, however, there were spontaneous and simultaneous “eruptions” of Holy Spirit preaching, singing, worship, healings, Words of prophecy, and such, all over the world. Two decades ago I twice attended a famous such revival in Pensacola, Florida – a visiting evangelist was used by God to spark ecstatic worship that was not extinguished – 24/7, for month after month; people attracted from all over the world.

If the Holy Spirit is the equal of Jesus… but you don’t have to receive this “Spirit baptism” to enter heaven… why do some of us consider it so important? But as I implied before, if God offers a spiritual gift and we decline it, we are spiritual fools.

What are the Gifts of the Spirit? They listed several times in the New Testament. Any can be prayed for; they can be-one-time gifts – for self-edification, or ministering to a situation – or occasionally are specialized lifetime ministering gifts, for instance to evangelists with healing ministries. They are wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, speaking in tongues, and interpretation of tongues.

As I said, I have experienced some (blessing others when needed, or to communicate with God when I felt helpless) and I have witnessed healings, emotional breakthroughs, astonishing revelations.

Listen: Christianity is nothing if not a system of faith and belief and miracles. Plain and simple. How have Christians become so blasé about a Man who was born of a virgin, performed miracles, and rose from the dead? “Oh, well, that was God, 2000 years ago.” How can there be so many people who go to church (if at all) out of dull habit; who never feel joyful when “Hallelujah” is read from the same old prayer book; who have “forms of godliness, but deny the power thereof”?

They quench the Holy Spirit, embarrassed to seek… reluctant to accept gifts… afraid to exercise the power it enables.

Instead – bringing it today – Christians complain about current events in the news. They feel helpless to do anything about them. They are lost, spiritually, in these uncertain times. In this time of threats and potential disasters facing us, they might even wish for some miracles.

You know what? It is as easy to pray for miracles, as to wish for them. And you have a loving Father who has stored up gifts you can access. Why, oh why, do people neglect the third Person of the Trinity?

+ + +

Since the Pentecostal movement is spread across the world, with no one denomination or pope – the Bible is sole authority – it is joyful to see the workings of the Holy Ghost everywhere… and especially, in these day of persecution, how the Spirit empowers traditional Christians, new believers, and persecuted Christians. Here, a group of Iranians who support underground Christians churches in Iran, singing of the sweet Spirit of God.

Click: Come, Holy Spirit

6-2-20

God’s message for the time of plagues, lockdowns, economic distress, international strife, riots in the streets.

I tell you I am going to do what is best for you. This is why I am going away. The Holy Spirit cannot come to help you until I leave. But after I am gone, I will send the Spirit, the Comforter, the Helper, to you.

We think we are going through strange times, rapidly changing events of great magnitude. Prosperity. Then suddenly the world stops spinning and millions are out of work; schools and shops are empty. The stock market breaks records; commerce is humming. Then suddenly a plague threatens to kill millions. The world’s major trading partners are at odds, then break relations; exchange deadly threats. Hong Kong, reveling in tastes of freedom… waving American flags… singing Christian hymns in the streets… brutally is suppressed and taken over by the Communists. In America, peace in (weirdly empty) streets, then suddenly major cities and towns are in violence, its (savagely crowded) streets aflame.

All within a few months; some things changing overnight.

Jerusalem once was like that. Jesus, that street preacher with a healing ministry, enters the city amidst celebrations and hosannas. Suddenly, in less than a week, He is framed, accused, jailed, tortured, sentenced, and killed. All in five days. The government is repressive, the religious leaders defensive. This Jesus is dead and His followers weep, also fearing for their lives. Earthquakes; the temple veil spontaneously rips in two; the environment is dark. Suddenly Jesus comes back to life. His broken body is perfect. Thousands see him, even skeptical Romans confirm the events.

All within a few days; some things changing overnight.

Jesus did return. He communed. He preached. He explained. People saw. People understood. People believed.

After a whirlwind 40 days – that frequent Biblical number – another change. Jesus left again… lifted up not on a cross but bodily into the heavens. From the Mount Of Olives this Ascension, as we discussed last week here, was the final, supernatural, confirmation that He was God; returning to the throne to sit at the right hand of the Father.

Father? Son? One God? Ah, the mystery of the “Godhead.” God chose to reveal Himself in three ways to His children. He could have chosen two, or two dozen. The Trinity is His choice, all God in three natures. (If we could fully understand, we would be Gods.) Like water, ice, and steam.

The third “person” of the Trinity? That is the Holy Spirit. Present and referred to in the Old Testament. But specifically promised and explained by Jesus before the Ascension. “It is best for you that I depart… The Holy Spirit cannot come until I leave. But after I am gone, I will send the Spirit, the Comforter, the Helper, to you.”

Who is this Holy Ghost?

The world still asks this. The Holy Spirit is the most misunderstood, and the least accessed, member of the Trinity. When Jesus left this earth in order to send us the Holy Spirit… it is almost like disobedience that we do not welcome the Holy Spirit more, seek its wisdom and guidance and power and comfort.

Fifty days after the Resurrection, Jesus’s followers, men and women, met for the celebration of Pentecost in Jerusalem. They were praying, and as recorded in the second chapter of Acts of the Apostles, something like a mighty wind came through the room. What appeared to be flames rested on peoples’ heads. They all began to speak… in unknown languages. Foreign tongues, unknown words, unbidden.

They ran to the streets. People heard; some understood; some thought they were drunk.

But “they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance”; that is what was going on.

And this has been “going on” ever since.

Given the broad expanse of time, this Holy-Ghost experience that has occurred again in these last days – perhaps close to the End of Time – is also a relatively brief and crowded time. In only a century, marked from 1906, Pentecostalism counts a half-billion people around the world, second in numbers only to Roman Catholicism among Christians.

It is a movement that adheres not only to the Bible, in literal terms, but to the practices, power, mystery, ecstatic worship and closeness to Jesus, and miraculous gifts that all Christians experienced on the First Century churches.

Of those “gifts” there are nine listed in the Bible, available to us. Pentecostals (and Charismatics) seek and accept them, and they change lives. I will finish this three-part discussion in the next message – not to be as a schoolmarm lecturing about history, but to share what I have joyfully come to experience.

However, in these troubled times – these very days, these troubled and confusing and dangerous and evil days – I think the Holy Spirit holds more help, and hope, that we can know. And what better time to know that we are not alone. I will share practical Biblical truths. For times such as these, the Holy Spirit was sent to us.

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Click: Sweet, Sweet Spirit

5-25-20

The Pandemic, or as most of us have come to know it in our daily lives, the Pandemonium, even in relative slow motion, has been absorbing seemingly every conversation, every newscast, every blog message.

It is difficult to believe that Easter was only a couple of months ago. Harder still, perhaps, to address the fact that the meaning of Easter seems light-years away. We can note, we do note, that except for a few exceptions the Church has been almost silent on the plague and the reactions to it.

Are church leaders “rendering unto Caesar” and dutifully following rules? Are faith leaders being cowardly? Are they at least stepping forward in their communities, in newspapers, on television, and offering… help? Prayers? Shelter? Alternatives to church meetings?

Mostly, no. Franklin Graham plans a tent hospital in Central Park, in fact in response to a request from Mt Sinai Hospital across the street. The city rejoices. Until he prays when it opens, and dozens of volunteers are in place. Then a successful move begins to force him out of the city. Those New York types hate Christ more than they hate Covid.

