Monday Morning Music Ministry

1-6-20

We are deep into the new decade… Well, hardly. Anyway, far enough into the first month of the new year… actually, not so. Um, would you believe almost through the first week?

My question, disregarding the calendar page, becomes easier: how is it going with those New Year’s resolutions?

Let’s have a show of hands: How many of us resolved to give up climbing the Alps in sandals? To cut out all luxuries like miniature pineapples and baby coconuts? To economize by deciding not to purchase luxury boxes for the World Series games?

Easier: How many of us gave up chocolate… or maybe things like broccoli or squid or things we never liked in the first place?

Then we might ask how many of us – being more serious about the “root” of this tradition – how many of us resolved to do positive things, instead of avoiding negative things?

How many of us resolved to pray more, every day? Or to do something “extra” like charity work or sharing foods, intentionally serving our neighbors? To show love… to be love, in the coming year?

All of which makes us think (or should!) about resolutions – things we resolve to do – that we tend to think they should be things we subtract from our lives, when we should rather resolve to add to our lives.

For God’s sake.

And if we become intentional about such things, we can come closer to realizing that God has made resolutions, too. About us. After all, the best promise He made was to send His Son to take the punishment for our sins away… while we were yet sinners.

An amazing promise, that. And from the Giver of Resolutions whose Nature is such that He cannot break His promises.

The questions I asked above have similar answers. Whether we make promises impossible to keep; or about silly ones whose fidelity mean nothing; or even well-intentioned positive resolutions; most of us, being human, have already surrendered. Well, there is always next year.

For our God, however, for Whom a spark is like a thousand years, “next year” is like… eternity. And God’s promises are as from Alpha to Omega. His resolutions cannot be broken. He does not want to: it is not what God does.

On the heavenly scales, our uncountable broken resolutions and promises to God are outweighed by His one resolution: He will remember us.

Happy New Year!

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Click: He Will Remember Me

12-9-19

I have been blessed to be in some of the world’s great places of worship. I mean Christian churches, mostly – cavernous cathedrals; ancient basilicas; rough-hewn Gothic, grand Renaissance, and gaudy Baroque; story-telling tapestries, stunning mosaics, stained glass windows that are miracles of art. Many small side-chapels, or the seemingly endless nave and chancel and ambulatory expanses themselves, crossed by mighty transepts.

They inspire awe, and wonder, and worship because they were designed to do just that.

A profound experience of mine was in France almost 20 years ago. Near Angoulême it was, in the Charentes. I was taken as a guest to the Abbaye of St-Marie de Maumont, I think it was, a Benedictine abbey of sisters devoted to worship, prayer, service, and outreach. Mostly, however, it is what a Protestant American expected of a monastery or nunnery – an ancient site of worship; silence and reverence; modesty, sisters in cowls going about their business. And that business was, indeed, largely prayer – almost constant prayer, private and public – and worship in song.

My friend sped that evening along narrow rural roads between Bordeaux and Angoulême, on winding roads without lights on a moonless evenings… perhaps I was already in a prayerful mood. In truth I was not at all prepared. In an old candle-lit chapel, the sisters sang worship, hymns, and liturgy for four hours; in Latin, French, and Old French. Words I seldom recognized but did understand. Free to sit – observe – in the pews, what is left for the visitor? To worship. Pray. Reflect.

In this setting, enveloped by all that heritage, the sense of God’s presence, and His manifestation in the art and lives of that place; the essence of what it means to surrender and serve; to dig deep into self and reach high unto God; to feel – and be – a million miles from the world’s distractions… that is the kind of worship and contemplation, allowing the purest of Christ-centered meditation, that we seldom know in contemporary life.

I was visited, during those four hours, by past sins. I knew afresh the forgiveness of God. I met again my Savior Jesus. I was lost in the forests of a forgotten corner of Christendom, yet felt at home as if in Heaven, already.

There were no steeples, no mighty organs, no golden chalices. On the other hand – speaking as an American evangelical – there were no drums and electric guitars; no words projected on a screen; no clapping; no Starbucks in the lobby; no announcements of Holy Jazzercize on Tuesday night.

There were perhaps 60 souls there that evening, but, really, one heart beating. As I cried and as I laughed in my pew, I realized something about Christianity in the centuries since the Early Church – past the Age of Cathedrals – to our Age of Praise and Worship shows.

God touches us – or, perhaps differently said, we feel better able to touch Him – when worship experiences are at variance with the worlds we inhabit. In the “Dark” Ages, when poverty and disease were common, Christians devoted every ounce of their talents, ambitions, and resources into building astonishing cathedrals that reached up, up, up to Heaven and sought to reflect His glory.

In our day, when our multi-media world bombards us with every sensation; when celebrities have replaced heroes and sinners are elevated over saints; when the consumer culture insists on telling us what to like abd what to hate, what to believe and what not to believe… maybe people need to reject the hype by simply getting lost in Christian glitz and entertainment.

Holy bling is not my cup of tea. But, then, even tea is not my cup of tea.

Perhaps our souls need to find God by realizing that He is different than we are, and our worlds. And He speaks to us in different ways, at different times, in different places. I have heard something like that somewhere.

I just wish that people in our time can discover what used to be profound in the earlier phases of human history. “Get thee to a nunnery”? I have heard that, somewhere, too. All of us should at least taste of those experiences. After all, they were what eventually brought civilization to where we are now.

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Click: Chant

Some things that occurred to me during Thanksgiving week, and things that happened to happen, as things do, that had me thinking about ordinary things in a new way.

I called the local homeless shelter in nearby Flint – as close to a soup kitchen as we can have these days; run by a ministry, like an old-fashioned revival mission – to ask if they needed a volunteer to serve, prep meals, or clean up on Thanksgiving. “No thanks,” a man said with a chuckle. “If you want to come by and help… it would be to help eat all the food we’re going to have.”

He explained that volunteers often are needed at many times during the year (duly noted) but on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, they have more offers of volunteer help than they can accommodate. “I’m sorry.”

He said he was sorry. A turn of phrase, but I know what was behind that. “There is a season, turn, turn,” goes the famous passage from Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3.

In King Solomon’s words, or the folk song based on them, it does not say that there is a time to pity… although we know that we should have charitable impulses. It does not say that there is a time to “ignore,” of course: when things come our way but do not “go” our way, that is when it is our time to address them. That is what’s called Life. In Biblical perspective, lives well lived.

If we serve the poor, we should do so not out of pity, but out of love.

If (like my friend Becky Spencer and her Grand Staff Swaziland outreaches) (I will call friends I admire to my mind here) we work in overseas missions, it is not because it is easy or glamorous, but because it is right.

If spouses, children, or parents care for sick family members, the world might remark about burdens, but we know – only as we can know – that somehow such service is a blessing, not a burden.

My sister had a daughter with severe cerebral palsy, cared for her, and went through very hard times before losing Liza… but says she never could know the depth or precious quality of love except for the “crisis.”

My wife endured diabetes, heart attacks, kidney failure, strokes, cancer, amputations, and heart and kidney transplants… but never felt sorry for herself. She said till the end that she would not choose to go through it all again, but would not change it for the world. From the increased faith and reliance on God, she asked how she could be sorry for that?

Jesus, on the cross, was not sorry for Himself, but for the thieves on the crosses to the left and right. And He even forgave those who persecuted Him and hung Him out to die – for “they knew not what they did.”

The singer Bradley Walker, whose muscular dystrophy has consigned him to a wheelchair all his life, does not complain but asks sympathy rather for the family of his songwriting partner Tim Johnson who died at a young age. And the singer Rory Feek who lost his wife Joey, after she gave birth to their Down Syndrome daughter Indie – neither Joey nor Rory nor anyone who knows them feels sorry for them.

“Sorry.” It is a strange concept, stranger the more we contemplate. When we say we feel sorry for someone, it is really a form of sanitary self-pity? We will miss them, for instance?

It has been said – and it is a good lesson in perspective – that we are more fortunate than the angels. How? We can almost feel sorry for them, because as sinners seeking forgiveness, accepting Christ, and knowing the glory of salvation – we can sing, and angels simply cannot sing, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me!” In a way, I feel sorry for them. “I once was lost, but now I’m found!”

So let us go forth – yes, on days that are not Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter – and serve others and serve God, not out of obligation or pity or sorrow (the root-word of “sorry”) but out of a willing heart, love, and joy.

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Click: I Feel Sorry For Them

11-25-19

I am usually reminded of the same things each Thanksgiving. That is human nature, or perhaps an infertile imagination. But I don’t mean the Pilgrims and Indians, no. I do mean intentional reflection on God’s grace-filled blessings on me and mine, yes. On us all.

But I have also noticed (some would say that I am obsessed, to which I plead guilty) that “Thank you” and “Thanks” are still breathing in our conversations; however, “You’re welcome” has been displaced, or deleted. On television interviews, in phone calls, in chats around town. “Thank you” is sometimes responded to by silence – that is, not at all. Or “Thank YOU,” or “No problem,” or “You bet.”

Watch and listen; you’ll see. If you wind up thanking me, I will say, “You’re welcome,” I promise. But this development seems to be more than a conversational tic. I believe it manifests a basic unraveling of courtesy in our culture, even the loss of appreciation and thankfulness.

I also reflect on the validity of turning around the order, if not the meanings, of “Thanks” and “You’re Welcome” at this time of year. Yes, we thank God for His blessings. But can it be valid to think that, in the Pilgrims’ case for instance, when they praised God, dedicated their land to Him, and operated the colony by His precepts as a way of thanking and honoring the Lord… that His blessings and bountiful harvests were God saying, “You’re welcome”?

“He loved us, in that while we were yet sinners, He sent His Son to die for us.”

As unlikely as it would seem to be – and remembering that Grace is unmerited favor – perhaps God thanks us preemptively for our humble acts of praise and gratitude.

Circular reasoning can remind us of the miracle of God’s love, and of His wondrous ways. Those wondrous ways include uncountable things we do not understand. And we should not try to, because “such are the ways of the Lord.”

I recently came across the news about Madison Shyanne Keaton, a member of the large and talented Keaton and Collingsworth families. Below is a link to a family gathering, around the piano in the their sun room, exactly one year ago, at Thanksgiving. 

Shy, a beautiful 24-year-old, speaks very briefly about her life – running away from home at 15; drugs and sex; losing her baby and fiancee. She was also in and out and in and out of rehab. With the prayers and help of her friends and family, as she says in the moving video link below, she ought to have died, but did not. Straight and clean, her face beams with joy and faith. As everyone sings “Bigger Than All My Mountains,” she drops to her knees in… thanksgiving.

Only a few weeks ago, Shy was killed in an accident, when a car ignored signals at an intersection and hit hers. 

How can we “Thank”? Where is the “You’re welcome”? Did God have a purpose? – I always answer quickly to such questions at such times, “no, the devil had a purpose.” Our responses to these horrors in life – yes, even an aspect of our thanks and praise – is to remember the verse that “all things work for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.” NOT “all things are good,” but “all things work for good”… and that is our job: to turn things around on the devil, and toward the glory of God. 

It is not only the random moments in life when the ways of God are mysteries. Much about Him is mysterious – although He surely has shared a lot in scripture! – but we would be, not as angels, but as God Himself if we understood everything. So we should not try. Rather for us, then, the living, to… have faith. That’s what faith is – the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.

The “sacrifice of praise” is something He desires, that we acknowledge His goodness even when we don’t feel it. 

And maybe the essence of Thanksgiving is to thank Him when sometimes it is tough to summon gratitude. It is easy, after all, to say “thanks” when everything is rosy. But you mean “Thank you” when you have to dig deep in order to acknowledge His love and His ways. And that’s when the Master of our souls gently says, “You are welcome, my child.”

And if we don’t quite understand, we have a greater gift, God’s cycle of gratitude. Thanks for things seen and unseen.

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Bigger Than Any Mountain – Shy’s Testimony

11-18-19

Back around 1970 I was on the staff of New Guard Magazine, the monthly journal of Young Americans for Freedom, the national student organization founded by William F Buckley. At the height of the hippie culture and anti-war protests, we were, perhaps the original “resistance” movement against the political status quo.

YAF had 55,000 members across America, and more than 700 chapters in high schools, colleges, and in communities. I was state chairman for a while in DC and New Jersey, and, as I say, on the staff of their magazine, and editor of The Free Campus News Service, syndicating news and cartoons and opinions to college papers.

I cut more than a few eye teeth at YAF, but concurrent with these activities I was still a student at American University, and worked a part-time job in YAF’s mail room. Always look on the back of everyone’s business card.

Some of those “eye teeth” I cut were opportunities to meet and work with many of the leaders of our time. One seems unlikely today, and is an example of how much our nation has changed in one generation.

West Virginia Senator Robert C Byrd, Democrat, was a conservative. He wrote an article on tradition, conservative principles, and religion in America for New Guard. I was asked to illustrate it. I was a budding cartoonist, but this assignment I handled with realistic drawings. A patriot next to the flag; a student praying; etc.

Robert Byrd eventually became Majority Leader in the Senate (beating Ted Kennedy in the caucus) and when he died he was the longest-serving senator in American history.

In this period of his life he was a fierce defender of conservative values and the role of Christianity in our national life. He defended his own values, too; a country boy, he liked mountain music… and often played fiddle tunes and hoedown-music at festivals, rallies, and… well just about anywhere.

“Anywhere” included the Grand Ole Opry and the hit TV show Hee Haw. The music video to click below is one of his guest appearances on the CBS network show. More than his service in the Senate, more than his article that I illustrated, I ask you to watch Sen. Byrd, in his trademark red vest, playing and singing “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” the old Carter Family standard.

Watch and listen… and think about how much America has changed.

Today, a United States senator singing hillbilly music on a cornpone TV show? (More: CBS carrying a hillbilly-music show???)

Today, the Majority Leader of the U S Senate singing a gospel song on network TV? Can you imagine Chuck Schumer pickin’ and grinnin’?

Today, a politician of either party enthusiastically singing about Jesus, smiling and raising his arms in joy at every mention of the Savior’s name?

We all know that – somehow – we have arrived at a place where senators, not only local jerks, would threaten to sue TV networks or shut down TV stations for daring to mention the name of Jesus. A lot of senators spend their time and efforts working to legalize drugs and decriminalize criminals these days. Mentions of personal faith or faith-based policies, like defending the unborn, have to be done in carefully chosen places, speaking carefully selected words.

We sang the songs of childhood, Hymns of faith that made us strong…

I’m gonna sit down besides my Jesus When I lay my burdens down…

Will the circle be unbroken By and by, Lord, by and by?
There’s a better home a-waiting In the sky, Lord, in the sky.

The song has lived in several versions since it was written in 1907 by Ada R Habershon and Charles H Gabriel; the most familiar is a funeral theme by the Carter Family.

When you see the joyful and unembarrassed performance of this old time Gospel classic, on national television, by the Majority Leader of the United States Senate – not too many years ago, really – you might think it is, after all, kind of a funeral theme for America.

Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Meet Times, They are A-Changin’.

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Click: Will the Circle Be Unbroken

11-11-19

Many essays, and many of our own thoughts, remind us of how special we are, we human beings. Haven’t you read this, thought this – we are the only species (virtually) that laughs… or reasons… or still likes Barry Manilow… there are a hundred emotional distinctives.

Some of these thoughts are logic-based, deduced by observation. Some are theological: we have no Biblical teachings that birds or bugs can have a consciousness of sin, nor know the gift of Salvation. But God loves us, specially.

Indeed we are, we people, special in the eyes of God. He sent His (special) Son to die for us and take on Himself the punishment we deserve as creatures with the special attribute of free will.

I would like us for a moment to think about how special we are not, sometimes and in some regards.

One way in which we are common creatures with each other, no matter our social status or sex or race or age… is that we all need a Savior. One of the ways we are alike in the eyes of God.

I am thinking beyond that, however; beyond the clichés. It is more common than we tend to think, in nature, that a “family instinct” dominates behavior. Yes, we know there are strays, and herds, and seemingly impossible ways animals can discriminate and recognize… but why are we amazed, time after time seeing news stories and viral videos, at mother dogs who successfully seek out their young; penguins who nurture the right chick of theirs among a thousand wandering rubber-stamped little ones; bees that fly miles, sometimes hundreds of miles, to their home-hives?

How about the occasions of a creature of one species that protects and nurtures the vulnerable young-one of another species? Odd! But is it so rare? We hear of these things every week. Begin to see what I mean.

The family – knowing, feeling, building, protecting – is not one of those aspects that sets humans apart from animate creation. It is something that makes us part of God’s creation. And God Himself.

This primal instinct, an essential attribute of our heavenly Father, is something we should savor. We are part of His universe, not in a New Age sense, but in how He has wired us as parts of the family of God.

Family: Bonds. Traditions. Loyalties. Affections. Care. Receiving and Bequeathing. Respecting.

Loving.

The more we let contemporary life, and our rotting culture, drive family members apart, the less we respect God and His plan for our lives and well-being. In many ways we should not celebrate individualism or “independence,” when it leads to being cold and aloof, separated from fundamental and naturally healthy familial attachments. Oh! and those cursed cell phones are wedges!

When family attachments, tribal associations, and cultural traditions are erased, something has to fill such holes in our lives. These days, it is secular theories and governmental paternalism. Disaster.

We sense these things in uncountable ways every day… or, we should be aware of them. I have been in the news in little ways recently, and I have heard from friends sometimes the first time since high school or college. We always recognize that we are still friends, but, no problem, merely have not spoken in a while – do you know that feeling? I have a friend, Mark Dittmar, who writes a wonderful daily blog, “Spiritual Nuggets” at mdittmar65@yahoo.com , and we have not actually spoken in a year or so. But he prays for me every Thursday. I am aware of this and do the same for him. That is a family-thing that Children of God do.

Appreciating the simple fact of the Family of God – with all of His creation, not only family reunions – puts our hearts and minds where God would have us. It is where are already, if we would only realize it. We are part of the Family of God.

Start noticing, appreciating, and celebrating this fact. Act on it in your everyday life. You might as well prepare, because Heaven itself will be like a great family reunion, better than summer picnics. You will be hugged by the Savior; you will hug all your family members, so many you never knew you had.

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Click: Getting Used To the Family of God

11-4-19

“If being a Christian were illegal, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”

Sometimes such aphorisms – what I call bumper-strip theology – pack a lot of implications and wisdom.

In many place around the world, being a Christian is illegal, or nearly so. I can tell that this blog is read in some of those countries, perhaps to the peril of those readers.

Will such a thing ever happen in the United States, in Western Europe? Many of us think so – it has happened in societies that were once like ours – and at the moment, if belief in Christ is not yet illegal it is however improper or at best impolite in many places and situations.

When the leader of ISIS recently was killed, we were reminded that one of his countless victims was the young American missionary Kayla Mueller. The Christian woman had been held in captivity for 18 months, a sex slave of al-Baghdadi himself. The man whose Washington Post obituary called “an austere religious scholar” and a shy man behind spectacles, repeatedly raped and tortured Kayla, according to eyewitnesses like Yezidi sex slaves even younger than Kayla.

That description of Kayla says more about al-Baghdadi – and the Washington Post – than it does about Kayla. Almost.

What is scarcely said in the news stories is that Kayla was repeatedly asked, and frequently beaten and tortured, to renounce her Christian faith. This she never did – by ISIS’s own frustrated reports – and it gained her torture, rape, beatings, and death. Photographs of her bruised and lifeless body were e-mailed to Kayla’s parents by ISIS.