Believers have begun to rise up, and now churches are nervously – and occasionally boldly – joining the brave move to exercise First Amendment rights. It is about time! It was getting to be that I thought, if I ever find myself in a foxhole, I would want hairdressers and barbers at my sides.

Yes, we can worship in our living rooms; we can kneel at a stump in our back yards. Yes, we can, but we tend not to; and there is something about worshiping God in a place of God with the people of God.

Since Easter, among the Biblical things that might have been eclipsed is a holiday in the Church calendar that was already fading in importance anyway; a shame. Ascension Day for centuries was a major observance, more important than Christmas.

It falls 40 days after Easter, after the Resurrection. The day is always, therefore, on a Thursday, and most often celebrated on the next Sunday in churches. It marks the event, after Jesus’s final visits and ministering, being seem by multitudes, when He invited the Disciples and others to the Mount of Olives… announced another fulfillment of prophecy… and ascended into Heaven, into the clouds. Bodily. Witnessed by many.

And in that manner, He promised, He would return some day.

In many churches and much of public life today, Ascension Day is scarcely noted. In some countries it still is a national holiday, with schools, banks, and businesses closed… whether it is celebrated in peoples’ hearts or not. I do not know.

But Ascension Day is a holiday in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Indonesia(!), Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.

Ascension Day should really be the most important celebration on the Christian calendar. My argument here is theological but certainly not dogmatic; I want to address how apologetics – explaining the Gospel – works.

The Annunciation? The world had to take Mary’s account of her pregnancy by her word. Christmas? A beautiful picture, fulfilling prophecy in ancient books. Jesus’s miracles? Coincidences or persuasions, perhaps. The Passion of the Christ? Foretold, too, but… His death? Did that prove Jesus was the Savior – and skeptics asked about the Resurrection.

And so forth. I flirt with blasphemy, forgive me, to make a point. We are told that with the heart one believes and is justified; and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. What do we believe, what do we confess? That Jesus is the Son of God, and God raised Him from the Dead. The final confirmation of Christ’s divinity is when He rose to be again at the right hand of the Father.

A bodily Ascension, witnessed by many, was the final thing that could not be cast into doubt by a skeptical world.

Of course I believe in fulfilled prophecy, the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, powerful miracles, the Passion and substitutionary death of Jesus, and the Resurrection. But until he rejoined the father He was not fully God again.

Jesus did ascend into the clouds; He was witnessed; and He promised to return to redeem His saints, where we will be caught in the clouds with Him. If you wonder whether you would still be in confusion – as, frankly, the Disciples were – after such a unique scene… note, on the linked video, that Jesus directed them to go to Jerusalem and wait. For what?

It was about a week away, and we shall visit ourselves in about a week.

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Click: Ascension Day

5-4-20

“Where Is Jesus?”

Some people in these troubled times call this out to the heavens, to God, to Jesus Himself as they deal with challenges to health, family, income, sanity.

“Where is your Jesus now?”

That is a question that friends – skeptics, cynics, and non-believers, especially – ask in times like these. To certain people in this post-Christian culture, it is a rhetorical question, a taunt.

This causes me to remember a challenging time of my own, and my family’s: years ago my wife was listed for a heart and kidney transplant. Both organs were failing, and she was wasting away in hospital. My mother was near death in Florida, and I simply had to be there with my father. Driving to the Amtrak station, my car was T-boned and totaled at a Philadelphia intersection. My kids were staying with friends, but other challenges, including financial ones, loomed.

Mercifully, a family of friends was watching my children; neighbors helped with food and bills. My pastor loaned us his SUV until we could get back on our wheels.

And so forth. I could not be there for my mother’s actual passing – which was hours after I left Florida to come home for Christmas. Nancy received her transplants on Valentine’s Day, and lived another 16 years. Things worked out, in unexpected ways.

When things returned to “normal,” I gave thanks to Jesus in a conversation with a writer friend who was one of those skeptics. He said, “Why do you thank Jesus? Listen to yourself! It was friends who took your children in. It was relatives who helped with meals. It was your pastor guy who loaned you the car… Not your Jesus.”

I never had articulated the perspective properly before; but I quickly answered, “Those things were Jesus. He was just working through friends.”

+ + +

We are grateful, always, for gifts and givers. And we bless and thank recipients too, because they provide us opportunities to exercise charity. Not only to do love, but to be love.

That is what God desires for His children, even if “getting there” seems awkward to our little selves and our expectations.

Let God run His world. He doesn’t  always require that we understand everything; just that we be obedient.

+ + +

“Where is your Jesus now?” skeptics ask now in these troubled days.

Of course a single death is grievous; and if it could have been prevented, tragic. But in the long view, I think this pandemic has caused more trauma, anxiety, dislocation, and grief, from fear than from deaths; or possibly more than negative aspects of plagues in the past. Apart from things we cannot now know, like possible manipulation and skewed statistics and overreactions, we suddenly live in a dystopia, the opposite of a utopia. This revolving planet has come to a standstill!

Where is our Jesus? Of course He is still present. Behind the black storm clouds, the sun still shines. The One who created the entire universe is greater than microscopic viruses. Of course. Is there sin (and therefore death and disease) in the world? Yes.

Is a tiny virus, sweeping across continents, much different, really, than giant tornadoes, or massive floods, or unexpected earthquakes? No. Can plagues be prayed away? Sometimes, but mostly our duty is to cleave to the Word of God and trust Him.

“Though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, fear no evil, for I will be with you.” He does not promise a detour from that valley; or avoidance of what lies in the shadows… but for me, trusting that He is with us is a real and present help in time of trouble.

+ + +

“Where is Jesus?”

There was a poignant time in history when that question was cried with intense emotion.

Actually, back to back: after Crucifixion, Christ was in the tomb for three days. Jews mocked. Romans dismissed. The followers of Jesus, despite having seen Him perform miracles and manifest the Incarnation, despaired. Even His mother grieved.

“Where is Jesus?”

Then He rose. Came back to life. In a restored body. As by a speedy miracle, as the word spread and people saw Him, the hundreds of prophecies became clear. He had foretold of His Resurrection, and by rising proved His divinity.

“Where is Jesus???”

Then for 40 days He roamed the land preaching. People saw Him; listened and believed. The skeptic called Thomas doubted, and was invited touch the wound that still graced His side.

Where is Jesus? WHERE IS JESUS? “Let’s go down to the river and see the man who conquered death!!!” Until the Ascension, Jesus spoke, ministered, and encouraged multitudes, as historical accounts affirm.

Between those appearances and rallies, He must have had quiet moments. He had to go from place to place. It was His practice during His earthly ministry to seek solitude at moments, and commune with the Father.

I have a little idea that during the quiet moments, maybe in dark nights between towns, He roamed alone… looking, perhaps, for individuals. Not crowds, but solitary souls wandering, maybe spiritually lost, who needed a touch of the Master’s Hand.

In fact He is still doing that – seeking out lost souls who need the touch of the Master’s Hand.

You might be one of those. In fact, we all are, at least at one time or another.

Where is Jesus? Closer than you think.

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Click: God Walks the Dark Hills

4-20-20

The late pianist Anthony Burger used to tell a story about his son Austin, at five years old, in his church’s Easter pageant. He was cast as Jesus, dressed in sandals and one of his dad’s old T-shirts.