She lost her life. By her confession and faithfulness, as a contemporary martyr, she secured a place in Heaven, we can believe.
Correction: she saved her life.

Kayla was not alone, I am sure she would maintain. Every day, Christians around the world are being persecuted, tortured, and killed for their faith.

We smugly think that things in this world are growing brighter and better. Not everything. There were more Christians killed simply for being Christians in the 20th century than in all the combined centuries since Christ, including the iconic grotesqueries of Nero.

This week we noted – did you? – Reformation Day, the commemoration of Martin Luther’s challenge to the Church of the day. He nailed 95 complaints about corruption to a church door in Germany. It spread beyond Wittenberg’s town square; past the triangle of land formed by Hannover, Berlin, and Dresden; through Germany; to Rome and other territories of the Vatican; through the Christian world… and even unto today.

Luther had not intended to leave the Catholic Church – he was an ordained priest – nor establish a denomination, much less see his protest turn into Protestant-ism. Yet the “world system” that had corrupted the people and practices of the Church transformed widespread dissatisfaction into open revolts.

Luther’s reliance on “Scripture Alone” – that is, not mankind’s rules or new doctrines not found in the Bible – was a revolution of the spirit, conscience, and faith. Indeed, Luther was not the first anti-Romish reformer: previous theologians had similar heartfelt critiques… and had been martyred.

Fired, exiled, imprisoned, tortured, killed for their consciences. Luther was to be the next. Hunted and excommunicated, he was hauled before a council in the city of Worms, Germany.

All his writings – books and pamphlets, sermons and essays – were laid on a table, and Luther was ordered to renounce them. Outside the castle, at night, the Church was burning his books.

“Renounce them?” he said in effect, “How can I, when they all quote the Bible and rely on Scripture?”

Further, he argued that they were the result of his conscience, and “no man, no council, no Pope” can force me to act “against my God-inspired conscience.”

It was made clear that he would suffer death if he did not deny his writings. He said “I will not and I can not.”

With his life on the line, and conscious of the blood of martyrs before him, in the hushed council, Luther firmly said, “Here I stand. I can do no other.”

“Here I stand. I can do no other.” Those simple words, spoken in that obscure German town, have rather thundered like mighty artillery through the ages. Indeed for 500 years they have been spiritual and intellectual bombs. They inspired the translations of Bibles into languages of local peoples. They ignited a rediscovery of Scripture. They freed believers from relying on human intercessors when praying or petitioning God. They inaugurated the spread of literacy. They were the underpinnings of democratic movements around the world.

Luther was not murdered; he was secreted away by German princes who likewise “saw the light.” Thrown out of the Roman Church, he married and continued to write and preach. Others who knew him, and many who never met him but were – and still are – electrified by his words, followed.

“Here I stand. I can do no other.” These are the words, perhaps word for word, that the missionary girl Kayla Mueller spoke.

God forbid – which cliché is my hope, but is not a certainty – that any of us will be in the position of a Martin Luther or a Kayla Mueller. It is not an abstract warning: every day Christians are in those positions.

When you have the opportunity, are you however too shy to speak the Name of Jesus? Do you hold back from sharing your faith with a stranger, or a family member, knowing that they might be on their ways to hell? When politicians, from school boards to the presidency, offend the Truth of the Gospel, do you think, speak, and act in opposition?

Do you “stand”? Will you stand? Can you do no other? If being a Christian were illegal, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

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The “Battle Hymn of the Reformation,” words and music by Martin Luther. All my life, tears come to my eyes when I sing, or try to, the last verse: Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also: The body they may kill – God’s truth abideth still!

Click: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

10-28-19

The most effort that Christians spend in their “walks” of following Him, I sometimes think, is not time in the Word or in prayer or doing as He would have us do in our interactions. Virtually impossible to compute, but I sometimes wonder if we spend more time making excuses to God, than any other activity.

I don’t mean, “Lord, You know I really didn’t mean to kill that man.” Or the old “comedy” line, “The devil made me do it.”

No, my thought is that there are countless ways that we hope or think that God understands us, and will let something slip by… even a minor sin. (See? Even that thought is what I mean, if we start believing it. There is no such things as a minor sin.)

– that He will understand the pressure we are under, and forgive us of something before we are even contrite. (That leads to assuming less and less that we need forgiveness.)

– that our faithfulness, our good works, the crosses we bear, will in some spiritually cosmic way earn us a Get Out of Jail Free card.

– that God knows our heart, in the big picture; and surely He cannot hold us to the same measures applied to unsaved people…

Surely? When you think about it – and this reflection can be a healthy thing for our souls – if we do not verbalize such thoughts, many Christians internalize the assumptions. Almost to the extent that our spiritual DNA is mutated. Not a good thing.

What is a good thing is that we do not have to correct these tendencies on our own. If the critique sounds familiar, ask your self one more question:

Why do you think God sent the Holy Spirit?

Jesus actually said that it was good that He “go,” because One would come who would enable, guide, strengthen us. The Holy Ghost. I also sometimes think the least employed member of the Godhead, the least known of God’s ever-present resources.

We don’t have to be “better,” or more mindful of God’s commands and Jesus’s example, on our own. There is no shame in calling on the Holy Spirit’s help. He pleads for you to reach out.

It is not a sign of weakness in a Christian to seek the Spirit’s help: it is a sign of strength and maturity.

I have told the story, perhaps true, of the great comedian W. C. Fields, in the last months of his life, in sanatorium, visited one morning by a friend. Fields sat in a corner, by a window with sun shining in, a Bible on his lap, which surprised his friend. “Bill, what are you doing? I’ve never seen you reading a Bible!”

Fields looked up and said, “Looking for loopholes.”

Godfrey Daniel!!! There are no loopholes in life. We might think so… we might fervently hope so… we might fool ourselves and think there must be, “if God is a loving God!”

But God leapfrogged over that definition of love. He sent Jesus to settle that question; and sent His Holy Spirit to remind us. We need reminders about, um, shopping lists and movie times. Why not about pleasing God and doing His will?

Remind me, dear Lord.

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Recorded at the Cove, Billy Graham’s retreat center in North Carolina, a place with special memories for me, having interviewed Bev Shea, Cliff Barrows, Joni Eareckson, and others there. A beautiful spot.

Click: Remind Me, Dear Lord

10-14-19

Some day I want to put together a new version of the Holy Bible. Ambitious, yes. But I believe that the Bible is a Book that many people know, but not everybody understands.

There is a human tendency to assume, to take for granted, things that largely are familiar to us. And you know what often happens when we assume. Familiarity does not always breed contempt… but it can lead to indifference. Hard truths, even when brilliantly expressed, can grow trite when we are intellectually careless.

My version of the Bible would be called the NSL Version – Not Saith the Lord.

If we can remind ourselves of familiar verses and passages of Scripture, and really – No: REALLY – think about them, and their meaning; their application to our lives… they can burst on our consciousness like thunderclaps. Sometimes as if we had never heard them before!

I know, because it has happened to me.

I will revisit this idea, going forward, and solicit nominations of verses and passages from you.

Here is one instance. “Give us this day our daily bread…” Yes, yes, “provide for me, please.” I think too many of us focus (if we focus at all as we rush through the Lord’s Prayer or the “Our Father”) on the “Give” and “us” and “bread” and what they represent.

But when Jesus outlined the perfect prayer, or topics to include when we approach God, I believe He wanted, in this passage, to remind us of the “daily.”

The Lord provides for us, we know and trust that. As with the sparrows, as with the lilies of the field. We seek it, and He indeed provides, spiritually as well as materially.

But how often does God provide? Not occasionally… not in crises alone… not only when we are desperate. But, daily. Daily “bread.”

That is not merely a petition of wanting, but is worded to remind us to be thankful that God does provide. Daily!

In fact, between spiritual and material matters, so much, so often, so “daily,” that sometimes we take His provisions for granted.

So when you next pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” you can remind yourself of how much more than bread He hath provided (and we “shall not live by bread alone,” right?). But have your mind focus too on His daily, constant, reliable provisions.

His gifts… before we know we need them! Indeed, great is His faithfulness.

Our daily “bread”? Be bold to ask… be grateful to receive. Thus saith the Lord.

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Click: Great Is Thy Faithfulness.

10-7-19

I.

These weekly visits are called “Music Ministry,” and the thoughts I share usually lead to, or are inspired by, a song or a hymn. But they can be read independently and (sadly, to me) often are read without people peeking at the video clip.

Independent or not, whether you are busy or not, I urge you to click the music video here. You might, or not, have heard of Joey Feek, the beautiful female half of the duet Joey+Rory.

Joey Martin sang with her husband Rory Feek and made quite an impact on the country-music scene when she gave birth to a daughter, Indie, in 2014. They decided to take a year off from performing, and raise their daughter on their farm. Soon after the birth, Indie was diagnosed as having Down Syndrome. The couple, of course, doubled down on the love and attention… and so did their fans.

Soon after that, Joey herself received a diagnosis. Cervical cancer. Excruciating episodes of prayer, pain, surgery, radiation, chemo, “success,” return of cancers in many areas; more prayer; home treatments; “wasting away”… during which time Joey and Rory kept diaries in the form of written and video blogs. Their anxious and supportive friends and fans followed every detail of the trials, every loss of hair and pounds, every decline of health and strength.

When Joey died in 2016 at the age of 40, she had fulfilled some dreams – recording a Gospel album with her husband (sometimes singing from the sickroom), and seeing Indie turn two. When healthy and strong enough, she sometimes had held Indie in her arms on stage, mother and daughter dancing, the beautiful infant waving happily to audiences.

Another singer entered the lives of Joey+Rory, or vice versa. Bradley Walker has kept Joey’s memories alive in some of his own songs and videos. He has a handsome country and Gospel baritone, and has won awards, has performed around America, and has recorded albums (at Joey+Rory’s recording studio on their farm).

Bradley also has muscular dystrophy. He has been in a wheelchair since the point when most children learn to crawl, and has scarce use of his hands. But he sings when and where he can, which is often.

Joey+Rory and Bradley Walker each recorded the meaningful song In the Time That You Gave Me. What I recommend to you this week is that you click on the video of a special performance, Bradley singing the song in a duet with the previously recorded track of Joey’s performance, her beautiful voice accompanied by photos of the healthy Joey, cancer-battling Joey, and Joey the mom with sweet Indie.

II.

I could leave it there, surely touching hearts with the stories of these amazing people – strength in the face of horrible challenges, of life’s frequent frustrations (at best) and crushing disappointments at times. Faith. Bradley could be spending his days in non-stop pity parties. Joey could have hidden herself in anger… or shared her bitterness with the world.

If she had learned about Indie’s Down Syndrome before birth, she could have aborted that sweet baby.

Ninety per cent of mothers do, these days, in that situation.

That comes to the second part of this message. Life is cheap these days. In movies, on streets. In classrooms, in politics. In hospitals – or half of them: when medicine does not innovate and extend healthy lives, it develops more efficient ways of ending them. The elderly, increasingly; and babies. Babies before birth… during birth… now (this should be shocking) right after birth.

What sort of monsters have we become? I curse the culture for developing uncountable means to camouflage this perversion of values, this holocaust of millions, this triumph of calling good “bad” and bad “good.”

This week I attended a dinner for the Flint Pregnancy Resource Center, and heard speakers present statistics – for instance, the number of murdered babies since Roe equaling the combined populations of California and Florida – a litany that threatens to inure us from its nightmarish essence, not because we hear horrors so often, but because society shrugs its collective shoulders.

“It’s none of your business.” “You are you to judge?” “Whatever.” Those reactions seem louder than our arguments. They are more common than desperate pleas for help and rescue and support. They tell us there is no such thing as right and wrong… but these people will insist we are wrong.

Louder than the arguments on either side, however, are quiet, nervous voices like the mom who shared her testimony at the dinner this week. Guilty about past abortions, she recently gave birth to a daughter, and the mom’s palpable joy and acceptance of forgiveness, her redemption and new life (new lives!), and knowing that people love and value her… provides inspiration.

Even louder still are the tiny cries and giggles of babies – not blobs or tissue masses – who join the human family. They should drown out any other noise.

If you were moved to tears by the stories and music video of Joey and Indie and Bradley at their stages of life, stop and ask why the experiences of babies killed in the womb should be any less compelling, at their stages of life.

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Click: In the Time That You Gave Me

9-30-19

Do many people confess this – ‘I Don’t Know How To Pray!’ – or would, if pressed? You would be surprised how many Christians, even, are uncomfortable when called upon to pray audibly, or front of others.

My late wife Nancy’s birthday was last week; and she died almost seven years ago. I have written how she suffered almost uncountable numbers of ailments and afflictions, including cancer, strokes, and heart and kidney transplants. She never stopped attending church all her life through, but her natural shyness plus an upbringing in church and home that did not encourage spontaneous and public praying, brought her seldom to pray in front of others. Even before our family, at mealtimes.

But when she was listed for transplantation, she began a ministry on the Heart Failure floor of the hospital. She saw a need, particularly as – believe it or not – clergy seldom visited and prayed with patients there.

A Catholic priest scurried through once a week, sharing the Host and the Sign of the Cross to Catholic patients on his list, and then moved on; scarcely chatting. Protestant clergy, sometimes from patients’ home churches, occasionally made calls and had conversations more than prayers. In those times, almost 25 years ago, transplant recipients were wired to monitors and telemetry units, so the machinery and poles prevented them from even venturing to the chapel on the hospital’s ground floor.

It seemed curious and, frankly, cruel to Nancy that patients were receiving medical care but not spiritual care.

She started a hospital ministry. She visited rooms. She had us bring Bibles that she could distribute. It became a family ministry, even as our children Heather, Ted, and Emily would pray, sometimes with children of patients. We began holding services on Sunday mornings in rooms, or the lounges, or atrium, depending on attendance.

And attendance grew. Patients were wheeled in; nurses joined as they could; family members timed their visits to the services. We dealt with crises of faith. We saw miracles. We played recorded music, always surprised that rural men fell in love with Black spirituals; faithful Jewish couples lost themselves in the joy of Southern gospel songs; Hispanics sang the traditional hymns in Spanish as we sang in English.

And before we knew it, people prayed with us… and prayed, themselves. Enthusiastically, and spontaneously. People opened up to request a specific prayer, as, they said, they never had done in their lives. Patients shared thanks for things that happened during the week, or for a breakthrough they experienced. Very often, patients or family members were bold enough to ask God questions, in front of all us. (You don’t know how liberating, and Biblical, it is to answer “I don’t know! I don’t know, either! Let’s pray about it!”).

Sometimes widows or widowers, or children of patients who died after transplantation, or during procedures, or while waiting, came to thank us all. And to share peace with their “new” families. Local TV stations, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, did multiple stories on Nancy and this ministry. We continued it as a family for almost seven years after she received her heart and kidney, until we moved to San Diego.

Nancy received more than a heart and a kidney; she had a personality transplant. This woman who was so shy that she seldom audibly prayed over dinner… became a prayer warrior.

“Out of the abundance of the heart, so the mouth speaketh.” Once, a patient’s wife said that she believed her husband was “listed” at that time and in that place, in order that he learn about Jesus from us. He accepted Christ – over which she had prayed for years – but I don’t believe God sends sickness. The lesson, however, is that our job is to turn circumstances around on the devil.

There were many times patients prayed, in front of others as well as the Lord, for the first time in their lives. I still can almost hear the accelerating thump, thump, thump heartbeats on the monitors at those times. Spiritual emotion. Once, on New Years Eve, a sweet hulk of man from the Philly suburbs requested that we all gather in his room. “I don’t know how to pray!” he confessed… but declared that he wanted to do so, for the first time in his life. He did, through tears – his and ours – and his “Amen!” was followed by the biggest smile you could imagine.

Is it possible, dear reader, that you don’t know how to pray? Is it awkward? Either before others, or privately to God?

If so, that grieves God more than you can know. He wants to communicate with us; the Bible says we should share the burdens of our hearts. He knows them… but he wants to hear from you. Is there a guilt that impedes you? Confess it! He knows that already too! Are you so joyful that you think prayer is not necessary? Shame on you! You have extra reason!

All of us live a little south of Heaven and a little north of Hell. We are in a common (even crowded) place from which to approach the Throne of God. You don’t know how to pray, or what to pray?

If your slate is that empty, start by simply praising Him. Thank Him for Who He is, and what He has done. Can’t think of anything? You will. It will start as a “sacrifice of praise” and then start to roll. He will speak to your spirit. Are you getting through? The Bible says that the Holy Spirit will speak, even groan when we are troubled, to God on our behalf. Pray. I pray of you.

You don’t need to be confined to a hospital’s Heart Failure floor, but, believe me… we all need heart transplants.
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Click: Prayer

9-9-19

One of the confirmations of Christ’s divinity is the number of times He is mentioned, and was prophesied and predicted, in the Old Testament. And not just vague associations: the Bible overflows with specific references, made previous to His incarnation, regarding Jesus’s life, ministry, and activities. Every one was fulfilled.

So the names and attributes of Jesus are interesting. And they are instructive to our Biblical understanding, and to our mature faith. Jesus was His given name; Christ was His title… but there were, and are, many other names by which He can be known, and which explain His numerous facets and roles.

You know them, from the Old Testament and New Testament both. Among them are: Almighty; Alpha and Omega; Author of Salvation; Bread of Life; Chief Cornerstone; Creator of All Things; Deliverer; Faithful Witness; Firstborn From the Dead; Good Shepherd; High Priest; Horn of Salvation; Image of God; King of Kings; Lamb of God; Last Adam; Light of the World; Lion of the Tribe of Judah; Living Stone; Lord of All; Morning Star; Only Begotten Son of God; Passover Lamb; Precious Cornerstone; Prince of Peace; Rock; Savior; Son of David; Son of God; Son of Man; The Stone the Builders Rejected; Truth; The Way; Wonderful Counselor; The Word…

The great evangelist R W Schambach frequently referred to the Savior in a unique (and correctly theological) way – “My elder Brother Jesus.” This not only delineates a sweet fellowship with Jesus; it explains the precise relationship of our New Life after the Born-Again experience.

When Jesus walked out of that tomb, He greeted the world as the risen Son of God, yes, but in effect He said to all of humanity: “I was God-with-you, and now you are with Me – my brothers and sisters.” If Jesus reigns in your heart, God sees Him when He looks at you. Hallelujah!

So. Should this make us happy? Yes! But I wonder why many church services resemble funerals and not celebrations. I have got to thinking about how people refer to God and Jesus these days, especially when we have so many options. A list of some:

God d*** and Jesus Christ! (when uttered as curses). Of course these are not what I am seeking as examples. But I wonder whether “taking Names in vain” are spoken more frequently among us, if we could count, than in prayers or spiritual respects. For shame. And it strikes me, even, how many people who are not even nominal Christians use “Jesus” and “Jesus Christ” or “Christ,” as curses. I have rebuked friends and strangers, sometimes asking them to be more polite about my Best Friend.

Jesus H Christ and Jesus, Mary, and Joseph – as “antiseptic” curses. As if the humorous (?) twist will not offend the One who suffered and died for our sins. Or offend us, when in their midst.

The Man Upstairs. Really? The Man upstairs?? This is usually a coward’s way of appearing spiritual without (gasp) actually mentioning God. Also shameful. Would you refer to your spouse as “that dark-haired person who lives down the hall and watches TV in the evening”?

“I’m sorry, but religion is too personal for me to discuss.” How about that? The most important thing in your life – or should be – is something to avoid talking about? Not all of us are evangelists, OK; but to hide Jesus from view likely indicates a fateful unfamiliarity with Him… a fatal lack of knowledge of God’s ways… and an insecure realization of what Jesus requires of believers.

If you had a cure for cancer, would sharing that knowledge be “too personal” to talk about? Those who have no knowledge of the basic tenets of being a Christ-follower, frankly, condemn themselves. Jesus’s own Entrance Exam, so to speak, was easy – To believe in your heart that He is the Son of God; and confess with your mouth that He rose from the dead.

Yes, that simple. But “confess with your mouth” precludes “too personal for me to discuss.” Can’t do both. If parents are followers of Christ but let their children “decide for themselves” matters of faith… it means they are comfortable with the chance their children will go to Hell. Don’t believe in Hell? Well… Jesus did; and you believe in Him, right?

You can see the many implications and responsibilities that attend the use of “mere” words and proper titles. They are the markers on the meter of your soul.

Your everlasting soul, as a child of God, a brother or sister of Jesus, seeking to do His will and, more, desiring to share Him.

To know Christ and to make Him known. That is not a task: We should love to be doing it.

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Click: What a Friend We Have in Jesus

8-26-19

Oh, yes; God plays games. Not to deceive us, of course. But He is a play-ful God, never think otherwise. Despite the moon-faced Jesus of some movies and Sunday-school calendars, I believe He smiled as much as He rebuked; He wept but He laughed. He was tender with His mother; He gathered children around Him; He welcomed crowds.

“Jesus loves me; this I know.” He doesn’t get there by being stern or vacant. When God created the earth, He paused and “saw that it was good.” Smile!

God has used – and still uses – uncountable ways to instruct us. He shares His will for our lives through inspiration of the Holy Spirit; by Biblical passages; via circumstances. Balaam’s ass, you know the story. Sometimes even people who themselves are… well, you know, unexpected sources. Hard lessons. “Coincidences,” that some of us recognize afterwards as “God-incidences.” Sermons. Books. Radio and TV preachers. Song lyrics.

When God doesn’t whisper, sometimes He shouts.

Thinking on these things, I wondered whether we can find Godly messages even in games. Games, that is, that we might re-purpose, to see His purpose.

Here are some suggestions:

Ready Or Not, Here I Come! Can you picture Jesus calling that out? In a very real way, that’s what He said as He emerged from the tomb on Easter Sunday. His mother, and the disciples, hoped for the Resurrection, and vaguely remembered His promise… yet they were surprised. Were they ready? Are we ready? Because the Resurrection was an event at which to marvel, but – “ready or not” – then there is the life-long obligation to remain joyful, and to follow His commands. Here He Comes!

Tag, You’re It! In that game, the rules are strict. As much as you might wiggle or hide or evade, when the leader tags you… you are it. You know that Jesus seeks you, and soon enough will “tag” you. You’re it!

Leapfrog. Do kids play this any more? And maybe it’s a stretch, but let’s compare the jumpers to the challenges in life we have to get over. Isn’t it funny (or not) how every time we overcome the challenge before us, something or someone jumps over us and gets in the way all over again. Gotta keep jumping, running the race, and leaping!

Truth or Dare. This is easy. Can you keep secrets from God? Can you avoid His call? Can you avert His gaze? He already knows the Truth about your situation better than you do… do you dare break the rules?

Rock, Paper, Scissors. Um… whatever configuration, no matter how many do-overs, God always wins. He made the rocks, paper, and scissors!

Simon Says. Another old-timer. In the new version, Simon is God, giving the requests. Or, Simon is Jesus, who showed us how to obey. Or Simon is the Holy Spirit, who will help us play.

And win.

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Click: Hide Thou Me

8-12-19

Conversation in the doctor’s waiting room. A woman next to me said, after reeling off her worries, “… but as the Bible says, God never gives us more than we can handle.”

Me: “You know, the Bible does not say that.”

“It doesn’t? I’m sure it does!”

Fortune cookies, yes. Greeting cards, yes. Even sermons, yes. But the Bible – prophets, poets, kings, disciples, Jesus? – no.

In fact, if we think about it, troubles and sickness and problems usually are attacks from the devil, or the results of our own folly… but not “sent” by God. He doesn’t “give” us more than we can handle. That is not how He works. He “gives” us hope. And strength. And faith. And wisdom. And, yes, deliverance.

But He does not visit us with bad things, even temptations. That’s in the devil’s job description, not God’s.

A proper understanding of this can change our lives. We should be free of the pagan superstition that God pushes us to the edge all the time. We are His children, and He is not a child abuser.

He did not tempt Jesus in the wilderness. That was Satan.

Let’s dig deeper into these ideas about challenges and God. I say He does not “give” junk to us. The world will ask, “If He is a loving God, then why doesn’t He prevent those problems?” A question that seems logical. He could have plucked Jesus from the cross. He could have put out the fire in the furnace before the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar ordered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to be tossed therein. The “valley of the shadow of death”? Why didn’t God promise simply to keep us away from the cursed valley?

Well, those actions are not in God’s job description.

He never promised us a trouble-free life. Some people never quite understand that! In fact, it is guaranteed that troubles will come our way… and the more Jesus there is in our hearts, the more the devil will attack. Stone cold, that. So what does God promise? Let us re-visit the three examples:
Jesus was on the cross to fulfill God’s plan, and to demonstrate His love for us. He would not interrupt that.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not avoid the fire, but were saved in the midst of the fire. Brought through. And manifested the “fourth man” who appeared with them, the pre-incarnate Jesus. Lesson delivered.

Walking though the valley of the shadow of death? God promises to be with us… not to slap us down a detour. We learn (or should learn) trust and faith, because He is with us in those times.

As Andrae Crouch wrote and sang, “I thank Him for the storms He brought me through, For if I’d never had a problem, I wouldn’t know God could solve them… I’d never know what faith in God could do.”

God always “gives” us exactly what we need.

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Click: Through It All

8-5-19

I am writing this in the first week of August, a time that once, and elsewhere, carries more significance than a new calendar page. In the 19th century, a lot of magazines published “Mid-Summer Numbers,” observing some sort of moment in the earth’s cycle, like taking a breath. In Europe – France especially – the entire month of August is devoted to vacations; trips far away from home. Some streets in Paris are virtually empty except for unlucky waiters and gendarmes.

For me, August reminds me of summers growing up outside New York City, in New Jersey. The Jersey Shore? Palisades Park? No, as an eternal foodie, my memories are of the best corn and the best tomatoes on earth. It is futile to seek such quality elsewhere, but these weeks beat Spring flowers and Fall harvests in many ways. De gustibus and all that…

It requires no stretch to see a spiritual aspect to the unique time between planting and harvest. We make plans, we live in hope, we anticipate; we pray. Planting seeds is a metaphor for being intentional about life, and commitments, our directions. Harvest? We anticipate the results of our work and plans. And prayers.

This week my son Ted, my daughter Emily, and I coincidentally went through separate but similar experiences, all related to the work we do. We praise God (always) for His leading, and His hand, the calling on our lives. But sometimes – without stopping to acknowledge God as the Master Farmer – it seems like we plant soybeans and we harvest alfalfa (or whatever those two plants look like; have mercy on this City boy; this is still a metaphor).

That growth period is just as important as Planting and Harvesting.

When Emily was very young, missionaries from Central America visited our little church and made a presentation about their work. Somehow their stories, their passion, affected her. As young as she was, she was overtaken with emotion and tears and… a conviction that she would serve in the missions field when she grew up. She eventually went to Bible College, joined missions trips to Mexico, Russia, and Ireland. And Ireland again. Her heart was joined there – in two ways; as she fell in love with Norman, attending a Bible college in Dublin, marrying, and being fruitful and multiplying. Still serving the Lod, of course.

Would all this have happened without that impactful visit of a missionary family decades ago? Maybe, or maybe not in the same way… but as a father I am awestruck at the growth (and nurture) of certain seeds that are planted in lives.

My friend Becky Spencer (writer, missionary, singer, songwriter) and her husband Tracy run a B+B and a Thrift Boutique in Kansas, to help finance their longtime work in Swaziland, now eSwatini in Africa. (I’m sorry, but the country’s new name sounds more like a video game to me…) It is a land with many challenges of health, poverty, disease, and education. And more. These past weeks has seen her crew from GrandStaffMinistries (.com, you know) experienced some family crises among relatives before they left America; financial challenges of course; a stolen passport at a stopover airport; stolen credit cards and money at another airport, followed by crazy rules and balky “facilitators” when help was needed; a ton-of-bricks debilitating infection to Becky herself… and so forth.

[And just as I write this, I received an emergency message from Becky in eSwatini that their facilities have caught fire that is spreading. Please pray, friends!]

Hard truth: when the devil attacks, it often means that you are doing something right. But when missions work – schools, clinics, worship centers, food sharing, teaching – is savagely attacked… is this God’s harvest for work well planned?

Well, yes, it is. For the overall accomplishments and victories of Grand Staff Ministries; for the work Emily has done and the blessings she receives; for the results of yieldedness that unfolds for Ted and me (and multiplied other testimonies), God does not bless our agendas. It’s about His plan, not our ideas of what His plan should be. He knows where we are headed. (Pssst – I can share a secret about how to know it: It is where He wants us.) And, almost always, He does not ordain where, and in what form, that harvest will be manifested.

Excuse me: He does ordain it. He just seldom shares it with us. And if we do work as unto the Lord, there are no “good” results or “bad” results; only God-results.

In fact I believe there is an aspect to spiritual planting-and-harvesting that we seldom think about. We offer ourselves as living sacrifices to serve Him, by serving others; we understand that, and we obey (not often enough, most us, but that’s another message). But our Sovereign God can use other people and other methods. But… the fact that He chooses us is a reminder that He cares about us as much as the people we serve.

It is truly the case that God wants to do a good work in us, not only in third-world kids or starving villages or abused women. By sharing Christ, sharing resources, and sharing ourselves we do not only do favors for the “lost”… but for ourselves.

And that is good theology. God will not take our lives, or our souls, for granted, as we do good. He cares about us as much as the people we serve.

Mary did not merely honor and bless Jesus by anointing His feet. She was blessed, and received honor and blessing from the Savior, for the choice she made. “The poor ye shall always have with you.” St Augustine saw that not as an admission of futility. He recognized that God wants to encourage in us, not only our loving targets, the reality of His love.

Not something only to deliver, but something to live, ourselves. Harvest time approacheth.

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Click: Thank You For Giving To the Lord

7-29-19

There is a story about the late gospel singer J D Sumner, once cited by the Guinness Book of World Records as possessing the deepest bass voice ever recorded. He performed as a member of famous groups, and even backed up Elvis Presley for a time. Variously gruff and given to broad humor, this story showed a side of him that displayed, appropriately when all is said and done, Biblical wisdom.

J D held sway in parts of the South, and one Christmastime he persuaded local authorities to release a prisoner whom he befriended and witnessed to, from jail over the holidays. The inmate would visit and stay with his own wife and kids.

The singer-comedian Mark Lowry was a neighbor of J D and when he heard this news he asked what the prisoner had done; what his offense had been.

“Does it make a difference?” Sumner replied in his other-worldly deep drawl.

How much do we really appreciate Forgiveness and Pardon? When Don Adams’ catch-phrase in the old Get Smart TV show entered the language, “Sorry ‘bout that” became everybody’s euphemistic apology. A substitute, really. Once upon a time, “Excuse me” and “I beg your pardon” were more formal ways of expressing formal apologies, perhaps until dulled into irrelevance.

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” This is the best-known reference to Forgiveness in our language; and, again, perhaps blunted by uncountable recitations. But we must realize that Jesus, when offering this “model prayer,” suggested a deal of sorts. He suggested that God’s forgiveness is granted in some relationship to the forgiveness we show others.

But isn’t God’s forgiveness, as an aspect of His love, unconditional? Yes, if we repent He will forgive our sins.

But we should be prompted – by gratitude if not basic theology – to forgive unconditionally, in the same manner as God does, those who have sinned against us. Wronged us, offended us, harmed us. “But, Rick, that’s hard!” (By the way, talk to God, not me…) Yes, it is hard. Almost impossible. But as God reads our hearts, He does not count the results of our forgiving spirit, but the number of times we exercise it.

“Forgiveness,” “Pardon,” “Second chance,” and all those related impulses, elevate our spirits. Indeed they open our ability to receive God’s forgiveness… more accurately to be aware of it and savor it. No longer an aspect of a spiritual bargain as we might be tempted to think, the Spirit of Forgiveness is blessed liberation you cannot imagine until employed fully and without strings.

There are very few things the Bible suggests that God cannot do. But it says that when we are Forgiven, God takes our sins and figuratively “throws them into a Sea of Forgetfulness.” I return to my question up top – how much do we appreciate Forgiveness?

Here is what I mean: have you ever done something, or thought something, that made you feel guilty? Did you repent and pray for God’s forgiveness? And again, and more times, reflecting your remorse and guilt?

You can understand Forgiveness a little better if you realize that after your first sincere prayer you are only telling God about something He already forgot.

Forgive… and forget. We have a great Role Model to show us how.

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Click: Forgiven

7-15-19

I think contemporary folks see a wall of separation between knowledge, belief, and faith. Not necessarily hostile camps of the mind, mutually exclusive; but different provinces. Maybe like summer and winter: hardly the same, but both are “weather.”

However, knowledge, belief, and faith – and other versions of our core convictions; trust, security, even firm hope, you know them all – are really just words, words, words for the same thing. I can know the lamp will turn on when when I flip a switch; but that knowledge is based on a belief that a lot of people know how to make that happen. And I have faith that they will do so, tomorrow too.

These are not superficial distinctions… and they apply to, yes, our core convictions.

In Western civilization in the 21st century, “progress” has freed us from the necessity to have faith any more in many things once requiring faith. Of course this goes beyond religion: and I mean, very much, to have us realize how rudderless, value-less, we have become. We have been coddled into thinking that so-called progress, and intelligence, and science, are sufficient in all things; indeed, that vital aspects of traditional faith… are obsolete. Impediments. Relics of the ignorant.

But we still exercise faith – more than ever. Only in different things.

Governments, politicians, scientists, heroes, philosophies, secularists, the “mind” of the “universe.” Superstition. Self-help courses. Gurus, not God. At the end, however, we all still believe in things; we all have faith in something. Or other.

It surprises some people to know that the mighty Reformer Martin Luther, during the Renaissance and at the cusp of the Age of Enlightenment, declared that Reason is the enemy of Faith.

As we fight against the greatest surge of slavery in history; as we face oppression and abuse and heartache in our midst; as we wipe our hands of the blood of the previous century’s myriad slaughters… let us think for at least a moment where Human Reason, unleashed for 500 years, has gotten us.

Another figure of faith, an example of embracing faith in the face of the world’s certainties, and hostility, also speaks through the centuries:

To sacrifice what you are, and to live without belief, is a fate more terrible than dying.
– Joan of Arc

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Click: I Believe; Help Thou My Unbelief

7-8-19

Many well-meaning agnostics, and ill-intentioned atheists, and clueless friends who think they are being “welcoming,” showing they can meet Christians half-way, will intone that they regard Jesus as a “great man,” surely a “great teacher.”

Close on the heels of such specious arguments often come the “open-minded” assertions that every religious tradition has great teachers… that all of these teachers must lead to god (whatever they think god is)… that all the teachers all preached peace. And taught how to get along. Didn’t they?

Regarding the chief attributes of Jesus as being a good man and a great teacher: these are worse insults than outright denial that He was God incarnate. Blasphemy. (Blasphemy, by the way, is the one “unforgivable” sin spoken of in the Bible.)

An incomplete God is not God at all.

A “shadow God” is one or the other, not both. Jesus casts shadows. He is the Light Of the World. He is “the image of the One True God; the first-born of all Creation.”

Other “teachers” of other religions did not claim to be more than teachers or prophets; does everyone know that? Jesus, however, claimed to be the Messiah – “I and the Father are One” – literally, God-with-us.

Other religious leaders died. Alone of them all, Jesus rose from the dead, and physically ascended to Heaven.

“Oh, I respect Him as a great man, a wise teacher.” Your friends who say that to you are in effect calling Him a liar – funny thing for a Holy Man to be! – because Jesus was the Son of God who taught; yes. But He also healed. He read minds and convicted people of their sins. He raised others from the dead. He performed a multitude of miracles, recorded not only in the Bible but in contemporary accounts. Miracles.

He taught love, yes. But, more, He was love.

Can mere teachers transform lives; heal families and their pain; redeem the desperate among us? Can a mere teacher have turned my own heart from inclinations toward sin to seeking forgiveness, redemption, and holiness? Teachers can try – religious and secular teachers both – but only Jesus, come to earth for these missions, can do these things, be these things.

You say Jesus was a good man, a great teacher? Let me say in love: shut up – I have got some life-changing details to share with you. Good man, great teacher… are the first two of uncountable check-boxes in the list that describes my Savior and Friend, Jesus.

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Click: Yes, I Know

7-1-19

Two different things, faith and faithfulness.

We can generalize and say that Faith is what you believe, and faithfulness is how you act.

As with most generalities, we can go deeper than that. Both concepts are two-way streets, at least. In the matter of God Himself, I reckon that we don’t always think of the implications that God has faith in us, not merely the necessity of our belief in Him; in Christ as His only Son; in Jesus’s death for out sins and His resurrection and ascension to the Heavenly throne.

With Jesus in our hearts, that completes the requirements for salvation… but only begins the duties of Children of God. We need to be versed in the Word, and attentive to the leadings of the Holy Spirit. “Imitators of Christ.”

Saying “Yes” to Jesus is more than a “Get out of jail free” card. God has faith in us – you and I individuals of the flock – to do His will. He has faith in us: what an awesome concept… and responsibility.

Faithfulness is, perhaps, an easier concept to grasp. We can make resolutions, and establish purposes, and try our hardest, to be faithful to God. To trust Him; to share His love; to do His will. “It is meet and right so to do,” the old liturgies say. And it is a matter of belief that God can only act faithfully on His words and promises and gifts.

So, that’s that. Right? Not really. Sometimes the most well-meaning Christians can substitute their own versions of what they think is faithfulness. Maybe some people you know –

* Thinking that infant baptism seals their souls into Eternity?
* Believing that church membership satisfies God, with no other factors?
* That charitable works, or giving, is a step toward Heaven?
* Trusting that welcoming sinners, and accepting their sins, is doing God’s will?
* Assuming that God’s rules for life are not for today; only other people, other times

… and so forth. We are nation – our Western civilization is a culture – where the Bible probably still is the best-selling of books. Almost every home has one, somewhere; and every Walmart and Barnes and Noble has stacks of them. Where churches are on many street corners, and dot the landscape.

But those are not signs of faithfulness; nor, by themselves, of faith. How many Bibles remained stacked in super-stores? In how many homes is there “dust on the Bible”? How many churches are closed, or merging, or converted to community centers for Jazzercise?

Such “relative” proof of faithfulness or, God help us, faith, may grieve the heart of the Lord.

However we can be – we are – secure in the knowledge that God’s faithfulness is not relative; does not change; and is something we can hold to.

May that knowledge, and profound gratitude for such a loving God, have us cleave to Him… to exercise our faith… and blow the dust off our Bibles whenever it settles.

Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul; ‘Therefore I hope in Him!’” (Lamentations 3:22-24)

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Click: Great Is Thy Faithfulness

6-10-19

It is hard to hear the voice of God when we are stressed.