The other kids in their little costumes beheld the empty cardboard tomb. The little girls acted sad, and when little Jesus appeared he told them not to be afraid, or to be sad. “I died, but now I am alive! I will never leave you!” Parents in the church audience were moved, and proud.

All of a sudden, Austin ran back into the tomb – not in the script! But right away he popped out and yelled, “Ready or not – here I come!!!”

Somewhere between parents’ embarrassment and the church’s laughter we might find – “out of the mouths of babes!” – some decent theology.

Ready or not, Jesus did leave that tomb. He conquered sin and death. He returned. To live among us.

He actually never did go back into that tomb. He just needed it for the weekend. He lives; He lives; Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with us and He talks with us, along life’s narrow way… We sing it, but are we ready… or not?

Jesus was ready, but are we?

We have to be ready. When a Savior dies – for us; and lives – for us, we cannot be indifferent. Life on earth was never the same again, and when we meet the Incarnate Lord, the Risen Savior… we cannot be the same again. Ever.

If you are not changed, you need some serious time with Jesus… but with yourself too.

Maybe, make use of the self-isolation these days.

Jesus used His isolation to live again.

Let us use our isolation to be born again.

Ready? Or not?

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Click:A Child’s Easter Story

4-12-20

The night was so different from all the rest,
And a silence covers the Earth;
The stars have no glimmer, the moon tries to hide,
For in death lies the Man of their birth.

The night was so different from all the rest,
And a silence covers the Earth;
The stars have no glimmer, the moon tries to hide,
For in death lies the Man of their birth.

In a room filled with sorrow, a mother cries,
For Jesus, her Son, now is gone;
Her Child sent from Heaven was taken away,
Heartbroken, she feels all alone.

At the feet of his mother a little boy cries,
Saying, “Mama, I don’t understand’;
I remember the look of love in His eyes,
That I saw, by the touch of His hand.

The King of all ages, the Giver of life,
For a moment lies silent and still.
But a power sent from heaven comes breaking the night,
And death must bow to His will!

The stone moves, the Earth shakes, and birds start singing,
The sun shines, the Earth warms, for the new life it’s bringing!
That little boy stops crying, a Mother is smiling,
For death could not hold a King!

+ + +

Every year it’s the same story – not the “same old story” – but the Story we need to hear again and again, not every year, really, but every day of our lives. Death could not hold our King. Spiritual death, emotional death, both symbolic and real. It’s about death… and life.

Every year since that first Easter, skeptics ask, “Yes, but…” or “That was Jesus. This is now…” This year the Coronavirus prompts the questions and doubts and fears. “Jesus said He came that we would have life…?”

Yes, He did. “… and life more abundantly.” While we are here we can have life, and it more abundantly. We don’t avoid the questions, because Jesus didn’t. Did He heal? Can He heal? Does He heal?

Yes, yes, and yes.

Then we demand to know, Why… this person? Why… these numbers of sick? Sometimes… Why me?

Yes, Why? If we knew, we’d be as God. It is very hard to say, and hard to believe, but God’s Hand is in all, and as the Bible says, “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” That is not the opening line in a debate. It is a fact. God does not demand that we understand all things; He asks us to have faith. He lovingly requires that we be obedient.

Just as “Jesus was obedient to the cross.” His sacrifice was God’s plan to substitute for the punishment we deserve as sinners.

But there is no point to the Easter story, by itself as it happened and was witnessed by many, even with all the ifs and buts through the centuries, unless the story does not include the next part.

Jesus overcame death. He promises us a new life. A new life. A new life.

Viruses – and broken bones, and infections, and diseases – are gruesome, and deadly, yes. And different but horrible, too, are sinful habits, and broken relationships, and hatreds, and abuses. I don’t suggest a game of comparison, but sometimes a broken heart is harder to mend than a broken bone. Sin can be deadlier than a virus. If we don’t stick to diets that help our bodies, can we commit to blameless lives for the sake of our souls?

Jesus came to help us with those dilemmas. Jesus died to save us from those weaknesses. Jesus rose to redeem us from our sins and weaknesses and failings.

The night before Easter – between His physical death and His resurrection – were the loneliest, most desolate days in humankind’s history. Despite the numerous prophecies, despite His disciples seeing uncountable miracles performed, and despite Jesus’s own words… there was despair and hopelessness. Even His Mother despaired; the earth was dark; heartbroken, they felt all alone.

But then…

The stone moves, the Earth shakes, and birds start singing,
The sun shines, the Earth warms, for the new life it’s bringing!
That little boy stops crying, a Mother is smiling,
For death could not hold a King!

+ + +

Click: The Night Before Easter

1-20-20

Regrets, I’ve had a few. Yes, something in common with Frank Sinatra. But those of us without regrets simply have not lived long, or even well. It’s part of life.

We seldom regret things that have happened to us, but rather things we did or didn’t do; opportunities we could have seized; what ifs; personal woulda-coulda-shouldas; errors of omission, commission, even remission.

Theodore Roosevelt, in a philosophical moment, once wrote: It is not being in the Dark House, but having left it, that counts. What we do with regrets can determine what kind of life we lead – I refer to our emotional equilibrium. And, of course, our spiritual serenity.

I have chosen, for the video clip below, a performance of the old “plantation spiritual” first printed in a hymnal in 1899: “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” The haunting lament of the Black church asks a rhetorical question. Yes… you were there. We all were there, because our sins sent Jesus to the cross.

He went there willingly, yes; but it was to suffer punishment we deserve. Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. You? Our sin-consciousness should make us tremble… and be filled with profound regrets!

However, a message of the cross is that we should come away from our culpability in the Passion of Jesus trembling for joy, ultimately. That plantation song is an Easter tradition, but it is a shame if we do not meditate on it all year long. It’s not just for Easter. On the contrary.

After Jesus died, Judas was so filled with regrets that he hanged himself. After denying Jesus, Peter instead was transformed by the Resurrection, and led a reformed, joyful, powerful life.

We have those choices to make, about everything that causes regret in our lives. I confess that I am very jealous of one of God’s attributes – that He is able to take our sins, or anything else, and throw them as into a “sea of forgetfulness.” Can God Almighty not do something??? Yes, when He chooses, He can forget things, in the process of forgiving us!

Good trick, Heavenly Father. Beyond our abilities, of course: we are not God. So it remains for us, rather, to deal with our regrets. Not to be warped… not let them haunt us.

My friend Kent Kraning is a pastor at Friends Church in Yorba Linda CA, and he recently wrote a book about parenting – more, about father-son relationships; but even more, fairly overflowing with wisdom about family life overall – and he asked me to lend an editorial eye to it. It is called Dirt Bombs, from one of the book’s anecdotes of many stories that resonate. Stay alert on Amazon for it.

Anyway, Kent wrote a casual line in the book that had great impact when I read it. I would nominate it for plaques on family room walls, bumper strips, or Bible bookmarks. It is a better single sentence than my whole essay here, I think:

Swim toward tomorrow, or you will drown in yesterday.

Have you made mistakes? Learn from them. Do you have regrets? Don’t repeat those things you regret. Is there something you think God can’t forgive in your life? News bulletin: You’re wrong. He aches for the chance to forgive.