This is something most of us know, especially in these days when stress is blamed – probably correctly – for myriad ills from emotional problems to actual physical afflictions. It is the epidemic of contemporary life in many societies.

My son-in-law Norman McCorkell recently delivered a sermon on this message. At moments of high stress, we can not only miss the wisdom of God, but the words of those around us, and even that “still, small voice” of our own convictions. Stress can be like the moon in a full eclipse, blotting out the sun.

There is a frequent reaction among the faithful who occasionally feel abandoned that God has grown distant. Well, He does not grow distant – we move; He doesn’t – but when stress somehow keeps us from hearing God, the problem is not God’s voice, and maybe not even our internal “ears”… but our eyes.

We can seek God, not only in prayer, but by reading His Word.

It is human nature (which we must try to fight) that we seek God less when things are going well. When challenges, problems, crises – stress – comes, then we despair. Do we blame God? We pray and seek Him in those times.

If that is true, then short of physical sickness, should we not think, or fear, that God might allow those things, even stress, to cross our path… if that is a trigger for us getting closer to Him? It should make us shiver.

My late wife Nancy used to say that the devil is not really after our minds. After all, through life we believe this and that, learn and forget things, follow old or new theories. But the devil is after our hearts. He hates us not because we have pulses, but according to the amount of Jesus that exists in our hearts.

Head-knowledge is nothing when compared to heart-belief.

When your heart is serene, you will find that frustration over “hearing” the voice of God, or of friends, or of your own feelings, is less demanding.

And. Less. Stressful.

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Click: Till the Storm Passes By

5-27-19

Alexa, Siri, Hey-Google… 2019, meet 1984. Ten years ago, the FBI Director calmly told a Congressional committee that he (even he) puts tape over his computer screen’s mini-camera lens. A friend of mine who has worked in sensitive national intelligence schooled me about secret surveillance a few years ago – we should regard the “off” buttons of our electronic communications devices as irrelevant: they still listen and watch us.

Not can listen and watch. They do. “You can turn your lamp off,” he explained; “but electricity still runs through it.”

Do we care? Most of us don’t. Should we? Most of us say Yes, but surrender to the inevitability; or to the futility of resistance. Sometimes we joke about it. But it is not funny.

On the other hand (a very other hand), God watches us all the time. He even knows our minds, reads our thoughts. And our hearts.

About this reality – not a scary rumor or headline – I believe that people react in one of three ways.

* They become numb to it, hoping that God will not really notice the details of our existence and the fine-print of our lives. Or that eventually He will grade us on a curve;

* They become paranoid to the point, perhaps, of ceasing to believe in God, which they think is an easier way to cope; or to believe in a fuzzy version of God that the world manufactures as a conscious-salving substitute;

* Or they believe, trust, accept. Repent. Reform. Welcome, not fear, His watch over us. Use the truth of this reality as a discipline to act right, and please Him. This may be called a Conscience; so be it. Its agent is the Holy Spirit, sent to indwell us.

I pray we all choose what’s behind Door Number Three.

Then we will discover that God is not a spiritual spy, but a companion. A familiar Friend. The One who represents conversations waiting to happen. My daughter Heather used to audibly chat with God while driving or doing household chores. My friend Marlene Bagnull will pray in the middle of conversations with friends – “Father, please…” thus and so; seldom saying “Amen” as she switches back to human-chat – a sort of Constant Comment not bound by teacups. Cool examples, I think.

Yes, He watches us; knows our hearts. But you know what? We can listen to Him. I like to call studying the Bible “eavesdropping on God.”

“Big Brother is watching”? Only if you see that brother as Christ – Jesus our elder Brother! And welcome His fellowship!

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Click: How About Your Heart?

May 20, 2019

I have returned from a writer’s conference, one of several I attend each year. Writers, like artists and poets and few others, are obliged to be hermits. We wear our hearts and lives and fears and joys on our sleeves; but require solitude to work. It seems an odd thing for fragile creative spirits ultimately to toss their precious babies, so to speak, for the world to seize upon… maybe criticize… or, maybe worst, reject. Or ignore.

Yet we do it because we must. I think (without being presumptuous) that the closest we can get to understanding the essence of God is to create. In a sense, as we are to be spiritual “imitators of Christ,” we can savor the Creator by being creative too. Besides, it is His fault since He put the creative spark in us! Seriously, if He has gifted some with creative gifts as He apportions other gifts to other people as He wills, writers, artists, poets, performers, and other creative people have special responsibilities to touch the world… and translate the myriad aspects of God to others.

I will reaffirm some of the thoughts I had last year at another conference. The recent confab was the wonderful Write His Answer conference annually organized by Marlene Bagnull in Estes Park, Colorado. I was one of several speakers, conducting a couple of classes, and meeting a lot of great new friends. I also was reacquainted with some old friends.

It was attended by a couple hundred people, a majority of whom are aspiring writers, and many who had published a book or books or some blogs, still looking for tips to advance further.

When you want to write, you write. In fact, you need to write. And write. And read and write. It’s what you do because you are God-wired that way. I often heard people before and after classes, in the auditorium and lunchroom, in hallways: “Did you read what I wrote since last year?” or “Have you read my book?”

Never boasting, these questions were asked by people from nervousness or justifiable pride, and every writer’s sub-textual intention – hoping that people notice and understand your message; touched, maybe changed, by what you have to say, how you write His answer.

It always strikes me that the frequent question – “Have you read my book?” – might indeed have been the de facto theme. “Up above our heads”; all around us; and a part of everything we did, everything to which we dedicate our careers. But in a very real sense, God Himself also asks, “Have you read My Book?”

He asks that every day.

He asks us, not to read the Bible every moment of every day, but some time during every day, as many of us do. A passage, a chapter, a book, a verse. It is not an unreasonable request – but a request is inherent in the question – as God’s admonitions never are unreasonable.

The Bible is what we know of God. Yes, there is nature – I know well enough from our mountaintop experiences in Colorado. Agnostics who pose, and Christians who are lazy, can say that they can know God from communing with nature.

Wrong. That is one of the ways we can see God, even feel Him. But to know Him, we must read His book.

He meant it to be so. We have the Ten Commandments… written. We have Jesus’s teachings… recorded and written and published. I recommend visiting the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. I saw its substantial portions when it was on tour (in Colorado a few years ago!), and a lesson for believers and skeptics alike is that, for the hundreds and hundreds of texts from different countries, different scribes, different languages, different centuries, the texts of the Holy Scriptures vary hardly at all. The Holy Spirit “dictated” to the hearts of many writers, and oversaw the consistency of God’s Words.

Words.

Jesus communicated God’s love for us. And words, books, scripture, communicate Jesus to us.

The Bible says we are to “hide the Word in our hearts.” How better than through study of those words? They are precious. I shared with an attendee at the conference that, even when I read a Bible passage for maybe the hundredth time, some new revelation dawns on my heart. One speaker this year, Ava Pennington, delivered a powerful message that made we weep. She used phrases, and cited truisms, that I have heard all my life. But when we write or speak, and organize thoughts, the old can become new; and the new become newer. The wonder of words.

How much Bible reading is proper? Have things turned irrelevant? The Bible’s first history lesson reminds us, “In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Are some passages obsolete? II Timothy 3:16 tells us, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” A beloved old hymn states, “I love to tell the Story… ‘twill be my theme in Glory.”

Have you read His book lately?

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Stephen Hill (1956-2012) was a Baptist preacher and session singer before he launched his own gospel-music career. This is a song he sang when he and Woody Wright were invited to perform in the Netherlands. A moving song; you will be impacted in spite of the overlapping Dutch and Norwegian subtitles (he was very popular in Europe). Words!

Click: Will He Look At Me and Say ‘Well Done’?

5-6-19
There is a particular pitfall in Christianity, or rather the “walk,” the life, of Christians. Even sincere and fervent Christians – I would say maybe more so with dedicated believers.

It is a type of presumption, and is totally natural: our human nature. I am not talking about rebellion or faulty belief. Perhaps we can characterize it as total faith but imperfect understanding. Believers, acting by their human natures, sometimes tend to assume, or presume, to know what pleases God.

Is this a good thing? Usually. To address this pitfall has pitfalls itself, I know. Bear with me. I will paint an exaggerated picture; but I know it is true because I have fallen into this pit myself during my Christian walk.

Of course we want to please God. And He knows when we are in the Word; and not. He hears us when we pray; and when we don’t. He knows the burdens of our hearts; when we grieve and cannot pray well – we tell ourselves – the Bible assures us that the Holy Spirit groans in Heavenly languages before the Throne. Yet we pray, and we should, fervently, and we are promised in all these things that God hears the prayers of the righteous.

Have you ever prayed about a crisis – a nephew on death’s door; an unsaved loved one; an issue with your marriage, job, finances – and prayed something like, “Thank You, Lord, for hearing my prayer. Thank you for restoring my spirit. Thank you for the guidance that you will speak to me.”

What I mean is, have you ever prayed, in effect, “Thank You, God! I’ll take it from here”?

If we pray for a miracle… why take half of it back, before God even acts?

I shook my fist at heaven for all the hell that I’ve been through, Now I’m begging for forgiveness and a miracle from You.

We sometimes – maybe oftentimes – have the spiritual feeling that a good Christian just needs a little boost, some prayerful reinforcement, that “just a little talk with Jesus makes it right.” And then, all our training and Bible-reading can kick in.

I suggest that this attitude might be something we design to impress God… not beseech of Him. God wants our total mind, soul, and body… but not merely up to a point. He needs our total commitment, and total surrender. Especially in times of total trouble.

I’ve tried to fight this battle by myself, But it’s a war that I can’t win without Your help…

Let us consider, among many personal challenges, the example of alcoholism and the ravages it inflicts on people and families. I suggest that it is not wrong to ask God for “help,” “strength,” “understanding,” a family’s “patience,” a boss’s “forbearance,” and God’s “forgiveness.” Fervent prayer… even hundreds of prayers.

But, as long as we have God’s ear, so to speak, how many of us pray for a miracle – beyond, say, receiving one more chance from a spouse; but the kind of miracle only God can enact. For instance, losing the desire? being freed from “those places”? waking up a New Creation? Not when you need more than a “fix”! When you need a miracle, not a break.

Once upon a time You turned the water into wine, And now, on my knees, I’m turning to You, Father: Could You help me turn the wine back into water?

Think, when you pray, to realize what is the nature of your Loving God, and all He wants for you… what He can do for you!

When you pray for miracles, be mindful not to pray for partial-miracles. You have taken it as far as you can go; He knows. Let Him take it from there!

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A song written and sung by T Graham Brown. Guest slideshow by a man who has lived this song:

Click: Help Me Turn This Wine Back Into Water

4-8-19

I actually am a respecter of what I call “bumper-strip theology.” Sayings, aphorisms, Bible truths that can fit on a bumper strip on cars. Or note cards, or refrigerator notes, even on T-shirts. When lacking in formality or reverence that they threaten to be sacrilegious, no – but usually the wearer or bearer intends to honor God.

And… if there is an easy, attention-getting way to convey Bible truths, it is a good thing. I know one of one example of a lady who first saw the ubiquitous “Footprints” poster in a discount store… was profoundly impressed by the message … and became a devoted Christian. Holy ground? Think about it.

Pretending to possess no such wisdom as the creator of that graphic seashore image and legend, I have however thought of some phrases appropriate for the Easter season… that might encapsulate the Easter message; or the gravity of the Passion of Jesus; or the nature of the Incarnation; or the blessings of the Resurrection.

Bumpers… fridges… bulletin boards… caps and T-shirts… texts… go for it.

You can tattoo on your hearts, too.

Jesus Willed 

To Be Killed

His heart bled… for you

Surrender Led to Victory

What makes you think you’re so special?

…Just because Jesus did?

The world’s first evangelists were women!

He was born to die

Our sins helped drive those nails

He has risen indeed!

He was on the cross,

but you were on His mind

Would you sacrifice YOUR son for strangers?

It is Finished!

“I find no fault in this Man.”

Would you have denied Jesus too?

“If I be lifted up,

I will draw all people to me.”

“Even though I die…”

He died for you while you were yet a sinner

If He’s not in the tomb, where is He?

Render Unto Jesus

… Your Everlasting Soul

HE LIVES!!!

“Father, forgive them…”

“Who do YOU say that I am?”

What man meant for evil, God meant for good

Quick: Name another leader who rose from the dead!

For Christ’s sake… Think of what He did for you.

You can tattoo these on your hearts, too.

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Click: Bach’s “We Thank You, God, We Thank You.”

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.”

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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

3-11-19

There are many “new” Christians, converts, and born-again believers, who experience many fresh insights into God; or at least their relationship with Him.

One of those feelings, and I speak from experience, is to be overwhelmed by an awareness of God’s majesty, and all those Omnis – Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent.

Sometimes that flood of awareness is manifested in the type of awe that makes us feel unworthy. We realize that we are “the apples of God’s eye,” and that He loved us so much that He sent His only-begotten Son into the world to provide a way for our salvation.

And we know that we can “boldly approach the Throne of Grace.”

But we become aware that our righteousness is still as filthy rags compared to the glory and holiness of God.

So many of us consider a proper prayer to begin with the confession that we are unworthy in His sight. We humble ourselves, begging that He deign to hear our prayers.

Even seasoned Christians, not only “baby Christians,” will pray to God in this manner. He created the heavens and the earth; and despite His knowing the numbers of hairs on our heads, it easy to see ourselves as microscopic sinners in the great hands of a God such as He. Whether He is angry or merciful, surely we should be humble and realize how insignificant we are –

– except that we are not.

If you want to pray properly, you should see yourself properly. That is, as God sees you. The Bible more often says “worthily.” Not to be Unworthy – meaning that Worthiness is to understand and respect God’s own perspective.

We are Worthy because it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.

We are Worthy because He loved us with an everlasting love, before we were formed or born.

We are Worthy because He became flesh and dwelt among us; the Incarnate Jesus identified with our pain and suffering and joys; He was persecuted, endured agony, injustice, torture, rejection, desertion, crucifixion, and death for us; and rose and ascended to assert His divinity that we can believe and be saved…

Would the Lord do all that if we are unworthy?

Ah, some might say, we were unworthy while we were yet sinners. And now things are different. Yes! Just so. But if you understand that dividing-line… do you act like it?

Without being presumptuous, we must realize that – whatever our sins of the past or present; or however we might feel about ourselves for the moment – God cannot see those things!

When you pray, and Jesus is in your heart, God sees not you, but Jesus. He hears your prayers, but sees not the “old you” but the Jesus in you. When He looks down, so to speak, you might think He sees the sinner, but when you are covered in the blood – the sign of atonement and forgiveness that was foreshadowed ages before Jesus, in the “Pass-over,” – He sees the Blood before He sees you. And He will hear your prayers, but you need to remember that the Holy Spirit also groans and sings and advocates for us.

Guilt is drowned out; guilt has been paid for; guilt has been erased.

Understanding our relationship with God – our true standing – makes us Worthy indeed.

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Click: Victory in Jesus / Power In the Blood

2-18-19

I address Christians as a group – a fellowship that frequently is as hard to corral as a litter of frisky cats. “We” are children of the Living God, or anyway should consider ourselves so. We read the same Bible and worship the Trinitarian God. As we know, since the Church’s earliest days, there have been disagreements, splinters, deep schisms, and heresies.

Sometimes these are caused by cultural traditions that die hard; and sometimes fierce scholarly differences bring division. In the first century these debates were rife… and resulted in councils that promulgated Creeds – to remind believers what they believed.

Then we get to the questions I asked, Are we winning, and what constitutes winning?

This can sound crass… or be crass. I always wince when I hear pastors talking about how many people they “run” every Sunday in their churches. I know they care about attendance, but the term connotes fannies-in-the-seats, and inappropriate priorities. Yes, churches need to pay utility bills too, but can we hear Luke 15:10 amid the shouting? – “There is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.”

There are statistics aplenty about church growth; denominations that expand or merge; “reaching” the lost; “attracting” the many; “keeping” the kids; satellite churches and retreats; conversations about relevance… until the statistics suggest irrelevance. God forbid.

“Upon this rock I will build my…” weekend retreat? Pot-luck dinner? Christian Jazzercise? God forbid.

Jesus died on the cross, and rose from the dead, for churches that define identity by these activities?

Are American Christians helping to evangelize, convert, transform the world… or are we being transformed to the image of the world?

Winning. Listen, we win in the end – I mean God wins. He already has won. I peeked ahead to the last pages of His book. You can look too. Take comfort… as long as you can be counted with the “we.”

But whether our nation is lost, whether we and our children are spared or caught up in tribulation, is a question for you to answer. As individuals, not denominations.

“Winning”? Let me share one more statistic that fixes the term in solid if shifting focus. It is reported that Christianity is on the RISE in 170 countries around the world.

The number of Christians is declining, however, in 20 countries. The United States is one of them.

“The last, great hope of mankind”? Peek ahead to those final pages…

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Click: The Church’s One Foundation

1-14-19

What impresses people these days? Rather, let us think about how we are impressed in contemporary society… how we measure success… how “success” conflates with validation… and how we let ourselves be seduced by twisted value-systems.

Ratings? Polls? Fads? The newest trends, dance moves, drinks, celebrities and their endorsements? “We like sheep have gone astray…” In contemporary life it seems like everybody salivates for the latest cultural marching orders.

We should not be surprised by a chintzy value system when the values being pursued are debased. In tragic synergy, we have lowered our standards; the core aspects of our civilization are cheapened; and they in turn inform the next generation. A downward spiral.

Exhibit A, among myriad bellwethers: throughout history (until the Modern Age in Western civilization), virtually all artistic expression was expressed heavenward. Praising God, celebrating His works. Canvases, sculpture, music, architecture. I am ready for nit-pickers: music sometimes was social; art could also be purely decorative. Ancient sculptures to their small-g gods? – still religious in nature. Architecture from, say, public buildings in ancient Greece? – Plato commended artists to reflect the spiritual Perfection that he discerned in the world; Aristotle taught people to strive for the Golden Mean, less abstract, but as spiritual.

But since the Modern Age, coalescing during the Renaissance and Enlightenment, mankind has elevated Self instead of God. We have turned inward – all the while convincing ourselves we are turning outward, with broader visions, and universal sympathy.

Works of art now “explore” ourselves; “explain” our problems; depict our low estate; obsess over our contradictions, flaws, conflict, and doom. Social scientists can say – and artists say, when they process the situation – that confronting problems is the first step to solving them. That analysis is glib, not profound.

There is no way to traffic in humanity’s misery without making it attractive, or at least compelling. Movies, for instance, have to make evil and corruption glamorous, if not inevitable, in order to sell tickets.

At one time, men and women – who knew quite well the problems of the world and the flaws in human nature – dealt with such basic challenges not by depicting awful things in ever starker details, but by glorifying God, employing Biblical standards, discerning His answers for this troubled world.

In John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, the man with the muck-rake was to be scorned – a man who forever focused on the mire and mud, never looking up.

It is sadly inevitable, absent superhuman enlightenment and discipline, that a civilization that empowered the Individual, encouraged literacy, and expanded democracy, would eventually replace God with Self. “Self” is human nature, which all but naive sociologists would agree is flawed. Our various communities cannot help but be flawed as a consequence. Art is debased, government is corrupted, tradition is discarded.

Again inevitably, when disaster impends, mankind in this “value” system tends not to reform but to justify. To double-down. To blame everything and everybody except… our selves. The fault, if we would stop and see it, is not in the stars, but in our selves, that we are underlings.