You might come face to face with Jesus, and have feelings that you are unworthy, and regrets that you might have failed Him. For a moment you may tremble, tremble, tremble. But then, as He will tell you if you will only listen, you can rejoice for the forgiveness and new life He offers. You will tremble, tremble, tremble in joy.

And – even if the current seems strongly against you at times – swim toward tomorrow!

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Click: Were You There?

4-15-19

The week started great, remember? Jesus enters Jerusalem, hailed by throngs on all sides with praise and Hosannas.

In rapid succession, it dissolves. Conspiracy, trumped-up charges, accusations, kangaroo court trial, arrest, persecution, torture, betrayal, denial, imprisonment, humiliation, death sentence, crucifixion, agonizing death.

And the crowds that sang His praises only days earlier, now cursed and spat at Him.

What could be worse than that Friday? In world history, what could be worse – from the perspective of confused followers of Jesus, I have tried to picture the excruciating period between the death on the cross and the Resurrection.

Where did He go? What did we do? What about His promises? What happens now? Is hope gone…?

In the larger sense, for followers and observers alike, many would have seen irony in the fact that this day would come to be called Good Friday. Remember, the earth shook, the sky turned dark, the veil in the Temple was rent top to bottom. Even a Roman centurion said, “Surely this was the Son of God.” The Jewish historian Josephus, who never was to believe, nevertheless recorded the facts of the crucifixion, Resurrection, and Jesus’s subsequent appearances.

Indeed people still wonder, through it all, why it is called Good Friday.

“Good”?

There are etymological theories that the German Gottes Freitag (“God’s Friday”) or Gute Freitag (“Good Friday”) were the origins; the Ancient English Godes Friday (“God’s Friday”) is also cited. In parts of Europe the day is called “Great” or “Holy,” not “Good.” In Denmark the ancient Angle term “Long Friday” still survives. In Greek Orthodox practice, the day is called “Holy and Great Friday” in the Greek liturgy. In parts of southern Europe, “Holy Friday”; in middle Europe Karfreitag (“Sorrowful Friday”).

Clearly – no mystery – we understand that in God’s view, in His holy plan, the sacrificial death of His only-begotten Son was good for Him, and we humans, if we would realize it. We have a means to be reconciled by that substitutionary death.

Anyone who has lost a child knows how horrible it was for God to allow – no, to plan – the death of His son. But it was good; it was good for the rest of His children.

And it was long prophesied: What man meant for evil, God meant for good (Genesis 50:20). It was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer (Isaiah 53:10).

All for us.

That is good.

Specifically, all for you. You, and me, individually. I believe that if had been possible that you or I were the only sinners in history, God would still have delivered Jesus to the cross, that the Atonement would be applied even to you or me.

That is good!

Can we comprehend such Love? Don’t try; it is overwhelming. Rather than fully understanding, we should wholly respond… in gratitude, honor, praise, contrition, repentance, humility. In… faith.

That is good.

When we are able to sincerely thank God for his Goodness, we have a sense that the Crucifixion, as horrible as it first seems to us, is God saying “You’re welcome.”

+ + +

Click: The King Is Coming

Saturday, 4-21-19

Luke 23: 33 And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

35 And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.

36 And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar,

37 And saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself.

38 And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, This Is The King Of The Jews.

39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.

40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?

41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.

42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.

43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

44 And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

45 And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.

46 And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

47 Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man.

48 And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned.

49 And all his acquaintance, and the women that followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding these things.

50 And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and he was a good man, and a just:

51 (The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them;) he was of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God.

52 This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.

53 And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.

54 And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on.

55 And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.

56 And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.

Luke 24: 1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.

2 And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.

3 And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.

4 And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:

5 And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?

6 He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee,

7 Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.

8 And they remembered his words,

9 And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.

10 It was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.

11 And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.

12 Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.

13 And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.

14 And they talked together of all these things which had happened.

15 And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.

16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.

17 And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?

18 And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?

19 And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people:

20 And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him.

21 But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done.

22 Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre;

23 And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.

24 And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not.

25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:

26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?

27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

28 And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further.

29 But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them.

30 And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.

31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.

32 And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?

33 And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them,

34 Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.

35 And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.

36 And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

37 But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.

38 And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?

39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.

40 And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.

41 And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?

42 And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.

43 And he took it, and did eat before them.

44 And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.

45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,

46 And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:

47 And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

48 And ye are witnesses of these things.

We are witnesses of these things. He is risen!

Click: The Night Before Easter

4-9-18

Three men meet by a well in a Jerusalem square. Around them, women draw water, men walk their sheep to market, people haggle at the market stands.

“Did you hear? More news about the Nazarene. First he came into the city and everyone praised Him. A week later, everybody wanted His blood…”

“And they got it!”

“Yes, they buried what was left of His poor body. And now I hear…”

“We are all hearing about it! They say He rose from the dead!”

“He did! I saw Him! I heard Him preach yesterday in the hills!”

“I saw Him too, walking past the temple. There were crowds of people following Him! More than when he was just a teacher.”

“My neighbors went to listen to Him preach. They say He looks like He used to… but more handsome, almost serene… except for the nail-scars in His wrists…”

“It’s just like it used to be. He’s preaching and teaching and healing and talking to people one-on-one too.”

“What do you think? He never really died?”

“Don’t be crazy. He could have faked death? What about the whip-marks and the spear-thrust and the crown of thorns and all the pokes and scratches and…”

“Right. His body looks perfect. Jospehus, the Jewish historian, saw Him and said the Nazarene came back to life just like He predicted.”

Another man, who had been listening, joined the conversation. “It was not only Jesus’ prediction, friends; it is just like the Prophets foretold.”

“Yes… He is reminding us of those Scriptures. Daniel. Isaiah. It is hard to count all the things that are happening just as the Holy Books said they would.”

“What now? Will He live forever? He speaks to multitudes; He visits the sick; He puts His arm around widows and the persecuted; He teaches and preaches; then nobody sees Him for a while… Does He sleep? Where does He go…?”

The stranger spoke up again. “No. He won’t walk these streets like this forever, like the man we remember. Remember, He told us, ‘It is better that I leave, for if I do not, the Helper and Comforter will not come to you. But when I go, I will send Him to Believers.’ That was also His prophesy…”

“But why stay here for a time?” one of the men asked.

The stranger said, “To bear witness to the Jews who demanded His death, and to be seen by the Romans who killed Him, to show His resurrected body even to His followers like Thomas, who doubted. To inspire accounts even among the heathen and those like Josephus… To silence the skeptics.”

“OK,” wondered one of the men, “But I wonder where He disappears to at times… where is He when the crowds go home, when He is not seen praying with a few or healing one by the gate…”

The stranger spoke up again. “He has proven Himself the Son of the Living God, and who Himself lives, having conquered death and hell… so I am not being disrespectful, or trying to put my thoughts on His actions…”

“Yes?” the others asked.

“It could be that, in His own way, Jesus is rehearsing for Eternity. Because just like He did in His ministry here, and just as He promised about the Holy Ghost to come… God walks the dark hills.

“… the ways, the by-ways. He walks through the billows of life’s troubled sea. He walks through the cold dark night, the shadows of midnight. God walks the dark hills… Just to guide you and me.

“God walks the dark hills, to guide our footsteps. He walks everywhere, by night and by day. He walks in the silence, on down the highway… God walks the dark hills… to show us the way.

“God walks in the storm, the rain, and the sunshine. He walks in the shadows, or through glimmering light. Helps us walk up the mountains so high, cross rivers, through valleys…

“God walks the dark hills… ‘cause He loves you and me.”

The men were silent for more than a moment. The hustle of the neighborhood’s activity continued on its way, however. When they looked up, the stranger was gone, but they looked at each other and agreed that their day’s business could wait. They wanted to find this risen Lord… to listen to Him more carefully… to remember the things He preached.

And somehow in their minds they knew that if they lost their way in life, if they strayed from the Truth… Jesus would would be walking the dark hills that sometimes surround us… and find them. We want to – we need to – look for Him. But, no worries, He is willing to walk the dark hills to find us where we are.

‘Cause He loves you and me.

+ + +

This haunting Gospel song was written by a woman in Oklahoma about whom little is known; and who, evidently, never wrote another song again. A gift…

Click: God Walks the Dark Hills

4-2-18

The arcane vagaries of the church calendar are not necessarily negative. Jesus was not born in December; and the observance of Easter is on different dates each year, and across various Christian sects. If the changeable dates oblige us to focus more on the events and their significance, and less on the secular-tending aspects – Holy days, not holidays – that can be a good thing.

Occasionally Easter coincides with April Fool’s Day, a secular day if there ever was one; a tradition devoted to pranks, whose origins are appropriately shrouded in obscurity.

There is another association between Easter and a silly practice that is more profound than would first seem.

The late Anthony Burger, remarkable Christian pianist, told the story of his young son in an Easter pageant in Sunday School. The boy had the unlikely role of Jesus – unlikely because he was probably the youngest of the children in the play; but his only acting assignment was to emerge from the tomb.

On the evening of the performance, the nervous parents and the curious audience waited – and waited – for “Jesus” after the Resurrection moment to walk out of the tomb. And nervously waited long moments more. Then, finally, in the portrayal of God’s miracle-working power, but also a testament of the beautiful innocence of childhood, the boy leaped from the cardboard tomb and yelled…

“Ready or not, here I come!!!”

Laughs, relief, sympathy. And – “out of the mouths of babes.”

In a real sense, Sunday-School pageants aside, that virtually IS what Jesus said when He conquered death and emerged from the tomb. Uncountable prophecies were fulfilled; He confirmed His role as Messiah; Satan was defeated; hope was extended to a humankind that had chosen sin and death; new life was proclaimed; eternal paradise in the presence of this resurrected Jesus was available to all.

Salvation is free, but a price must be paid. That holy anomaly is explained not only in the terrible sacrifice of the Incarnate Savior. There is a price still to be paid by you and me, beyond what Jesus “paid.” It is inherent in the ironic truth in the symbolic shout –

“Ready or not, here I come!” That actually is what Jesus meant; what He virtually said.

As the Bible teaches, we must believe in our hearts that Jesus is the Son of God; and confess with our lips that God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10: 9,10). Not as easy as it sounds, but… Ready or not, we must make those decisions.

To be a New Creature in Christ, we must be, well, new creatures. Changed attitudes, new priorities, a rebirth. Ready or not, we must make those decisions.

Believing, confessing, and forgiving – oh! Forgiving, as we need forgiveness ourselves! – and yielding to the tugs of our new best friend, the Holy Spirit who will guide us and inspire us and empower us. Ready or not, we must make those decisions.

So the child’s deceptively simple transference of the “Ready or not, here I come!” game teaches us a profound lesson.

During Lent, this year, there was another game in e-mail threads and social media that diverted eyes from the truth and power of the Resurrection, rather than focusing our proper attention. And this was frequently perpetrated by “Christian” sites and “experts.”

You might have seen them: articles about Who killed Jesus? Was it the Jews or the Romans? Have the Jews been smeared by anti-Semitic charges? What does the Bible really say? What have recent historical studies suggested about Roman law in their courts and Jewish rules in their temples…?

Academic pabulum, scholasticism that diverts.

God killed Jesus. To put it another way, Jesus virtually scrambled up the cross.
Jesus’s “killing” was God’s plan, set out long before. His Will was done, and Jesus the Messiah – even Jesus the Man – submitted willingly. A sanctified suicide, in its way, for our salvation. Nit-picking about Roman laws and politics, Jewish traditions and rules, does little but to move the focus from the Savior’s vicarious act to take our sins upon Himself.

These “experts” seek to persuade us that it was not that “God so loved the world…” but that “Roman authorities and Jewish leaders so shaped events…” This view is evil. We should not consider for a moment that the most heinous acts of cruelty and suffering, the shedding of Holy Blood, was – Ready or not, here comes the truth – anything but an act of love.

The most extreme form of punishment was endured so that we would not endure it ourselves at the hand of a Just God. For God so loved us. And when Jesus emerged from the tomb we were graced with the means to avoid eternity in hell – which brings up another fairy tale of this season, a church leader’s reported intimation that there IS no hell. This is for another discussion, but Jesus’s death and Resurrection were in vain if this were so.

In the meantime, welcome the risen Savior with open arms! But be “ready” for the implications of the New Life.

+ + +

Without denying the undeniable joy of the Resurrection, I have tried to suggest today that in the freedom of the New Life comes a spiritual responsibility that is profound, for our own souls and those of our families and friends. In that sense, the tears of former life are mirrored in the tears we shed as born-again believers for the unsaved, and tears of joy as New Creatures in Christ.

Therefore I chose this video clip, “Have Mercy, My God,” from Bach’s “St Matthew’s Passion.” Julia Hamari, solost; Otto Büchner, violin; Karl Richter conducting the Munich Bach Orchestra and Choir.

Have mercy, my God, for the sake of my tears! See before You heart and eyes that weep. Have mercy, my God. / Erbarme dich, mein Gott, um meiner Zähren willen! Schaue hier, Herz und Auge weint vor dir bitterlich. Erbarme dich, mein Gott.

Click: Heart and Eyes That Weep

4-3-17

A guest essay by one of my favorite writers, Leah C Morgan

Winter serves its purpose necessary for cycles of life and growth. Including sorrow and darkness. But no one mourns its departure. There are no weeping farewells, no fierce clinging to its coattails. Winter’s last cold breath could easily be mistaken for a communal sigh of relief.

But Spring. . .

Spring is like hope, often suppressed by doubt and crushed by fear before finally bursting out of the barrenness with such lush beauty we would think it audacious if it were a woman crossing the landscape.

Or a dream on the horizon.

But Spring is so universally pined after, we allow her to paint the town in pastels and festoon it with flowers. To declare a new season and prophesy a resurrection of all dead things. We are so in need of warmth, we want to believe.

Snow comes just as we’re tempted to forget coats and gloves; and we’re buried again in self-doubt, certain that winter is eternal. And that second chances, green buds, and fresh starts are myths.

Then the smallest patch of sunlight shines its way indoors, warming our faces. A song of warbled notes reaches our ears, and the perfume of living things wends its way to our senses. Our hearts thaw. Something flutters within and pushes its way forward like a new beginning.

And there we are against all odds, in spite of the dead branches and brown grass, joining the parade, waving banners, and getting all caught up in the longing. We believe in the getting up, in the rising again.