When Rome began its decline and fall, its leaders reacted to warning signs by distracting the populace with, famously, bread and circuses. And the Roman population, from nobles to citizens to slaves, were happy to be seduced.

The sad proof of our depravity – of the rotting core amid material glitz – is what we celebrate in art. The sensual; self-gratification; the banality of evil. These barometers reveal the reality of broken homes and broken lives; a multitude of addictions; abuse and oppression. Yet we look down, instead of Up.

A re-discovery God and His ways is not the best solution to mankind’s sorry state… but the only solution.

Revival will only come if it is sought. Salvation of the soul is still offered by God to hurting people, as always. But to understand the redemption of a society, we can advance, ironically, by looking backward. If we are not immediately impressed by God Himself as we behold the range of artistic expression, we are mightily impressed by men and women… who gave themselves over to God in profound ways.

A lost paradigm, but not irretrievable.

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Click: Bach: Air On the G String

12-31-18

The French have a saying, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. It often seems apt, and is of course a variant of a Biblical principle (God usually nails it, right?) found in Ecclesiastes – “There is nothing new under the sun.”

These sort of thoughts occur to many of us around New Years, or I might say, specifically after New Year’s, when our resolutions wither and die. The French phrase translates to “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

This is not necessarily white-flag defeatism, but rather a reflection of human nature. And January received its name from the Roman god Janus, the two-faced god of endings and beginnings.

Many of us do not merely make (and break) resolutions around now. And we will not address that famous “road to hell” that is paved with good intentions, because pledges to improve, or reform, or lose weight, or clean the office, are fungible; and at least reflect proper impulses. We also, at this time of year, often grow nostalgic… remember friends… regret mistakes… miss family members… plan to renew old acquaintances. Also proper impulses.

Perhaps the fatal flaw with intentions and resolutions is that ol’ human nature. It seems wiser to pray that the Holy Spirit equip us to be tender and resourceful and sympathetic, rather than relying on our own lists and computer calendars and strings around our fingers.

Implicit in New Year’s resolutions is a whole lot of Self – we can discern; we can assign; we can choose; we can self-motivate; we can mark the dates and goals.

We can… but we often don’t.

I am thinking of this week. Most people are happy (surveys say) with the course of the economy and “optimistic about the future.” Unemployment numbers are good … and so forth. How many people have a bounce in their step as the new year unfolds?

In my own little world, I am happy enough, and grateful to God for my blessings. But just in the past few days, I have learned, or been reminded, of friends and relatives with radically different prospects. A friend whose happily married daughter is… not so happily married. The sudden death, perhaps from meningitis, of 26-year-old commentator Bre Payton, a rising star. A friend whose daughter and grandkids went into hiding because of an abusive husband. A friend whose husband has been ill for months, in pain and not eating, wasting away. A friend whose daughter has been estranged for two years, rejecting outreach and severing relations with grandsons caught in the middle. A friend whose only child is mercurial to the point of heartbreak, variously cheerful and abusive. A friend who has just gone on Hospice.

Is everything seen, all of a sudden, as the “glass half empty”? (– or half-full? I never understood the proper term or distinction of that). No. Of all my friends above, with one exception where “negative confession” is her reaction of choice, these people do count their blessings, and are mindful of silver linings. Another friend whose daughter impulsively got pregnant, got married, and got separated in mind-numbing and sad rapidity, nevertheless praises God for clarity and rededication… and so does her precious daughter. My friend on Hospice is in a situation that would make people cry, yet is full of life and enthusiasm that is inspiring.

We must always remember, or realize, that behind every storm cloud the sun still shines brightly. Storm clouds pass, but the sun shines always, after storms and after dark nights.

Our job as Christians, trying to live as Christians – and maybe to be, or to reflect, that sun to others – is, if I may put it this way, how to order the gloomy news and the hopeful news. Joy… BUT? or horrible news… BUT!

But there is hope; but there is redemption; but there is the bright day ahead.

So, here we go again, in January. Rather than relying on our own “Do-Better” lists, why don’t we all make a New Years Resolution to let God order our ways, light our pathways, and inhabit our praise?

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For all the friends with challenges and grief I listed here – and for each other – let us pray. Farther along, we’ll know all about it…

Click: Farther Along

12-24-18

I invite us to think of the manger scene, the Nativity creche, which despite the hostility of judges and hatred of some types of people, we all still see uncountable times throughout this season.

But let us try to think of the real Nativity group – not the shiny plastic, bright colors, or even inflatable angels, shepherds, animals, and Babe. How humble it was. How very humble. The root word of manger means “to eat”; and even if new straw was placed in the stable’s manger to receive Jesus, there likely were bugs and dirt and spittle that received Him too.

Aside from the fulfillment of prophecy, why did God orchestrate a situation where Joseph and Mary were rejected in all the inns? (In a city where the census was planned and held, I have often wondered if innkeepers did not want an unmarried young pregnant girl in their rooms…) Why were lonely shepherds and random animals the witnesses to Jesus’s first cries and naps? Could Mary have wondered, for a second, that the Savior of mankind deserved something a little less… humble?

The child she carried was conceived supernaturally. Behind the shepherds and next to the animals were angels. There were miracles aplenty in that lonely stable. But…

Jesus the Messiah could have descended from the clouds, just as, thirty-three years later, He would ascend to the Father.

God could have sent His only-begotten Son into the world full-grown, with the shout of angels and sound of trumpets, as He will come His second time.

The Christ did not necessarily have to be a Christ-Child; He might have appeared as a man from the wilderness where, after all, He often would go to pray.

Such appearances surely would have affirmed His divinity, no? Perhaps the world might have received Him better, believed in Him more, not be so skeptical.

Is that so? Think ahead to those thirty-three years, when even His disciples, who lived and ate and traveled with Jesus, and saw miracles and healings and raisings from the dead… they abandoned Him when things got tough, scattering like dry leaves on a windy street.

No, we should consider it a miracle that the Incarnation – Jehovah, God-with-us – was in the most unlikely Form possible. It was not God’s sense of humor or irony, but the most gentle yet powerful means of reminding the world that He identifies with us. God Almighty, Creator of the universe, Holy and August Lord… reached down.

At that moment, that first Christmas as we call it, God did not need to remind us of how omnipotent He was… but how humble He could be.

Indeed, no other Jesus could have laughed and cried and thirsted and hungered and loved and been disappointed as He was to be. No other Jesus could, later, have suffered betrayal and endured pain like we experience. No other Jesus would have submitted to crucifixion.

Another Jesus – still looking ahead to the Easter counterpart – might have summoned 10,000 angels as He loosed Himself from the cross. But He didn’t; God’s way is always the right way, and instructive to us, if we listen.

How pathetic that the world shakes its collective fist, and spews hatred, at scenes that remind us of a humble Baby in crummy, smelly, yet holy, hay. How mysterious that the most humble setting and circumstance of the Nativity yet thunders though the centuries: the nexus of history; the reminder of God’s identification with us; the confirmation of His love.

How much like Him, however; right? As he chose humility, and Jesus ultimately was humble, even unto the cross, we are humbled by His workings.

Merry Christmas, and Humble New Year!

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Click: Flash – O Come, All

12-17-18

Bells, presents, decorations, smiles, carols, parties… is there anything about Christmas that is not happy – or Merry, the inevitably paired adjective?

A few things, we note with sorrow and regret. It is commercialized to the point of smarm, almost everyone admits; but kitsch increases relentlessly. It is the time of year when the incidents of suicide spikes; remember, therefore, the lonely and “forgotten.”

The holiday (holy day) itself, however, has a DNA of sadness, even grief. The Bible tells us that King Herod, aware of the prophesies of the Messiah’s birth in his time and his domain, ordered the death of baby boys. This horror was visited on a grand scale and was, as we know, the reason that Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt with their Baby boy. Throughout Bethlehem and Judea there was widespread lamentation.

How can it be that a circumstance of God’s plan was not unalloyed joy? The simple answer is to help explain the complexity of God’s ways. As with Salvation itself, God’s gifts like the Incarnation of the Savior free, but not cheap or easy. Like a mother’s birth pangs, the world had to know the price of Jesus’s entrance into the world. Humanity ultimately would despise and reject Him; His difficult birth foreshadowed such sober reminders.

How can it be that a pagan ruler believed the prophesies about the Messiah – even if he rejected the theology in his heart – when many “Christians” 2000 years later question the Virgin Birth? Contemporary theologians, enablers of the secularists in society as they are, deny many divine attributes of Jesus. Surely Herod would not have ordered mass killings to forestall the coming ministry of a great teacher!

How can it be that the grieving, almost insensate, lullabies of mothers, their dead babies in their laps, or facing imminent slaughter, can reflect a matter of foundational faith? That is a question I cannot answer, as a man or as a reflective Christian. Yet the “Coventry Carol” tells the story of this awful occurrence in a way that is achingly haunting and beautiful.

Many people – many mothers – superficially think the ancient carol with its Old French roots of English, “By, by, lully, lullay…” is merely a bedtime song. Yet the lullaby (which word derives from the lament) is a reminder of what is aptly named The Slaughter of the Innocents, and commemorates the price, sometimes, of being a Christian.

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child, By, by, lully, lullay.
Lullay, thou little tiny Child, By, by, lully, lullay.
O sisters too, how may we do, For to preserve this day.
This poor youngling for whom we do sing By, by, lully, lullay.

Herod, the king, in his raging, Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight, All children young to slay.
Then, woe is me, poor Child for Thee!
And ever mourn and sigh For thy parting neither say nor sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

As with Good Friday – the awful price Christ paid, over and above the worst that humankind could assign, even the death of the cross – we can linger at the sad aspects of God’s mysteries. But, as with Easter, Jesus’s life and ministry should be our focus. His atoning gift of Salvation.

“The world received Him not…” Birth pangs indeed, but born not only into the world, but into our hearts. Every day, not just that holiday otherwise known for bells, presents, decorations, smiles, carols, and parties.

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Click: The Coventry Carol

12-10-18

Throughout my childhood, my maternal grandfather whom we called “Little Grandpa” called me to his side every Christmas. He was a man of rituals – stories and jokes at every turn (unfortunately only about six or eight of each, but I indulged the old-fashioned charm); tales of Old New York, which planted my own interest in such lore; playing sentimental ballads and show tunes on the piano from hundreds of old colorful songsheets he preserved.

The Christmas ritual occasioned my mother and grandmother to cry, “Oh, Daddy, not that again!” But I loved it, despite practically having memorized his lesson from annual rites, because I loved him, and I did love the message. Redolent of an earlier time, and rich in poetic truth, was what he read to me from a tattered old newspaper clipping, “Is There a Santa Claus?”

Known through the years by its line “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” it was first printed in the old New York Sun in 1897 as a response to a Letter to the Editor from an eight-year old girl, Virginia O’Hanlon.

As Little Grandpa would explain to me after reading the fragile clipping, children naturally wondered whether Santa Claus is real, the same way they sometimes wonder about sprites and goblins and angels and (when I was really young) the tooth fairy. But, he explained, everything that we think about Christmas and Santa is really supposed to remind us of Christmas and Jesus.

Today, more than ever, Christmas widely is under attack (including, this year, a school banning candy canes because, upside-down, they look like the letter J, which “obviously” stands for Jesus; and therefore must be forbidden). Many Christians find themselves in the position of fighting back, oddly defending the colors red and green, and pine trees, and cartoons of fat Santa as… symbols of Christianity.

They are not symbols of anything other than candy factories and Hallmark cards. But they can be reminders. Let us be open to reminding ourselves, and each other, to remember the Incarnation, God-with-us, the Messiah, and why Christ was sent to earth.

In that spirit, I will slightly edit and revise the warm and familiar words of that newspaper editorial written by Francis Pharcellus Church back in 1897, responding to the query from Virginia O’Hanlon of 115 W 95th Street in Manhattan, “I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Jesus…. Please tell me the truth, is there a Jesus?” (Remember, I am editing and revising in the spirit of the Story behind the story):

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be adults’ or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, we are as mere insects, ants, in our intellect as compared with the boundless world about us, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

No Jesus? Thank God, He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, He will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

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This familiar hymn’s tune reportedly was written by King Henry VIII, but to secular words, “Greensleeves.” Its Christmas message was appended in 1865 by the American William Chatterton Dix. Here it is performed by Rita Ora and the Kosovo Philharmonic Orchestra in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, Rome, Italy, where I often have visited, and wrote about recently here.

Click: What Child Is This?

12-3-18

The second group of thoughts – not “second thoughts” – about the Advent season. Many aspects of the Savior’s life were foretold in many Old Testament books. Some people call them Predictions (literally, “speaking things before they happen”) and some call them Prophesies. The origin of the word “Prophet” is “one who speaks with divine inspiration.”

The distinctions, oddly, seem to run slightly counter to Christian exceptionalism. Muslims and, say, devotees of Nostradamus claim that their heroes were prophets. Many prophets in the Bible, speaking as we believe with inspiration (literally, “breathed in”) of the Holy Spirit, predicted events, people, and places.

The validation of myriad Bible prophesies impress us as, literally, predictions that came true. It can be a futile game to persuade non-believers in the truth of the Gospel, or the whole Bible, on the sole basis of predictions that came true; the infinitesimal chance that they were all coincidences. Yet most of us have tried. Atheists and agnostics who want to reject the love and power of God are going to reject, period. Arguments or statistics will not change their minds; only supernatural intervention can – a better way to pray, anyway.

In the meantime, Christians are grateful for historical confirmations. Consider the many discoveries in recent years of Biblical sites, cities, and historical artifacts that “experts” used to laugh at. The “legends and fairy tales” of towns and temples, relics and records, kings and kingdoms, the skeptics told us to dismiss… are being affirmed by archaeologists and historians. Such discoveries warm our souls, but usually our faith did not hinge on such matters anyway.

But a chapter in the middle of an important Old Testament book, written by the prophet Isaiah, describes the life, ministry, passion, and death of Jesus Christ. Descriptions of His physical appearance are thrown in; elsewhere are also descriptions (not mere hints) of the complicated manner and dangerous circumstances surrounding the travails of Mary and Joseph, and the choice of Bethlehem in Judea. The Christmas story to the Easter story are prefigured through the Old Testament.

This can remind us – not convince us, unless we were in doubt – about the supernatural aspects of the Messiah, “God with us,” the Word made flesh Who dwelt amongst us.

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death. He was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Not written after Jesus’s time, this mini-bio… but 700 years before Jesus was born.

God’s Christmas present to the world, 700 years early.

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Click: Ave Maria

11-26-18

We enter the Advent season, the time preceding Christmas. It is not too early to think about some of the aspects surrounding the birth of the Savior… however, if we judge by shopping malls and newspaper ads, Christmas was upon us before Halloween.

It is never too early, or an inappropriate time, to contemplate the birth of Jesus, is it? But it is interesting to note that the ancient Church observed an aspect of Christmas more profoundly than it did Jesus’s birthday. Throughout most of Christendom for 2000 years, the Feast of the Visitation, or the Annunciation – when the Holy Ghost passed over Mary and the Savior was conceived – was regarded with more services, messages, and accompanying prayers and worship, than was Christmas. Oddly (it would seem to contemporary minds) Christ’s Mass was a minor observance.

Similarly, the Resurrection of Christ – named Easter after a pagan rite; and whose calendar date was fixed more by various secular customs than Biblical history – was a solemn observance, certainly. But Ascension Day, 40 days after the Resurrection, when Christ physically rose to the heavens, was an important day on the church calendar. Today it is barely noticed in many churches.

The Ascension, even more than the miracles of a Virgin Birth or rising from the dead, definitively affirmed the Divinity of Christ. He was sent by the Father; He fulfilled prophesies; yet in the Ascension He was again One with the Father.

Notice that we are talking about miracles in every case. Christians, I notice, can become jaded about such things. “Miracles? Of course!” but how many Christians actually believe that miracles of God still occur; and how many assume they are extinct? Some denominations teach that miracles were MEANT to expire in the “Apostolic Age” – to ignite the first generation of believers who could kick-start churches… but “no, not for today.”

If people don’t believe in miracles… they are not going to pray for them. If people think they are mere artifacts of millennia-old religious folks… they will start to believe that the Bible is not reliable, after all.

In a certain way, the Bible is a book of miracles – supernatural events, supernatural solutions, supernatural lessons.

I think of a list I read once: The Bible is a book about a man made of clay; a rib that turns into a human being; talking animals; a floating zoo; a talking bush; food falling from the sky; sticks that turn into snakes; 900-year-old lifespans; a woman made of salt; Samson’s magic hair; a man who lived in a fish; the Sun standing still for a day; blowing a horn and shouting at a wall, making it collapse; magically multiplying foods; healing mud made with spit and dirt; men walking on water…

Nonsense and legends… or true miracles? Shouldn’t we all have a more awesome regard of Scripture? Regarding the “dusty relic” or “naive legends” dismissals of Bible miracles, contemporary Christians who think they are too mature for such stories should think about this –

If you believe that Jesus was the Son of God, how do you square the fact that HE believed in Biblical Creation, and Adam and Eve, and Noah’s flood? Was He delusional? stupid? naive? … or was He God-made-Flesh, the Messiah?

We are talking about the Christmas season. The Visitation, the Annunciation – the Virgin Birth – is a fact not optional for believing Christians. It fulfilled uncountable prophesies, but, more, as is said about the Resurrection, if it is not true, our faith is in vain. Poof.

One of the most beautiful passages in Scripture is Mary’s prayer, when the Holy Ghost came upon her. I suppose many women would think they had a bad dream; or, alternatively, they might be boastful, unique among all women. But she was humbled to her core. She was not to be the Mother of God as she is sometimes called, but properly the mother of Jesus, blessed among all women. Mother of the Word made flesh who dwelt among us, destined to save His people.

Mary’s prayer is called “the Magnificat,” after a Latin phrase in the prayer (“My soul doth magnify the Lord”). Profoundly moving; with precise spiritual perspective in her heart… and, through the ages, in our hearts too. Her acceptance of a miracle speaks to us. Here is the prayer, found in Luke 1:46-55; and I offer perhaps the greatest of its musical presentations, by Johann Sebastian Bach.

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has looked on the humble estate of His servant. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed; for He who is mighty has done great things for me; and holy is His name. And His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; He has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of humble estate; He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty. He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

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Click: The Magnificat

11-12-18

The recent observation of Reformation Sunday – for those who did observe – sent me back to study some of Martin Luther’s works. I guess in the fashion that we review the stories of the Nativity and the Passion and Resurrection on their holy-days: not as often as I should.

My set of Luther’s works is eight volumes, mostly collected sermons, and his commentaries and fascinating “table talks” run to even more. They are fresh and constructive – instructive – today. I have also recently watched two German films on his life, Reformation and Luther and I. They can be seen on one of my addictions, the foreign-language cable channel MHz Choice, which offers hundreds of drams and comedies and mysteries and documentaries from European countries, all subtitled. (Not a commercial, but my recommendation!) The two new Luther films are separate – one is told through the life-story of his wife Katharina von Bora, and has a valuable feminist perspective – and clearly rank in excellence with two previous theatrical biopics.

Regular readers here will know that I was born Lutheran, graduated to Pentecostalism, but recently have experienced a tug back toward liturgy.

The liturgy – organized worship service, with regular modules including prayers and songs each representing a different aspect of Christ’s mission; and adaptations for different parts of the church calendar – grew cold to me as a child. Indeed much of the twentieth-century church peeled itself away from “old-fashioned” worship.