If forgotten bulbs buried beneath the frozen ground can resurrect their remembrance, and dormant plants survive long months of deprivation, if distant birds are spurred to make lengthy migrations in expectation of better days, and insects lie quietly in wait for a feast about to commence, how can the human heart settle for dearth? The very bowels of the earth offer up an invitation to rejoice. To hope. To muster up enough courage to try again.

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Spring is the season to put away the wool and furs, the weighty things that make for despair.

It is the reminder that buried things are not always dead things, and that dead things can live again.

Spring is the occasion to pray for the miraculous, for rebirth and resurrection. It is the opportunity to enjoy perpetual youth. Nothing is so young as new life, and new life can sprout in the faith of a fertile mind, coming to life in a fresh idea. It can spring up in the purpose of heart, taking the shape of brilliant creativity.

Buried talents, forgotten intentions, failed attempts – they all want to be born again, and Spring makes the yearning reasonable. If daffodils can fan out their pretty bonnets after keeping still for a year, what unexercised muscle of faith might be stretched out in the light of understanding?

The time for understanding has come. Flamboyant Spring steps forward on a pale, monochromatic stage to pantomime the Gospel in living color. The Old Man Winter is past, and now a light shines in the darkness, its transformative power producing new life. The fields and forests are born again, their naked knolls and branches clothed in glorious wardrobes. They develop, mature, producing fruit and dropping seeds. The seeds are buried, left to die and decay, before shedding their form to be resurrected, coming forth from the ground in a new body.

“Sown in weakness, raised in power” (I Corinthians 15:43). How we begin is not how we’re destined to remain.

A sweet, scented breeze is blowing, whistling a melody. And a voice that sounds a lot like Spring sings:

My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

 The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away” (Song of Solomon 2:10-13).
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Click: Rise Again

4-4-16

My cousin Irene called this week to tell me that her brother Paul died. He had been a longtime victim of Alzheimer’s – technically, frontal-lobe dementia. My late wife showed signs of Lewy-Body Syndrome, another relative of Alzheimer’s. Do you ever get the feeling that we humans are not getting healthier, but merely sustaining more specialized ailments? Anyway, a sad phone call turned less sad – we were able to summon some chuckles as we shared memories. Memories are the best ointments in such circumstances.

This last week I reached out to two friends who are beset by cancer. Old friends from the cartooning world, one of whom I met when I was 13 and encouraged me to follow that profession. He is, happily, in part to blame, because I did. We kept in touch through the years; became near-neighbors; and worked on many projects together. He is now in home-hospice care. Our call went longer than his son thought it would – filled with silly memories, old friends, doing voices, finding humor in his grim prognosis. Laughter is the best ointment in such situations.

My other cartooning friend is battling a rare form of cancer that has taken him to several states for opinions. If you wonder whether his “journey” is fodder for ironic observations, even rim-shot lines, you would be correct; and he continues to write gags and a weekly newspaper column. When I was out East a few months ago, we talked about old friends and new revelations – he always has been a philosopher masquerading as a cartoonist – and his dear wife was surprised at his energy that afternoon. No surprise, really: friendships are the best ointments in such situations.

This all might seem gloomy to some, but that’s only because it IS gloomy. But only partly. Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Both life and death are parts of the same Great Adventure. … Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die; and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life…” When face-to-face with the illness or death of a loved one or a good friend, it occurs to us how ultimately selfish or sadness and sorrow actually is.

WE grieve; WE miss the person; WE have to face the empty spaces. Of course, that is a skewed definition of selfishness, but we should also be aware of the peace that a sick person yearns for. Of the “life well lived” that should be celebrated. Of the home in Heaven that – if we are Christians – we should rejoice has been prepared.

It was only a couple of decades ago that I became aware, or rather participated in, “home-going” services. In the Black church, in Pentecostal churches, funerals are transformed to celebrations. Joyous laughter, happy songs, encouraging sermons. Our loved ones, our friends, are in Heaven; how can we be sad? This is genuine, and it is proper. Appropriate for the situation, and uplifting for those who remain.

All this is the case, and sweet if we may experience it as something new, only if we are in fact Christians. Otherwise these are empty charades. After all, if Christ had not conquered death Himself, our faith is in vain; there is no Heaven. Many church-goers are not comfortable with “sharing Jesus.” I understand this; I identify with this. But if you had a cure for the cancer or dementia we loathe so, would you not share THAT with those who are afflicted? Why in hell do we go through the motions of being “Christians” if we are so hesitant and ashamed to share Jesus? Excuse me for being literal.

These thoughts have come to me by a coincidence of circumstances this week, and ironic as they closely follow Easter.

But I am grateful to have my heart turned to the Gospel, and to the Resurrection, in a new way. I often have wondered about those 40 days between the Resurrection and the Ascension. We don’t know much about things Jesus did. The Bible says He taught and healed, but with few specifics. Contemporary historians recorded sightings and appearances, but no quotations. The last words of the last Gospel (John 21:25) tells us, “Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.” But we don’t know them all.

I am curious, but not disappointed. At that point, it was the FACT of Jesus, and the truth of the Resurrection, that were important. He had done His teaching. The people had sought Him out. Now it was His time to seek people.

As busy as He must have been those 40 days, I have a picture in my mind of Jesus alone, also, maybe when darkness fell, down lonely paths, maybe through storms and cold silences, walking the dark hills, not responding to the curious crowds, but seeking out the troubled and the hurting individuals. The sick of body and mind. Those who did not yet know Him.

This is a plausible picture, because Jesus still does this today.

He walks the dark hills, looking for us – piercing the gloom with a joyful hope that may be ours. And it is especially the case, I believe, if you are one of those people who is skeptical, or has “heard enough,” or cannot crack the shell of hurt or pain or resentment or rebellion or fear, or all the other hindrances that prevent us from experiencing the love of Christ. He is closer than a shadow, no matter what you think, or what you might prefer to believe.

He shared of Himself. We should share Him with others. With friends, loved ones, strangers. Jesus Christ died for all of us… but He also died for EACH of us.

“God walks the dark hills, To guide our footsteps. He walks everywhere, By night and by day. He walks in the silence, On down the highway; God walks the dark hills, To show us the way.”

+ + +

A favorite of gospel music is the haunting “God Walks the Dark Hills,” embodying mystery in its origin. It was written by a lady named Audra Czarnikow, who lived in Liberty, OK. Little is known about her; she apparently wrote no other hymns or songs. Small groups sang her song, and others recorded it; eventually it became a favorite of many people. Here it is sung by the appropriately haunting voice of Iris DeMent; image display by the incomparable beanscot channel.

Click: God Walks the Dark Hills

Easter 2016

An early Easter message. Appropriate, because I would like us to wrap Good Friday, the “world’s three darkest days,” the Easter Resurrection, and the Ascension all in one meditation. Besides, the Easter story was foretold many years before Jesus’s Passion – throughout the Old Testament, most comprehensively and accurately in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. That’s an even earlier telling.

The essentials of Jesus’s life on earth are scarcely questioned any more, except by the intentionally scornful: which means that some people do not doubt, but rather reject. The fact of His Resurrection, on the other hand, is a dubiety to some. It is interesting to consider that people saw the risen Christ after the tomb, and yet not everyone believed. They believe Jesus somehow came back to life, but not that He was divine.