I noticed how people in my congregation memorized songs and prayers, almost by osmosis, and sleepily drifted through “worship.” In some other corners of the Protestant world, traditional music was abandoned. Folk music, southern gospel, Christian rock, Contemporary Christian Music, and pop filled the void. Many Catholic services sounded like coffee houses; and churches everywhere largely became come-as-you-are parties, even to pastors in Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts.

And so forth. These were all likely inevitable results of the American culture – increasingly secular as well as informal – and, frankly, the Reformation itself, five centuries ago. With people theoretically free to interpret Scripture for themselves, such things are to be expected, given human nature. In error? Not necessarily… if Christians adhere to Scripture as assiduously as did Martin Luther.

But Martin Luther was unique. A moody genius, hard on himself, a tireless scholar. He never meant to split from the Catholic Church, only to reform it… but it was not to be. He was excommunicated, fled for his life, translated the Bible from Latin (a heresy to the Pope), and his complaints, the 95 theses, and his sermons spread across Europe, attracting princes and peasants and all classes in between.

Eventually the Protest-ant movement fractured into theological divisions; some revolts took on social and political aspects. Luther had to step in against violence and desecration of icons. The side-effects of his reforms spurred literacy, publication of books and pamphlets, political liberty, and the Enlightenment.

But. We have to remember that Martin Luther called Reason the enemy of Faith.

In many senses he was the last of the Western World’s pre-Moderns. He must be seen, despite the intellectual fires he ignited, to have been of the Gothic world, not the Renaissance. To understand this, we must remember that his motto was “By Scripture Alone.” Therefore he directly runs afoul of the contemporary world.

As a dedicated Protestant, of whatever stripe, I cannot myself be comfortable with Mariology, veneration of saints, and other aspects that Luther beheld as extra-Biblical or anti-Biblical. However… what would he say about the Protestant church of the Western world today?

The religious straws that broke the back of the Augustinian monk Luther were selling indulgences to “purchase” the souls of dead relatives from Purgatory. There was no Purgatory; the coins of peasants were kept by corrupt priests, or expressly funneled to the St Peters Building Fund in Rome. Similar “works” were imposed upon the illiterate masses – penance, reciting words, good deeds, all ways to bribe God.

Luther had discovered the verse, “It is by faith, not works,” and it revolutionized his life. It became the ammunition to defy Rome’s corruption,

But 500 years later – widely, but not everywhere; I know – Christ’s church holds up works and deeds and programs as means to Salvation. “Seed faith” offerings… “Prayer hankies”… obligatory service… attendance, participation even in well-meaning charity causes… political correctness substituting for the Gospel… mandatory participation in social causes… pledge drives and vision statements… Relativism replacing relationships with Jesus…

How different are these things than the indulgences and man-made rules of the corrupt Roman church of the 1500s? Not much.

I am certain that Luther would be revolted by much of the church today, even among his own followers; but also, still, by the Catholics. When he argued for the “priesthood of all believers,” it was not for people to lord over each other, but to serve one another.

The Christian church today – at least north of the Equator, generally, and in “free” countries – is too often a collection of clubs or virtual museums or social circles, where the Gospel is obscured by materialism. If Christ Himself returned today, I suspect we often would find Him in bars, slums, and dirty malls, not Crystal Cathedrals and opulent mega-churches. He would not likely be joining in “Dirt Bike for Jesus” races or fried-chicken socials.

The point is – Luther’s point, just like Augustine and St Paul and other fervent exegetes – was that God created us; but we always try to create God, and His Son Jesus, in our image. That’s not how it works.

Ecclesia reformata semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei — “The reformed church, always being reformed according to the Word of God.”
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Click: Trust and Obey

11-5-18

It is axiomatic that the United States of America is not a democracy. At least it was not intended to be an open democracy by the Founders and Framers. In fact those gifted and wise people abhorred and distrusted straight democracy. But this axiom is not accepted by those who willfully dissent, or choose not to understand the distinctions and consider their implications.

Those who claim that the US is a democracy, or should be more so than it is, should realize that the government was established to be (at best, in their eyes) a representative democracy; but otherwise, and by direction, a democratic republic.

What both those terms mean is that our system was appropriate when established – a new people on a new continent established nevertheless along traditional bases of religion, morality, ethical behavior, justice, and good will – and appropriate now. With the exceptional foresight granted to them, they assessed the future. The Framers of our fundamental documents were not political theorists but sagacious architects.

In that view, there have been necessary additions and occasional repairs made to our American Home, but the structure has stood the test of time, at least until now when its stresses and fractures are most evident.

I recently bought a two-volume set of Alexis deToqueville’s Democracy in America, ancient books they are as I hold them, seemingly never read in more than a century since this edition’s publication. I was struck by two things as I read this iconic work: how brilliant this visiting Frenchman, in the 1840s, assessed the American spirit and ethos. He marveled at the bounteous natural resources, and the common virtues of the uncommon and diverse population.

DeToqueville dwelt on religion and its effect on the American people – specifically, the value of Christianity to the American “system” as Henry Clay meant it: the government and its laws. Earlier, Framers like Franklin and Jefferson, supposed “Deists,” revered the Bible and sought to employ its prescriptions for social comity and justice. John Adams predicted that an America without fidelity to Biblical principles would not – could not – long succeed.

The other factor that struck me about the book Democracy in America is that it is frequently cited and often quoted (or mis-quoted: deToqueville never wrote the aphorism “America is great because America is good”) – but is seldom read. When I determined to own a copy, it was difficult, even on used-book sites. The book is seldom assigned, scarcely read, and imperfectly understood.

Which describes, also, how our Constitution is regarded. Many people who yammer for the overturning of the Electoral College cannot discuss the valuable reasons for its establishment. The Framers thought people with a stake in the government ought be the ones who vote, and dissenters have a point of view. But that point of view approaches the irresponsible (in the view of the Framers, as well as me) when its alteration extended past women and former slaves to anybody with a pulse, including those, as advocated in some parts, who are not even citizens.

I think it should be more difficult, not always easier, to voter. I think the type of questions on citizenship tests should be administered every 10 years or so – not to new arrivals but to every voter. (And I believe many congressmen and senators would flunk a lot of those tests.) When voting costs nothing, not monetarily of course, it is worth nothing.

So for years I did not vote. I followed, and addressed, public issues, but generally I took the view that voting only encouraged the scoundrels. When I repeatedly heard my parents’ generation talk about “the lesser of two evils” every November – and then felt that way myself in the voting booth – I realized I was voting for evil, after all. When I thought that illiterates, felons, welfare cheats, and the uninformed had the same bit of influence I did (and more, counting those who are herded and directed to vote multiple time), I despaired at the futility of it all.

The United States has slid toward a new brand of despotism, perhaps difficult to discern, being in its very throes; a bizarre mixture of corporate syndicalism, finance capitalism, supported by a cabal of media elite and a quiet, sometimes informal, conspiracy of like-minded thought police in the government, bureaucracy, media, educational establishment, and even the church. Mind-control, intimidation, the “compassion” metrics, and the “hate speech” game comprise the New Orthodoxy. Shadowy, in some cases, but dangerous. It engages in a politically correct jihad that permeates every part of our culture, operating the greatest propaganda machine in human history.

So. Now I vote. I am no longer cynical, but a warrior. Do I remain pessimistic? … about our nation, our political system, out beloved Constitution?

Yes, I am pessimistic about their survival.

But that is not our primary concern. For those who call themselves Christian, our first loyalty is to Christ and Him crucified and Him risen. We must be concerned with our souls and those of our families, friends, communities, then our nation and the world. Our opponents with increasing ferocity would deny Christians their rights in the public square, in classrooms, in our very homes. If they succeed… we will still worship and fight, as uncountable martyrs have done for millennia; as uncountable persecuted Christians around the world do every day.

In so doing, we must “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” I believe Jesus did not restrict His words to coins. That is, if elections mean that we engage in politics… we must engage in politics. If we think abortion is the murder of babies… we oppose it as we would despise any murder. We must stop the acquiescence in secularists’ view that there is no God, and our traditions, or beliefs, should be merely tolerated (or, eventually, not)… and fight back: there IS a God; this is His world; He established the means not only for our salvation but our happiness on this earth. In the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.

I believe we can and should make alliances. We can debate tactics, but there is a man who is very flawed (can we qualify that word?) but who willingly aligns himself with the Christian community on an astonishing number of issues; who has delivered on many promises to Christians and Jews (and many ethnic groups previously taken for granted by politicians). I am not sure, frankly, that I would like Donald Trump as a next-door neighbor, but I daily pray thanks for what he is doing.

The imminent elections can confirm the rebirth of Christian commitment in the United States… or illustrate that the reclamation of “democracy in America” in the way deToqueville assessed and celebrated it, was a passing illusion. Polls do not lie, but polltakers, and those who fashion them, do.

The saving grace of democracy is that the masses can be manipulated, but when they assert themselves, defying their would-be masters… they must be listened to. We are beginning to see: we must be listened to.

That is why to vote.

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Click: Looking for a City

10-22-18

This weekend just passed covered the day we celebrate — or should celebrate and commemorate; a good time to re-dedicate — Reformation Day. October 31, anniversary of the day Dr Martin Luther nailed his 95 These to the church door at Wittenberg, Germany.

These 95 points of “Contention” with policies of the Pope and the establishment Roman Church are regarded as the sparks that ignited the Reformation, and the Protestant movement. There were reformers before Luther – preachers, theologians and Bible translators who were persecuted, tortured, and killed. The English John Wycliffe died a century before Luther was active. Hatred against him, for daring to adapt the Bible to the language of the people, was that his bones were disinterred and burned after his death. The Bohemian reformer Jan Hus was burned at the stake for his reformist beliefs. His last words, tied to the stake, before the flames consumed him, were “in a hundred years, God will raise up a man whose calls for reform can not be suppressed.“

It was 102 year later that Luther nailed his challenges to that church door.
Luther was persecuted, chased, went into hiding, and translated the Bible into the language of his people, the Germans. He sought reform, not revolution, yet revolution occurred: half of Europe caught fire with the belief that faith alone, by God’s grace, actuated salvation; and that people needed no intercessor with God except Christ. He was excommunicated. He married. He preached and wrote lessons… and wrote hymns.

It is my belief that, as last year we observed the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the church — at least the Western Church, certainly the American church in virtually all its corners — is in dire need of reformation again.

More than that, we need to look to Martin Luther as a Hero of Conscience. He said when he was called on trial to recant his beliefs and writings,
“Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can not and will not retract.
“For it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience.
“Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.“

The time is coming in this contemporary world when Christians have it demanded of them to renounce their faith. That this is already a time of anti-Christian persecution, is abundantly clear. That, daily, believers suffer indignities and are asked to compromise their principles and forced to sublimate their voices, is a reality to committed Christians.

Some days soon Christians will have to suffer no longer in silence, or have the luxury of withdrawing into small groups and communities of believers. The Bible does not merely warn… prophets did not just threaten… but God promised this holy challenge to the saints of God in the End Times.

Can we, like Luther, have the spiritual strength to say: “For it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. “Here I stand. I can do no other” ?

I have two brief clips for Reformation Day: the first is the powerful “conscience” scene from the 1953 “Luther” movie starring Niall MacGinnis (nominated for an Academy Award).

Here I stand

The second is the “battle hymn of the Reformation” sung a capella by Steve Green. Myself, I can never sing this mighty hymn without choking up. Its final lines describe Luther’s trial… and foreshadow our own:
“Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever!”

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Click: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

10-22-18

This admonition, “Share the Gospel. If necessary, use words,” has been attributed to Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, and many others. Its meaning is clear and profound.

Its message is so fundamental to life and relationships that its application spreads to less – and to more – than evangelizing Christianity.

But it seems scarcely less significant, and somehow easy to forget, that in all matters we are being seen by our fellow human beings. Family, friends, strangers. When we do not realize it. Even when others do not intend to study our actions. But we are seen; we are judged; we are, often remembered.

The Bible tells us, in Hebrews Chapter 11, that we are always surrounded by a “great cloud” of heavenly witnesses, cheering us on in our faith walk, and runs, and life-challenges. However and moreover, our families, children, neighbors, and unknown eyes see us too. Watch us. And sometimes subliminally, sometimes directly, they learn from us.

This situation might be more vital than in any time of the history that we know. The faithful and secular alike realize that we live in a time when organized religion, the institutional church, and traditional spirituality in general are of diminished importance, at least in our Western culture. The reasons are many, and of disputed origin, but my purpose here is not to debate the Why. Let us deal with the Fact. And the Effect.

Character has been defined as what you do when nobody is watching. That is a useful aphorism too. But there are some people who do not care how they score on “character quizzes.” The point is that we influence others – beyond revealing our standards – whether we realize it or not. And that is something we should care about at all times and in all places.

We are all a part of society, and should be conscious that our roles extend beyond our selves. Our children surely learn more from noticing our actions than listening to our lectures. No different with spouses, neighbors, co-workers… up life’s ladder to God Himself.

A Biblical summary of these principles is found in James (1:22) – “Be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only.”

Sharing the Gospel is not a memory quiz. It should be seen as Performance Art.

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Click: Take My Life and Let It Be Consecrated, Lord, To Thee

10-15-18

A robust element of many stories in the news these days, and a subtext of many articles, particularly political stories, is the resurgence of socialism. Significantly, the church is at the center of matters.

Socialism has experienced an awakening, at least in debates as its governmental structure is being somewhat dismantled. Wasn’t it dead and buried after the Reagan years? Didn’t the failure and overthrow of Communist regimes around the world teach people that socialism was a miserable failure? Weren’t the statistics of misery, poverty, and oppression in socialist paradises enough to inform people of its toxicity?

Quite the opposite. In America, anyway, it has been more than resuscitated. More than acceptable again, it is fashionable and urgently desired by broad swaths of the public and media. The Fourth Estate has become the Fifth Column, and Americans are, among other means of propaganda, “guilted” welcoming the socialist agenda.

No less than politicians and media and wealthy foreigners and the academic-industrial complex, many contemporary church leaders – Catholic, Protestant, Jewish – are fervent cheerleaders. For neo-Marxism.

My problem with Marx, Engels, and Lenin, and Left-wing Socialism is that, at essence, it is anti-Biblical. Church Marxists will argue that Jesus was the first socialist because of His dedication to equality and peace and his rebuke of the wealthy and concern for the poor. They say that His Disciples and the early Church were examples of communistic communities.

Why are these viewpoints anti-Biblical?

Jesus was devoted to equality… but never did He pull people down. He always lifted people up. Equality was a thing to be desired, and all are born with equal opportunities (never in history more than in non-socialist states), but Jesus made references to the real world’s ambitions on one hand and charity on the other.

Peace? We all know that Jesus had a temper, yes, and let His righteousness take precedence over peace as the world might define it yesterday or tomorrow. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

Jesus’s attitude toward wealth? We know that He commanded to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s; and to “forsake all” and spoke of the rich entering Heaven as easily as camels passing through needles’ eyes. His distinction was not that “money is the root of all evil” but that “the love of money is the root of all evil.”

Were the early Christians prefiguring socialism in their communities of sharing? The answer is found in later, more organized Socialist states that have imploded thanks to inequality, wars and counter-revolutions, inflation, corruption, and – have you noticed? – suppression of religion.

In virtually every Socialist state, religion is oppressed; believers persecuted. In mild “mixed” socialist countries, church attendance and fealty to Scripture drastically has been diminished.

I think Christians should be opposed to socialism, moreover, because it is based on the state planning, state supremacy, or state control. Goods and services… economic choices… private enterprise… educational standards… prerogatives of daily life. When the population is reared on a socialist worldview, the government is assumed to be the ultimate answer to every problem, the ultimate source of every blessing, the ultimate judge of every challenge.

The government, not God, becomes people’s go-to resource. Google the proper agency instead of praying to the Lord.

Major culprits – wolves in sheep’s clothing – are “Democratic Socialist” or “Christian Democrat” or Democrat parties that substitute themselves for the church. How do they attempt to supplant the church? It is not always as blatant as pre-censorship of sermon notes, as the mayor of Houston attempted a few years ago; nor the many attempts to proscribe the Bible, and public monuments and celebrations, as “hate speech.”

It is more in the poisonous worldview of modern socialism: textbooks written by unelected secularists; the aspects of national health insurance that would discourage private and personal care, and force caregivers to sometimes act against their consciences.

The foundational aspects of the welfare state discourage (or attack) the concept so strongly commanded by Jesus that we care for one another as individuals. Massive taxes for a welfare bureaucracy allows people, or obliges them, to transfer their giving to the State – and in so doing, “free” them of the Biblical necessity to care for the poor and sick. Ultimately, allowing people to stop caring about the poor and sick.

I believe, as St Augustine believed and wrote, the real meaning behind “the poor you shall always have with you” is not that poverty is a futilely resisted pestilence, but that we need to be aware at all times of those who hurt. For their sake, and our souls’, not to check boxes on tax forms to fund some program somewhere.

Finally, consider: Marx spoke (supposedly) to the working class. Good at first glance?

But Jesus spoke to ALL.

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Click: Just a Closer Walk With Thee

9-17-18

“Don’t you know that Jesus Himself never claimed to be God?” Many atheists, or agnostics, or armchair theologians have challenged me through the years. In fact: Yes, He did. Often. In many ways. Plus, He proved it by fulfilling prophecy and doing mighty works. Hey, if you cite the Bible, try reading it first. To quote the Good Book (somewhere) (I think) shutteth thy mouth.

Jesus was “only a teacher”? Read His words… see His effects on uncountable multitudes through the ages.

A few decades ago there was a book that flashed in the pan, but persuaded some people whose itching ears were waiting for persuasion, titled The Passover Plot. It represented heresies that have popped up for a couple millennia arguing that Jesus was a fraud; that His miracles were staged; that He was either a charlatan or simply delusional. His disciples, too, were either political manipulators or likewise crazy.

Absurd on its face, even if only for the fact that very few people – certainly not all the Disciples; all the early Church’s martyrs; the persecuted who endured torture and death as Christianity spread; and millions today who die rather than renounce Jesus — would “die for a lie,” follow a lunatic.

The great Christian apologist C S Lewis posed the most profound of challenges to skeptics. To those who are familiar, you can hear it shared one more time.

For those of you who have not heard it, read carefully.

Jesus lived. He lives in the accounts of Roman governments; and of contemporary historians like Josephus, the great Jewish historian. Was He divine? Was He the Son of God… God incarnate? If you are mathematically inclined, you can figure the odds of hundreds of prophesies, written by dozens of writers, over many centuries, in different locations… all fulfilled in the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

OK. Perhaps that does not persuade you. Here is what C S Lewis proposed:

The historical figure of Jesus, heir to spiritual inheritance and a recorded lineage, was known to have taught and preached and healed. No one claims He was like a Greek god or mythological figure: He lived. So now we confront this Jesus. “Who do you say I am?” Before the rhetorical answer, Lewis confronts us with the logical choice… the only possible answers to Jesus’s claims about Himself.

One: He was a liar. And ringmaster of an elaborate conspiracy.

Two: He was a madman, claiming to be God, but able to convince multitudes.

Three: He was – is – who He says He is.

There is no other logical choice. Much of the world thinks about it – frankly, hardly at all – and bets on the Teacher thing; or the craziness of ancient shepherds; or maybe they bet on the kindness of a god, if there is one, who will tally their good deeds, or make allowances for “good hearts” and charity deductions on their tax forms…

But there is that nagging question: What if Jesus IS who He says He is?