Many did come to faith. But even the Jewish historian Jospehus recorded the facts of Jesus’s life and ministry and miracles and resurrection – that Jesus mingled with people for 40 days – yet never came to belief himself. It is not unusual, frankly, to imagine people, even ourselves, to hear about a miracle, possibly witness one, and yet… shrug. Or consider it “one of those things we can’t explain.”

This happens, and it says less about a Resurrected Savior than it does about our stubborn, contrary, or lazy human nature.

Yet there were many records of That Week.

Jesus not only performed miracles, He was a miracle. Everything about His birth, life, and ministry were prophesied. He did amazing things; random things, sometimes, to bring blessings or to prove His divinity. He spoke amazing words, unassailable lessons. He was God incarnate; fully God and fully man, who loved and sorrowed, laughed and wept, ate and drank and traveled. He read minds, calmed storms, and healed the sick.

Yet vulnerability proved to be His major miracle. During His last week, He emptied Himself of divine prerogatives.

He went to Jerusalem, knowing death awaited. And more: scorn, insults, lies, torture, painful crucifixion. It is said that death on the cross is the most excruciating of slow deaths. Myself, I believe that the betrayal, denial, and abandonment of His friends was more painful than His physical end.

As a man, he prayed fervently, we know not all. As God, He willingly bore the humiliation and death, speaking only words like “It is finished” – it being the plan established before the foundations of the world: that this holy Incarnation would satisfy the substitutionary death we all deserve. If we believe and confess this belief, we are saved. Another miracle.

Our contemporary world wants us to believe strange things… strange lies. Not only that there is no God, but that there are no sins. Only mistakes and bad choices. And that medicines, or therapy, or education, or the government will make everything OK. Humankind has asserted mastery of our own souls for several centuries, ever more intensely, inventing reasons to reject God and deny His fingerprints on creation. Lo and behold, the past century was the bloodiest freaking 100 years in history, starring the most savage monsters a secular world could imagine.

Were the events of Holy Week in vain? Christ, with calm determination, fulfilled His destiny. He entered Jerusalem to public acclaim, preserving His humility. By the end of the week the Jewish zealots and the puppets of the Roman government caused people to scream for His murder. It happened… after what we mentioned: humiliation, injustice, abandonment, torture, and death that, perhaps, no mortal among us ever has endured.

He hung on the cross for three hours, comforted, at least, by His beloved mother who did not leave Him. He died; a spear was thrust in His side; the centurions affirmed His death; He was taken to a tomb, washed and prepared for burial, wrapped in cloths. A large stone sealed the tomb, guarded by Roman soldiers with special instructions.

Then, the three darkest days of humankind. What were those like, in Jerusalem? His enemies were satisfied that Jesus, the major troublemaker, celebrity, pretender in their eyes, was finally gone from the scene. But His followers – who should have known better, since they knew scripture and His prophesies – nevertheless despaired. They went into hiding: perhaps His fate would be theirs?

There are records of an earthquake, of stormy skies – of nature groaning – of the veil in the temple spontaneously ripping in two. Could His followers been more despondent and terror-stricken? What days they must have been!

But… Easter dawned. Jesus rose. He lived. He lives. Mary, having met Jesus in the garden, became the world’s first evangelist of the Good News when she ran and told the cowering Disciples.

The rest, to coin a phrase, is history. But it is not quite history as we know it. His story, literally. Mary and her friends saw, and believed. The Disciples, first scared and skeptical, believed, and saw, and believed in ever greater numbers. Jesus, in a transformed body, preached and blessed and taught and performed miracles. More people believed. Within a generation there were churches, gatherings of devout believers, not only in faraway Rome, but in pagan outposts like the island of Britain.

And after 40 days, the final prophecy fulfilled – more than a miracle, but the confirmation of His divinity – the bodily Ascension of the Christ into Heaven. “It is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Holy Spirit cannot come. If I do go away, then I will send the Advocate, the Comforter, to you.” Thus, Christ in us.

But remember That Week. If you are ever tempted to think that your faith would be stronger “if you only could have seen the things of that week,” or if you hear others say that… remember that His Disciples, who lived every day with Him for three years, scattered like autumn leaves. Remember that people who had witnessed miracles wound up demanding His death. Remember that many who saw Him after the tomb still were skeptical.

You can believe in miracles – or not – but believing in Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God; confessing His Resurrection; and inviting Him to live in your heart and life, is the summation of This Week, and the Gospel itself.

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Have you listened to Handel’s Messiah at Christmastime? Even if you have not, I invite you to listen to an equally great masterpiece. The St Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach tells the story of Easter week. On (coincidentally) this week of Bach’s birthday, number 331, I offer a link to one its greatest performances, conducted by Karl Richter. The art direction is stark! Appropriate, but note the changing backgrounds, the over-arching cross, the mood reflecting the spiritual import. With English subtitles. Three hours, 22 movements. Be prepared!

Click: Bach: St Matthew Passion

4/7/2012

RE-POSTED BY REQUESTED. From March 29, 2010, a great Easter-Sunday message.

Here is possibly the most unique, certainly a most memorable, version of the Easter story you might ever see. A little account of a kid’s Easter pageant. Father and son; death and resurrection; humor and Truth.

It is pianist Anthony Burger a few years ago talking about his five-year-old in an Easter pageant. Ironically, not long after this, Anthony himself died, suddenly, at the keyboard on a gospel-music cruise. His life was a mighty testimony… and so was his little boy’s story.

Click: We Shall Behold Him

2-27-12

Coming — The Most Awful Day in Mankind’s History
This is a Lenten message, but about the end of the Lenten Season, not the beginning. So many holy days / holidays are associated with the period before Easter, that some can lose their meaning, if not their significance. We can think of how Mardi Gras and various Carnivals around the world steal from the unique spirituality of the Lenten Season that begins on Ash Wednesday. And during Holy Week itself, yes, commercialism and carnality intrude, but mostly the immense implications of Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, tend to eclipse the other days.

We sometimes can benefit from looking at days on the church calendar that are less celebrated than others; and it is good to think about Christian days “out of order.” In fact it interrupts our appreciation of the fullness of God when we compartmentalize Christmas in the winter, Easter in the Spring … whoops, Palm Sunday comes first, let’s keep things in order. Commemoration is beneficial, and I’ll be the first to admit that I need reminders about some things; but we can let the calendar rule us, sometimes.

Shouldn’t we celebrate Christ’s coming to earth, God condescending to become flesh and identify with humankind – and us better with Him – every day of the year? Not just Christmas day! And woe to us if we contemplate the fact of the Resurrection – an astonishing miracle, with its implications for all of Creation, and for each of us individually – more on Easter Sunday than every day, every minute, of our lives.

In that context I have a thought about “Holy Week,” down at the other end of the Lenten Season. Palm Sunday we know about well, from the festive welcome Jesus received, and many re-creations we see. Some traditions observe Maundy Thursday and solemnly meditate on the sorrows of Jesus’s last hours as a man. Christian churches open, and even the New York Stock Exchange closes, to observe Good Friday. Easter, of course: it is central to believers’ faith; it is when families get together; it is when “Chreasters” (people who attend church on Christmas and Easter) come out to see their shadows, thank God.

But except for ancient traditions and very liturgical and Orthodox churches, and even then never to the degrees accorded other holy days, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday receives scant focus. “Holy Saturday” is the only name it has, and some ancient rites would hold services in stark settings, and exercise fasting, on the day.

It deserves a major portion of our attention.

Many theologians divide history in half: all of Creation and humankind before Jesus; then the Incarnation and redemption of the world after the Resurrection. Mankind was under the curse of the Law until His death on the cross; and, the Bible tells us – Jesus Himself told us – after the Resurrection, life is in Him. It is the message written on every page of scripture… numerous prophecies and prefiguring and foreshadows in the Old Testament, pointing to Christ. The Scarlet Thread of Redemption. And now we are heirs to numerous promises about Eternity.

Glorious! Yet… there was one day in history when humanity must have felt utterly alone. Multitudes had heard Jesus’s teachings. Many did not understand. Some did. But everyone in Jerusalem – haters and scholars, followers and family – all knew one thing that Saturday.

Jesus was gone. He died. There were many witnesses. It was official. He was prepared for burial in the usual way, wrapped and buried. The earth was dark, Jerusalem was silent. Those who followed His ministry faced His absence. Those who knew Him best, even His mother, confronted the void. The Bible’s accounts tell us that nobody remembered, or believed any more, the scripture’s prophecies, or His promises.

You and I know what happened the next day. But we would not have known on that Saturday: no one did.

Was that Saturday not just the most awful day in His followers’ hearts, but in mankind’s history? Literally and figuratively, Jesus was removed from our midst on that day. People whose faith had sustained them… were shaken. People who had witnessed miracles, who had experienced miracles… prayed vainly for another. He had comforted the little children, and the widows, and the orphans, and the sick, and the needy, and the outcasts, and the sinners… would they be comforted no more? “I have come that you might have life”… was His life over? “I will be with you always,” the promise that would be spoken later but surely was a message of His entire ministry… was it a lie?

The nearest I can imagine to the feelings in people’s hearts that Saturday is what I have read about “terminal” feelings of being alone, truly alone. People who have survived suicide attempts, for instance, often confess to an extreme, aching sense of “aloneness,” not normal loneliness or isolation, of being aware that there are no helpers, no friends to call upon. Sometimes people are not aware of God’s presence; they call out but cannot hear an answer in their distress. “Cold” is the word most often used with “alone.”

Surely this feeling, deeper than deep in the soul, is the most awful emotion anyone can feel. Disappointment, failure, defeat, betrayal, standard tragedies, cannot come close. They are not AS close to our core.

And this is the feeling that Jesus’s family and followers must have felt that Saturday we look forward to in a few weeks; before He revealed Himself, and all Truth, to them. Indeed, all Creation felt that feeling on that day. Thank God that humankind has never had another such day, before or since.

Is there a benefit in this morose contemplation? I don’t believe it is morose; it is all in God’s plan. How much greater does the glory of Easter seem? How much more can we appreciate the presence of a Living Savior in our lives? How sweeter is the Christian walk if we remind ourselves of the horror of being alone… but instead, having a Friend who not only overcame death, but takes our hand to lead us to places where we will never be alone!

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“There’s not a thing in this world that’s worse than being alone… Take my hand, let me stand…”

Click: Where No One Stands Alone

4-22-11

For a few days, those two thousand years ago, the scoffers – the religious leaders who conspired to have Him arrested, sentenced in a kangaroo court, and put to death – they laughed and said, “See? All those claims were false! He was not God! If He were God, He could have called down ten thousand angels to lift Him from the cross! He did not lift a finger to save Himself!”

Of course they were right… about not saving Himself. He lifted not a finger, in order to save US. And even them, the ones who condemned Him. But for a few days they seemed correct.

We know now, as they should have, that countless prophesies were fulfilled in that Man’s life. But that did not make Him God. He claimed, in that mystery of mysteries, that He and the Father were one. But that claim alone waited to be shown. He was betrayed, tortured, abandoned, crucified; yes, suffered without complaint. But that did not prove at all that He was God. He died and was buried, according to the Scriptures, and that… No, we must stop there. He died.

Jesus died. He was a dead man. He was as dead as Lazarus had been. His body was treated and prepared for burial as dead bodies were. It was wrapped, completely, in burial cloths. He was dead. The life was out of Him.

Isn’t it easy, sometimes, to forget the meaning of those few days between the Crucifixion and Easter? Those days — just as much as the prophecies and the miracles and suffering and death and words of forgiveness — those days have as much to do with pointing to Jesus as GOD, as all the familiar factors do.

Those scoffers said, “He saved (or healed) (or raised from the dead) others -– let Him save Himself!” Well, it was the God-in-Jesus who raised people from the dead… and when He left that tomb, it was proof to the local folks -– and to every inch of mighty Creation! -– that Jesus was God. Jesus IS God.

Because unless Jesus rose from the dead, He was not God. Everything else about that life is a statistic or a coincidence. Details. If there is no Resurrection, our faith is in vain.

In parts of the Old World, and in the Old Church, routine greetings between people are: “He is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” … and not just on Easter Week. A good habit.

But as you think of the audacious, outrageous miracle of a resurrected body, with the Divine promise that we, too, may one day overcome death, and know this truth now, I challenge you to put aside traditional, nice Easter thoughts. Of peace. And of what the holiday has become. Don’t reject the traditions, just put them to the side for a moment.

Because in a very essential way, Easter is not only a day of peace. When Jesus the Christ emerged from that tomb, it was not just so Thomas could touch the wounds. It was not just so Peter could have a second chance (third? fourth??) as a disciple. Jesus walked out, in a whole and glorified body, to meet each one of us, face to face. “Here I AM.” He challenges us: “I am alive. Now what?”

Now what???

What it means is that we must be changed as profoundly as He was on that day now called Easter. Shame on us if we think, “Rose from the dead. Yeah, well, that’s what gods DO.” In that sense, Easter is not just a Day of Peace. It is the most dangerous day of the church calendar; it is the most dangerous day of our lives.

Because nothing should, or can, be the same, after we meet the Resurrected Lord, the Not-Dead Jesus, the God-with-us. It must transform us, and everything we do and think or live, or we are as dead as He briefly was.

He is risen. He is risen indeed! HE’S ALIVE!

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Click: He’s Alive!

Happy Monday.. and Happy Holy Week.

“Happy”?

Sure. It was a happy week, back in Jerusalem. Jesus rode into town; if we were there, we probably would have joined the happy throng with our palm-branches. Things turned ugly, the crowd was incited, Jesus was falsely accused. He was tortured, put on the cross, and died. Chances are that we — or at least I — would have been part of that crowd too. In fact, I sort of am, every time I sin.

But it sure was a happy week, after all, because He rose from the dead. He took the sins we commit upon Himself… died the death we deserve… and conquered death so that we might live with Him. I’m happy; are you?

Even Good Friday… etymologists speculate its origin was “God’s Friday”; maybe so. That willing, sacrificial death was Good indeed. Greater love hath no man than this.

Here is possibly the most unique, certainly a most memorable, version of the Easter story you might ever see. A little account of a kid’s Easter pageant. Father and son; death and resurrection; humor and Truth.

It is pianist Anthony Burger a few years ago talking about his five-year-old in an Easter pageant. Ironically, not long after this, Anthony himself died, suddenly, at the keyboard on a gospel-music cruise. His life was a mighty testimony… and so was his little boy’s story.

Click:  We Shall Behold Him