Are you willing to bet? Do you like the odds? Would you bet your life?

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Click: What a Friend

9-10-18

She was sitting on the curb outside her apartment, the little apartment in the row of several small units on one of the rivers that feed into the Atlantic Ocean in central New Jersey. A hot summer afternoon, yes, and the little apartment has no air conditioning.

But mainly she was out there, alone – alone with her thoughts. It was the end of the month; benefits had run out, as had most of the food.

Actually, as I learned of this story afterward, it was not an unfrequent circumstance. But lately, in scenes like this, Barbara was not really alone; not only with her thoughts. She was praying. And her relatively recent and closer relationship with Jesus led her to pray. Jesus, her new best friend. When the New Life happens, you don’t only pray to God. The Holy Spirit inhabits and inspires your prayers. You pray with Jesus, not only to or through Him.

The Lord wants to know the burdens of our hearts, so we no longer feel selfish in asking for basics, big or small. The Word has promised – the Peace That Passes All Understanding bathes our troubled souls.

As she sat there lifting up those burdens, a neighbor from five doors down walked up. An old Black man named Victor, with a very young son or grandson whose puppy was on a leash, greeted her and said he thought she might like some crabs. Now, Victor lays crab traps outside his place on the river, and all along the coastline, selling Blueclaws to shops and restaurants. Blue crabs, common up and down the Atlantic coast and mostly identified with Chesapeake Bay, are interesting creatures with bright azure claws, back fins that act as paddles – they actually swim – and the sweetest, most tender meat you can imagine.

Many of my summer afternoons, on Jersey Shore childhood vacations, were spent in rowboats with my dad, my uncle Gus, and cousin Tommy, in Barnegat Bay. Fastening clunky wire traps with bait, usually mossbunker heads, we would lower the traps and pull them up almost immediately, with one or two crabs in each, all afternoon. On good days we would have several bushel baskets of those clacking crabs. In the evening our grandmothers, moms, and sisters would boil up innumerable crabs – no longer blue but scarlet red – to be turned out onto “tablecloths” of cut brown paper bags; cracking, poking, picking that sweet meat from every small corner and tip.

This history would explain why Barbara responded to Victor’s offer with a shout that could be heard across the Atlantic, maybe as far as to Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn: “CRABS??? Wow! Yes! THANK YOU!!!”

At that moment, the offer of a pack of saltines would have been gratefully met. But an abundance of fresh crabs – especially in these latter days when they are more delicacies in seafood markets and menus than results of lazy, sunburned afternoons in rowboats – seemed like a miracle.

When I heard the story, I knew it was a miracle on several levels. For Barbara – for anyone – to immediately thank God and give Him the glory, is often a miracle in itself, particularly when that spiritual attitude had not been traditional. But, more, she felt that prayer was answered. She acknowledged that God’s blessings often reflect his holy timing; being still and waiting, as the Bible says.

Further, the attitude of thanksgiving is essential. Was Victor an angel, sent with his kid and basket of crabs? Maybe, but she did know him from the neighborhood. The important thing is, as Christians, that when Christ visits His brothers and sisters, it is as He lives in the hearts of the mercy-givers.

Satan knows this. He hates us according to the amount of Jesus we open to Him in our hearts.

So when someone says, “that wasn’t Jesus – that was only a neighbor being nice,” the truth is, for instance in this story, that’s Jesus acting through our neighbors and us, to each other.

It’s what Christians do.

Questions about timing… about further prayers’ further effects… about the temptation to see prayers as magic wands… to wonder why God sometimes seems to say No…

These are still… questions. God did not promise that we would avoid the Valley of the Shadow; only that He would be with us. So there are, and continue to be, questions, challenges, and problems in life. But God answers prayer in His time and in His way. And He honors faith, and faithfulness (two different things) – and He will bless the grateful heart.

How many people, sitting on the curb like Barbara was that afternoon, would have “thanked her lucky stars,” shaken Victor’s hand, and told her friends about an amazing “coincidence” that just happened? I can tell you: a lot of people.

But the New Life brings something sweeter – well, let me say, some great complements and spiritual condiments – to steamed crabs, drawn butter, and Jesus at your table.

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Click: Lead Me To the Rock

8-20-18

NEWS ITEM: June 22, 2018 –
UN Chief ‘Personally Concerned’ about Return of Christians to Iraq and Syria
“I am fully convinced that after the stability of the situation in Iraq and Syria and the adoption of a certain political decision, it is very important to ensure the return of the Christians, in general, to the religious minorities, and the Yazidis themselves, to their homeland,” António Guterres told Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill yesterday.

NEWS ITEM: June 27, 2018 –
Slaughter of More than 200 People in Plateau State, Nigeria, Shocks Christians
Weekend attacks took place in the predominantly Christian villages of Xland, Gindin Akwati, Ruku, Nghar, Kura Falls, Kakuruk, Rakok, Kok, and Razat, sources said. The villages are in the two districts of Gashish and Ropp in the Barkin Ladi Local Government Area (LGA).

“In Nghar village alone, about 70 corpses of Christians were recovered and the entire village has been burnt down by the Fulani herdsmen,” area resident Thomas Chuwang, 45, told Morning Star News… adding that the victims there were members of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN).

NEWS ITEM: June 27, 2018 –
China’s “Underground” Churches Told to “Seek Guidance” from State-Approved Bodies
A newly implemented directive from the Chinese government forces Protestant “house churches” and Catholic “underground” communities to seek “guidance” from recognised religious organisations….

One hundred churches were closed in Nanyang, in central Henan province… “Christians who used their own church building for meetings were targeted, and their buildings closed.” Consequently… Christians had gone back to meeting in homes.

NEWS ITEM: July 10, 2018 –
Twenty Christians Severely Injured in Assault on Prayer Gathering in Northern India
International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that last Monday, July 2, 20 Christians were seriously injured in an assault on a prayer meeting in Raikashipur village, located in the Pratapgarh District of India’s Uttar Pradesh State. According to local reports, a mob of 35 Hindu radicals stormed the meeting and beat the group of over 150 Christians gathered for prayer. Following the assault, the Pradhan (village president) filed multiple false criminal charges against six of the Christian victims.

NEWS ITEM: July 27, 2018 –
Christian North Korean Defector Speaks Out against Persecution and Indifference
A Christian woman who defected from North Korea said the world cannot “just sit and keep watching” as North Korea persecutes Christians and others.

Ji Hyeona spoke at the US State Department’s Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom event at the Harry S Truman Building this week. She told her story of abuse and torture while trying to escape North Korea.

“Since I first escaped from North Korea in 1998, I have since escaped from the North a total of four times and got repatriated to the North three times until I finally came to South Korea in 2007,” Ji said. “In between, I fell victim to human trafficking and I was also subjected to abortion violently forced on me even with no anesthesia because the North Korean regime couldn’t accept what they call “mixed love”….

“We can not just sit and keep watching what they are doing because indifference is the most tragic tool that puts people to death and kills them,” she said, “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said: ‘The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.’”

NEWS ITEM: July 31, 2018 –
Assault on Christian Leader in Nepal Reflects Growing Threat
Pastor Sagar Baizu, 46, had finished one meeting and had an hour before the next one, so he decided to stop at a café on a major thoroughfare in Kathmandu, capital of Nepal, on July 19.

As he was about to sip a coffee in the crowded café at 2 p.m., six to eight men suddenly attacked the spokesperson and co-general secretary of the Federation of National Christians in Nepal (FNCN) from behind.

“They beat me for a minute and a half and suddenly fled the site,” Pastor Baizu told Morning Star News. “They said, ‘We will blast your church and all the churches with bombs and shoot you and all your leaders.’”

NEWS ITEM: Aug 1, 2018 –
Rwanda Closes More Than 8,000 Churches In Major Crackdown
More than 8,000 churches throughout Rwanda have been closed by the government as part of an alleged crackdown on unsafe structures, although religious liberty advocates say the government is closing congregations that should be considered acceptable.

Christians in the country fear the movement is a cover for the government’s drive toward secularism…. One church was closed during a wedding, with the guests “told to leave the church during the service,” World Watch Monitor reported.

Churches have only 15 days to make the required changes upon being reported by the government. The Rwandan source said in some instances, even house meetings are banned.

Pastors are now required by the government to have degrees from accredited institutions. Bible schools are mandated to teach science and technology in order to teach theology. Among the other rules, access roads to churches must be paved and inside walls and ceilings must be plastered and painted, according to World Watch Monitor.

NEWS ITEM: Aug 16, 2018 –
Atheist Military Group Files Complaint Against Decorated USAF General
CBN reports that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has filed a complaint against Brigadier Gen. E. John Teichert this week. The MRFF filed this complaint to Defense Secretary James Mattis requesting an investigation into Teichert, the newly installed commander of the 412 Test Wing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

The MRFF is claiming that Teichert’s website is violating rule against religious proselytizing that the Air Force and Defense Department have in place. On his website Teichert describes himself in the following way:

“John is an active duty Brigadier General who has served in the United States Air Force since 1994, and who was saved by grace through faith in Christ in 2004. He has commanded at the wing, group and squadron levels, and is currently serving as Air Force commander. The Lord has blessed his career while burdening his heart with the need for our nation to return to its Christian foundation. He serves alongside his amazing wife of 20 years and their three incredible children. It is their desire to fully invest their lives to maximize their impact on people and on our nation for the Lord.”

CBN reports that … the MRFF said Teichert “should be doing time behind prison bars, not commanding a wing wearing general’s stars.” The MRFF continued, saying Teichert was “a fundamentalist Christian tyrant and religious extremist predator.”

NEWS ITEM: Magic Show at Saddleback Church, Lake Forest CA –
Join us at Camp Hope and witness some incredible illusions performed by Scott Tokar. Scott will be performing for about 25 minutes directly following the 4 pm and 6 pm services. This will be a night you and your family won’t want to miss!

NEWS ITEM: “All Is Well” Yoga at Mars Hill Church, Grand Rapids MI –
These classes can assist you on your health, healing, and wholeness path by creating a space where you can encounter God while caring for your physical well-being.

NEWS ITEM: Authentic Manhood Class, Lakewood Church, Houston TX –
Authentic Manhood is a discipleship journey for men. This 24 session curriculum helps men understand their identity and shows them how to pursue authentic manhood. It offers a clear definition of what a man is and challenges each man to develop his own manhood plan. All men are welcome to attend this life changing class.

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Click: The Storm is Passing Over

Also in memory of Detroit’s Aretha Franklin

7-30-18

A birthday card for Leonard Bernstein.

Recently I compiled notes and gathered thoughts for a memorial service I was asked to conduct for a dear friend, Stephane Irwin, who recently died of cancer. I do almost all my writing, drawing, and sleeping to background music, and on this evening I punched up YouTube on my big screen; found performances of the great funeral masses of Mozart and Fauré to help set the mood … and noticed a clip I had never seen – Leonard Bernstein conducting Mozart’s Requiem.

The Requiem was the last thing Mozart ever wrote (and in fact never was completed); which makes the Funeral Mass a little spooky, at least intriguing. This performance is astonishing. It was recorded in 1988, and by happy coincidence I commend and share it on the centenary of Bernstein’s birth.

“Lenny the Lion” was a kaleidoscopic character in American music. Composer and conductor, he was also a “popularizer” of serious music. When I was a child, I watched his series on CBS-TV, Young Peoples’ Concerts, in which he explained the history and musical essentials of pieces performed on the broadcasts (imagine that on network – or cable – TV today!). He composed operas (Candide), Broadway musicals (West Side Story) and symphonies. He conducted an array of music, and was largely responsible for the rediscovery of Vivaldi and Baroque music. He was a public figure, frequently recalled in a Tom Wolfe essay pandering, in plaid bell-bottoms at his posh New York apartment, to Black Panthers – “I dig. I totally dig.”

He was “out there,” outrageously talented and irrepressible. Many of his musical contemporaries, fellow Jews, were conflicted about performing in Germany after the war. Isaac Stern made a show of boycotting concerts there. Yehudi Menuhin (family name Mnuchin, by the way) and Daniel Barenboim were among those who were comfortable performing in that land of the great composers, to discerning and welcoming audiences.

Bernstein was in the latter group. He chose a relatively minor church in a small Bavarian town – short drives from Munich, Dachau, and Berchtesgaden – to perform Mozart’s sacred works. The church’s design is of the off-putting late-Baroque and Rococo styles of fluff, ornaments, and countless filigrees; but of Mozart’s own time. Other conductors, like Karl Bohm, recorded in the same church.

But my little guided tour here is about more than music’s universality, or Bernstein’s open mind, or Germany’s musical soil.

Note well Bernstein’s conduct as a conductor in this video. He always revered Christian sacred music so much that – when conducting in churches or cathedrals – he carefully explained to his musicians and his audiences that church music, not mere concert music, was the fare. He would broach no applause, before, during, or after the work.

More than that, you will see, he begins with head bowed and a long silence. Praying? Maybe so; his own wife died shortly before this Requiem mass was performed. He ends the performance again with head bowed and almost uncomfortable silence throughout the church. And between several movements, Bernstein paused for seeming prayer or meditation, at one point dabbing his eyes with his handkerchief.

This is sacred music, he said… and says the same to us through the years. Too much Christian music today is performed as, well, performances – with applause, curtsies and bowing, encores and whistling. In or out of church. Worshiping God? That priority largely has become obsolete.

So: in the presentation of 200-year-old Requiem masses, or cantatas, oratorios, or Te Deums – where is the reverence; the original, spiritual intentions? For that matter, in our contemporary churches and their worship services themselves, where is the reverence today?

How many of us attend churches where Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts are encouraged? Where people shuffle in and out, casually chugging from ever-present water bottles? Where – turning Bernstein’s ethos on its head – music is a literal concert performance, no opportunities for the congregation to sing lyrics or do anything other than clap and jump? Where services have the form of spontaneity but deny the power thereof; tightly managed? Where creeds and the Lord’s Prayer are never spoken?

Am I being legalistic? No; I don’t think there have to be neckties and below-the-knee dresses and strict reliance on old hymnals to get to heaven, or present meaningful worship. Or to commune with God among fellow believers.

But neither should 21st-century Christians feel like they are weird strangers to miss… reverence in church. What a concept.

How many of you feel this way; have been smothered by these things; miss the things that I miss? Many of you – I get mail. My messages on “When Worship Music Is Neither” elicit more mail than any other topics here. These are not matters of mere nostalgia. We miss – and, complicitly, make other people miss – the respect, the opportunities for contemplation, the privacy of prayer and meditation, the… reverence of worship services.

Not those of our childhoods, not of Bernstein’s time, nor of Mozart or Bach’s days, but of 2000 years of corporate worship. We can be exuberant, but the core of “reverence” is to revere God. Just because there are no prohibitions of dirty shirts and sandals… should not require us to make uniforms of such things.

Clear an hour, try to ignore the stupid YouTube commercials, and commune with the music linked here. And the liturgical settings. See if you agree how profound it is, and how the period-performance and setting the American Jewish conductor respecting a Christian mass in Mozart’s heimat, can teach us about reverence.

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Click: Mozart: Requiem
(click icon in lower right for full-screen)

7-23-18

At one time during humanity’s long march, whose trudging we cannot escape, death was almost too horrible to face for most people.

And Heaven was almost too wonderful to imagine.

The proper view (inescapable after all) is that life and death are part of the same Great Adventure… and this has led the devil to make this life seem like the end of everything. Evil forces try to persuade us that there IS no tomorrow – and therefore no consequences of this life’s choices; no eternal perspective; no judgment. No Heaven, no hell.

And when Heaven was marketed – yes, sometime by churches themselves – as too wonderful to be reached without those churches and their rules and additions and conditions and games and systems of bribing God – uncountable substitutes were invented.

Substitutes not only for Heaven, but for ways to become a citizen there, with God, for eternity.

Therefore, ironically, the devil and the church-system both have often lied to us. And the contemporary world, too, lies even more. The secular realms, all around us, have piled on. Everyone wants a piece; the contemporary world needs to reinforce the lie that contemporary life contains and offers all we need for happiness.

When humankind rushes to that message, it runs away from the Cross.

Peace? Healing? Reconciliation? Love? Forgiveness? Broken homes? Heartache? Disappointment? Addictions? Betrayal? Insecurity? Rebellion? Lack of respect? Loss of self-esteem? Pride? Failure, fear of failure? Loneliness? Rejection? Abuse? Discrimination? Grief?

Negative and positive; real or threatened; momentary or long-lasting… The secular, contemporary world tells us that these things, and more, and anything and everything, can be solved by dental work and face lifts; tummy tucks and yoga classes; diets and exercise; different clothes and newer cars; the right friends from malls and concerts; hotter obsessions in sports; cooler mastery of games; music, movies, TV series; political correctness; and, of course, drinks and drugs in general.

The bitter, bitter truth is this: the world jumps like a trained dog, believing that these lies from the devil are true about the afterlife – but they obviously, clearly, self-evidently are lies about contemporary life too. Today. Now. Music of this dance of death that people choose.

Who cares…

Who cares when your children split away from you? The music producers? Who cares when your marriage is on the rocks? Hollywood? Who cares when you feel horribly alone, maybe betrayed? Game designers? Who cares when you lose a job, suffer insecurity, are hit with loss of self-esteem? Brewers and distillers? Who cares when you need forgiveness? Celebrities and star athletes? Who cares when you endure abuse or discrimination? Superheroes?

Ah. The pharmaceutical industry. How could we forget them? Oh, and the politicians. Plus all those government bureaucrats, of course… they care. They all care, right?

That’s called a rhetorical question. The devil does not care, except to hate your soul. The glitterati do not care, except to exploit you and your misery. Even – as hard as it is to state the truth – in many cases we cannot even trust friends and family to care, when all is said and done.

But…

Jesus cares. We know He cares. When the days are weary, the long nights are dreary, our Savior cares.

Put aside your “theological” arguments, if you have any, resisting this love of the Savior. Evil hates us. Friends, even family, can be unreliable. The “world” cannot care because its motives are rotten. What’s left? Who cares? Jesus, lover of our souls.

But… don’t really put aside theological arguments! Think on these things. The very foundation of life, and the irreducible fact of our existence, is God’s love. Brought to us by Jesus’ care.

Someone is reading this – or might read it in the future, thanks to the permanent presence of the internet! – who needs to know it, not only for a minor challenge along the road. Or a major crisis that looms. But to confront life, see life, and live life in a new way.

To know, really know, that the Creator of the Universe cares. He cares. Who cares? No one, hardly, on earth… and surely no one in hell; nobody in hell cares about you like Jesus.

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of hell, a hell of Heaven. – Paradise Lost, I: 254-255

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Click: Does Jesus Care

7-9-18

I recently delivered the message at a friend’s memorial service. I was asked by her mother, who had only three months ago lost her husband too. Life and death are not supposed to run that way, mothers burying daughters. But I have learned of other sicknesses and deaths in my circle. And people who came to me after the service also shared many stories of recent sad news, deaths, and afflictions.

Life happens.

What should not happen is that we, God’s children, take comfort in fantasies of our own imaginings. Not that these things happened at the service, but we often hear and perhaps say – and I pray not believe – that so-and-so is now dancing with angels. Or reunited with his or her favorite pets. Or watching over us.

Such fables perhaps are well intentioned. But to describe Heaven, or to contemplate our own eternal lives, in such ways, reveal that we do not know the Bible. Or, if know the Bible, we thereby presume to know more than it says. Are we wiser than the revealed Lord? Will He turn the universe of His creation upside-down because we hope to act in a fictional play of our own desires?

Whatever we do NOT know of death and eternity – indeed, all of life’s mysteries – puts us in the position of wanting to create God in our own image. Let it not be so! The riches of His glory are so great, so literally indescribable, that we cannot begin to choreograph what He has in store.

Remember that truth, that whatever we cannot imagine is so much greater than that which we know. Trust God: there is a reason we do not know all. Trust Jesus: “In My house there are many mansions [prepared for you], if it were not so, I would not have told you.” Trust the Holy Spirit, who has been sent to lead us to all Truth.

Coping, as we must, however, with life’s challenges and griefs, and with all the mysteries of life, not to mention death, it is natural that many of us turn to books and tracts that collect Bible verses of comfort. They are sometimes arranged by category of concerns; otherwise a Bible concordance can serve the same purposes. They contain “God’s Promises.” Yes, from God’s word.

In all respect, literally, to God and to all of you, I say that we must remember that another “Promise Book” can be compiled from many proverbs, warnings, commandments, epistles, sermons, and exhortations in the Bible. These “other” promises are also God’s words, after all.

God, by His inspiration of writers and prophets and judges and apostles and disciples and missionaries, spoke of many things.

You might lose jobs; your family and neighbors might think you crazy; you will be a lone, and very lonely, voice defending the truth.

These are not threats or warnings, strictly. Coldly, these are promises of God. The way of a Christian is not easy… never has been… never will be. In God’s providence, He did not mean it to be easy. Jesus took up His cross, and we were told – yes, promised – that we must do the same to be worthy of Him, worthy of Eternity.

A downer? No! Even more Bible promises assure us that it is a privilege to die with Christ. We are His ambassadors here on earth. He lives within us, and His Holy Spirit empowers us… that we will be more than conquerors.

And those trials of life? Challenges, disappointments, rejections, fear? I ask you to look at the promise that He would never leave us nor forsake us, and remember some incidents.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could have been spared the fiery furnace if God chose to destroy it. Yet they displayed faith, and were protected through the fire. God could close up the Valley of the Shadow of Death… yet when we walk through it, we are protected by His rod and His staff; they comfort us. By faith, Abraham was even willing to sacrifice his son Isaac, yet the Lord stayed his hand, blessed Abraham and his descendants, and gave us a picture of Jesus’s sacrifice when God was willing. And so on – the list of God’s promises, and their fulfillment or puzzling postponement, that Mystery of His ways.

“God had planned something better… so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” We are parts of that “scarlet thread of redemption.” The powerful truths of His promises do not depend on our understanding of them! He asks only faithful obedience.

If you ignore the least commandment and teach others to do the same, you will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But anyone who obeys God’s laws and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 5:19).

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Click: Come Harvest Time

6-18-18

Thinking back on family scenes on Father’s Day, I was reminded of my parents’ story about days of my childhood, when I was too young to have remembered myself. Among the first words I spoke (that is, “words” and “spoke,” with qualifications) was “Hobbo-loody.” It seems I uttered the phrase often and emphatically, and to much consternation. How could mom and dad show off my skills to visitors (I was the first-born) if the sound was gibberish?

Howdy Doody? “A baloney,” as in sandwich? They finally solved the mystery as I jumped for joy when my father exclaimed, in another context, “Absolutely!” It was his frequent, if hyperbolic, word of agreement, or affirmation. “Yes” would not do; “I agree” apparently was too weak – “Ab-so-LUTE-ly!” he boomed. My immature fealty was “Hobbo-LOOdy!”

People do that today, saying “Absolutely!” even substituting the word for “you’re welcome!” when they are thanked.

Hyperbole and exaggeration in our time betray a conversational laziness, because we can remain detached but switch in some camouflaged emotional investment. Many times I hear toddlers in shops and malls say “Oh my God!” Besides the blasphemy, it is ridiculous to think that young children can so regard, say, a soiled gumdrop on the floor. My late mother-in-law dropped the phrase at the slightest turns until one day I asked her what she was saving for a presidential assassination or world war.

An additional feature of the word “Absolutely,” beyond its frequently needless employment, is what it really means. Absolute things are the “max,” unable to be topped, extended, or multiplied. On the other hand, something that is “absolute” cannot be diminished and remain absolute. Nothing can be LESS absolute, or modified, or qualified – because then it is out of the realm of the absolute.

In today’s spiritual world – that is, reality; not passing fads and trends in society – the word “Absolute” needs to be re-asserted. This is not a mere word-game.

God’s Word contains ABSOLUTE truth; in fact it IS Absolute Truth.

His promises are ABSOLUTELY true and trustworthy. Not “mostly”; absolutely.

When Jesus spoke, He had the authority of ABSOLUTE Truth, not – as relativists and liberal Christianity and Post-Modernists and Emergent church leaders say – “relative truth.” Or “relational truth.” Truth is truth: it is inherently Absolute. Any adjective other than ABSOLUTE unplugs the essence of what Truth is. (In lexicography, “Absolute” here is emphatic, not qualifying. Lesson over!)

This world, as it always has been but seems more so then ever before, is relativistic. “What’s right for me is right.” “Believe what you want, if it doesn’t hurt anybody.” “What’s true for you is not true for me.” “There is no right or wrong” – which sums up all the equivocations.

In the 1960s, Jean-Paul Sartre presciently maintained (with approval) that in the coming age, “authenticity” would be all that mattered. This is a cruel philosophical version of the advertising industry’s saying, “Sincerity! Once you fake that, you’ve got it made!”

Around the same time, Dr Will Herberg beheld the vaunted “New Morality,” and seeing no trace of respect for Absolute Truth, said it should rather be called, “No Morality.”

When there are no Objective Standards in peoples’ lives – that it, no respect for absolute truths in their core beliefs – there are no standards at all. Humans are wired to worship SOME thing, and when we neither recognize nor seek Absolute Truths, or standards greater than ourselves… we fall back, virtually, on worshiping ourselves.

Not a recipe for spiritual health or societal wellness. As the world slid toward more self-worship and less God-awareness, in the 20th century… well, we cured polio and put footprints on the moon, but slaughtered more people than in all previous centuries combined.

“You shall be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you” (Deut 5:32,33a). Oh, the world will ask about other Old Testament verses that seem cruel or obsolete… we will be challenged about rules that seem not to apply to post-industrial societies… and so forth.

The Bible confirms itself, almost endlessly, and those who confront us with seeming contradictions (there are none) or ancient cultural contexts (there are some), would better spend their time absorbing truths than straining to find loopholes. From mighty saints of God to, say, humble cake decorators (possibly also mighty saints of God) who regard the Truths of the Almighty as Absolute – not in ancient times or distant places, but right where they are – are all good and faithful servants.

Sorry, Dad – and others who use words like “Absolutely” a little too freely. You gilded the lily. When paired with the word “Truth,” we must obey.

Absolutely.

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Click: There Is a Balm in Gilead

6-11-18

This has been a week of tremendous news, emotional and important for everyone on every side of (seemingly) every issue. International diplomatic breakthroughs; daring trade confrontations; history-setting economic news at home.

“Winners” (for instance, those happy with the Supreme Court’s decision) should refrain from hyperactive victory dances. These days, spiking the ball can bounce back in our faces! We should prayerfully be grateful, but respect the debate if well-intentioned.

Of course, these days, well-intentioned discourse seems rare. Jack Phillips, the decorator at the modest mom-and-pop Masterpiece Cakeshop of Lakewood, Colorado, is not a raging bigot who barred homosexuals from entering his shop, as his detractors claim. Very few people can even cite his denomination, if he has such membership, and ascribe anything more than his fidelity to the Bible. (Many people do not know the origin of “Masterpiece” as his shop’s name. It is Ephesians 2:10 – “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.”)

But Jack’s policy at Masterpiece was based on conscience, informed by faith. The modest, flour-splotched baker is actually in the pantheon of Heroes of Conscience alongside martyrs of the early Church and Reformation; Luther; persecuted Christians around the world today, both notable and anonymous.

He is consistent, and willing to sacrifice for his beliefs. If that means closing on Sundays, so be it. If that means declining to decorate cakes with off-color themes or requests for sexy or violent images (his artistic talent could tackle any challenge, if he chose), or Halloween or homosexual messages; if his “bottom line” is decreased, so be it.

Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby close on Sundays too. In fact if Jack’s standards reduced him to selling only a few cupcakes to class reunions, he would proceed. God has given Jack a talent… and a conscience. He does not need to be loved by everybody, but he would like to be respected by everybody. And he does not NEED to be attacked by anybody, yet within hours of politely declining to design a homosexual message on the icing on a cake, the attacks started – organized protests; thousands of robo-computer e-mails; automated phone messages; vandalism; etc. In the name, you understand, of “love.”

My friend Penny Carlevato, also of Lakewood and in whose home we recently shared thoughts and lasagna with Jack, made a clever observation, that America was built on religious liberty, and has succeeded in large measure because of it; but ironically those who hate religion and our cultural heritage now use that freedom to attack the traditional foundations.

Jack and his family endured emotional distress, a down-sizing of his business, and other privations during the years of these trials (approximately six years). The Colorado Civil Rights Commission would have forced him to express messages contrary to his values; to accept a set of rules written by some external moral arbiters; to force his workers to undergo training sessions in “sensitivity”; regularly to report compliance to a state agency.

Some of his friends were slightly downcast as the nature of the Court’s “narrow” decision became clear – that the conflict between conscience and public accommodation was not solved. News flash – at the current stage of democracy’s evolution, it never will be solved; get ready.

No, the “narrow” aspect is that the Commission, on the first rung of this long ladder, exposed the virulent anti-Christian bias of two commissioners. Religion led to slavery, Jack was lectured before he could open his mouth; and Christianity was responsible for the holocaust.

The gist of the Court’s “narrow” ruling is that the government in this instance was NOT impartial; exposed a very uneven playing field; displayed prejudice against people of faith.

THAT, friends, is actually a silver lining of the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision. Because of it, every local board of self-righteous commissioners, every tyrannical town council, every petty school board, every legislative committee, every gaggle of unelected bureaucrats high and low, have been put on notice that they cannot act arbitrarily and imperiously. They cannot display bias against religious traditions, against people of conscience, against Christians exercising their faith.

In the future, at least for awhile, these little Big Brothers will think twice before imposing their secular agendas – their revolutionary stink-bombs, their Rules for Radicals – on the rest of us.

The martyrs’ hall of fame, those who died and those who fought for individual conscience, and the essential importance of one’s faith, has a new figure, as noted above.

If the media try to ask – “Such a big deal over WEDDING CAKES?” and “Is this really a Constitutional crisis, led by a neighborhood baker?” Let us recall what James Abram Garfield said when he was elected president. He left his position as an elder in his local church in Ohio to move to Washington, and he said: “I resign the highest office in the land to become president of the United States.”
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Click: I Shall Not Be Moved

6-4-18

You can discern the face of the sky; but can you not discern the signs of the times? This is a famous rebuke from Jesus to the Pharisees and Sadducees found in Matthew 16:3.

Christians in America and much of the West, and traditionalists at large, should be praying that these are the End Times, because sometimes it is hard to contemplate things being much worse. We are lulled by good economic news, and the general prosperity that envelops us – the culture’s “bread and circuses” taking our eyes from the signs of the times. Those signs flash, these days, as brightly as they ever have.

In Charles Wesley’s great sermon on this passage he notes that Pharisees and Sadducees often disagreed on many matters, but they came together to challenge Jesus; to test him; to ensnare Him in contradictions. Of course they failed, and He confounded them.

The fuller Biblical passage reads: The Pharisees also, with the Sadducees, came, tempting, requesting that He show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said, When it is evening, you say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather today: for the sky is red and lowering. O you hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky; but can you not discern the signs of the times?

There are several things to take away from this exchange, pertinent to today.

The first fact is pertinent but seems impertinent to many Christians today. And that is: Jesus rebuked his interlocutors. He often rebuked people. If we dig deeper, He tended to be silent with outright accusers – as during Passion week – but frequently rebuked those who played to the crowd; who devised trick questions they hoped would stymie Him; He angrily dispatched liars and those who would seek advantage in arguments… but not seek the truth.

Christians are in that situation today – the world is full of vicious opponents who work to steal, kill, and destroy our faith. Another class of opponents, making convenient alliance as haters of old, especially in our midst, use other means to attack us. Ridicule. False charges. Mis-characterizations. Guilt by association. Seduction by pleasures of the sinful world. Corruption. Regulations and laws. Dishonest values.

I recently was a speaker at a Christian conference where a round-table discussion was assembled to address the “crisis” of how Christians are perceived in contemporary society. I was rather in the minority, holding a) that the crisis is in the culture, not with Christians who resist its corruption; and b) that believers who judge their effectiveness by the world’s reaction, or approval, have lost the fight already; and likely do not even recognize the fight… or the stakes.

“Are we perceived as haters?” and “How do we counter that perception?” were the assigned questions. I received a lot of pushback, especially from two relatively prominent writers / teachers. The usual categories of those people determined to reject the Gospel were trotted out, and I was fairly accused of caring little about their souls.

I would like to think that my standard is that of Jesus: I love their souls so much that I desire to deliver the purest, least compromised truth, that I can. And I firmly believe – and plead with other believers – that if people reject the Truth today… we have nevertheless planted the seed. The Holy Spirit was sent into the world to finish the jobs we have been privileged to do, as per the Great Commission: preach the Gospel.

There was a dear friend in the audience that evening who was almost in tears, confessing to spending many nights in tears because some Christians talk about how terrible these times are. Can’t we see the “light”? Can’t we accept the workings of a loving God today?

I tell all such friends that I have in fact peeked at the end of the Book. Yep, God wins.

But does that mean America succeeds? For all our recent sins, do we deserve to “succeed”? to prosper? to get a pass from the judgments God has visited on other apostate peoples? Will revival come to a nation determined not to seek it… to not even recognize that it needs revival?

Why does it surprise us that schools have turned into so many drug-infested, values-confused shooting zones, when two generations ago Bible reading and public prayers were outlawed in their classrooms? Read other headlines – hospital workers who believe that abortion is murder, are nevertheless ordered to perform infanticide. Public airwaves have become cesspools of filthy language and filthy ideas, protected by “free speech” arguments (denied, however, to traditionalists).

One of the last countries in Europe votes to allow abortions, and vast oceans of people cheer the outcome in public squares. Not by the relatively few women whose medical conditions possibly were threatened, but by thousands of women – and men – who could otherwise be rallying against drugs and corruption and a culture of social hatred. No… blood lust. Back home in America, widespread angst about the legal fate of a baker who declined to decorate a cake with a message that offended his values.

That a nation of one-third of a billion people can be awaiting such a momentous Court decision that carries incalculable implications… turning, literally, on a vote of one or two people in black robes… is somewhere between ironic and absurd – but soundly a Sign of the Times.

It is a virtual reality these days that Christians wear Scarlet Letters. Or might soon, literally. A mark of the beast. Nonsense? Hester Prynne wore the letter A (for Adultery) on her forehead in the 1850 indictment of Puritanism in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel. Fewer than a hundred years ago, Jews across Europe often were obliged to display yellow Stars of David.

Signs of the times plausibly might include an obligatory red “C” (for Christian, anathema!) on nuns and doctors who refuse to provide abortions; on teachers who secretly allow students to read Bibles; to people praying in public (street-corner evangelism is already outlawed in some European countries); to bakers who decline to violate their beliefs when they decorate cakes.

If it were not for double standards these days, secularists, liberals, and relativists would have no standards.

I wrote above that I have two take-aways from Jesus’ famous rebuke. The first must be our willingness to rebuke evil – to defend, if not ourselves, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The second lesson is to simply be aware of the signs of times. Pray for discernment, wisdom, knowledge, then boldness as appropriate.

Like with the group at the round-table discussion, it is too easy for Christians to confuse peoples’ compliments for their convictions. Christianity is not a democracy: the number of preachers in backward collars, or church-attendance numbers “run” each Sunday, all mean nothing if people do not hear, do not understand, do not believe the Gospel. It is worse than nothing… because a generation is being coddled and lied to on their way to hell.

Jesus challenged His challengers. Three hundred years ago, Wesley asked, “How is it, that all who are called Christians, do not discern the signs of these times?” The question still burns today – even as the signs burn brighter in our faces.

Yes, we win at the end of time. But until then, God wants us to run the race.

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Click: Ain’t No Grave

5-28-18

Memorial Day. It is easy to get caught up, these days – or lost – in the homogeneity of patriotic holidays. Fourth of July? Veterans Day? Memorial Day? The culprits, if we forget the specific origins, are the general diminution of patriotism in America, and also the side-effect, the lack of teaching and remembrance. A disregard, frankly, of the importance of who we are as people… how we got here… and who paid the costs.

The Fourth of July, of course, commemorates our independence, and the spirit behind that independence. Veterans Day generally honors the veterans amongst us. Memorial Day, once “Decoration Day,” honors not so much the veterans who live, but those who died.

I wish we had few such holidays. Not because I want to wish away wars, and certainly not against the spirit of sacrifice. But just as “President’s Day” cheapens the immense honor due to Lincoln and Washington and few others, when officer-holders high and low are commemorated, so would more holidays. Especially when our contemporary age creates or re-fashions national holidays around weekends and possible commercial sales opportunities.

On Memorial Day, “we call to mind the deaths of those who died that the nation
might live, who wagered all that life holds dear for the great prize of death in battle, who poured out their blood like water in order that the mighty national structure raised by the far-seeing genius of Washington, Franklin, Marshall, Hamilton, and the other great leaders of the Revolution, great framers of the Constitution, should not crumble into meaningless ruins,” said Theodore Roosevelt in a Memorial Day address.

Speaking personally, I have opposed many of our wars, especially in my lifetime. I am a man of the Right, in Whittaker Chambers’ phrase, ready to die for the red, white and blue, but not always for the flags of strangers. I revere the American Republic; not necessarily the American Empire. But what I think is statistically irrelevant, and irrelevant in my slight role as an essayist with some followers.

My own ambiguity about foreign policies and priorities that result in shed American blood is put aside – cast aside – on these Memorial days.

I pray that we all share admiration and respect and honor for those Americans, especially in these days where the military draft no longer exists; those who did what they did for the heritage of our past, the reality of our present, for the hope of the future.

What were these men and women made of? They volunteered; they sacrificed; they died. They suffered nightmarish injuries. When able, many of them re-enlisted.

No matter what progressives, especially those of an earlier generation, say, our servicemen and servicewomen did not wear uniforms and train with weapons because they hated.

They loved.

They loved their comrades. They loved their flag. They loved their missions – the people whose situations they liberated, the people they rescued. They loved their families back home, believing that the sacrifices ultimately were worth it. They loved their homes and streets and towns; their way of life.

Even the least-schooled understood the inchoate but essential virtues behind the tattered flag – that America has stood for something. They fought, and were willing to die, for something greater than a village, or bunker that must be cleared. They were conscious of being children of a great tradition (even if they were recent immigrants in uniform)… and were conscious of being fathers and mothers of that continuing tradition.

I put aside the controversies surrounding our wars and rumors of wars. On this Day especially I stand, and salute, and visit graves at random, of men and women who did the unimaginable courageous things, often in dutiful and routine ways.

Because of who they were. Because of what America is. Or was, God help us.

We salute you.

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