Most of my life I have heard people say “Jesus is the answer.” Well, yes, in one sense, obviously Jesus is the total answer. The trouble is I go back and forth whether this is an incredibly profound statement, or simply a shallow, easy bone thrown to the really hard, doggy things life sometimes presents us.
I have a better slogan for us to ponder: “Jesus is the question.” In fact, as we recover from celebrating Easter, and realize there was a spiritual dimension to it, even if sometimes buried in all the bunnies, ham and easter parades. Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Did you hear me correctly? Jesus Christ rose from the dead. With something incredible like that being affirmed Easter Sunday how can we focus on anything but “Jesus is the question”?
Just who is this Jesus Christ who did something that was literally death defying? Someone who threw the brakes on the whole natural order, who refuted the universality of the second law of thermodynamics, and who audaciously claimed that we, too, would experience what he lived through?
“Jesus is the question.” And how! Questions. This event unleashes all the mystery of the universe, all the excitement of discovery, all the thrill of exploration, all the extreme limit pushing a person can handle. It should keep us up nights praying and wrestling and struggling. What does this mean for me? What does this mean for our world? Do I believe it? If I do not think I believe it, can I casually ignore and dismiss it, or must I treat it with the respect it’s enormous implications deserve?
This world has shallow. It has superficial. Often we take our faith in easily digested sound bites, and then when divorce or cancer or even our own human failure hits us, we fall apart. “Jesus is the answer” rings untrue, and our faith fails. Only when we do real soul-searching, heart-and-mind-expanding grappling with the question of Jesus, and how to connect what we discover there with our life do we realize both slogans are profound hints of heavenly mysteries. Jesus. The Question? The Answer? Absolutely. So what? How does he fit in my life today?
The time is approaching (April 21st) when runners will line up in Hopkinton for the 2008 Boston Marathon. I can imagine the excitement in the air - the eager expectations of the runners who have trained for months to make it to the finish line in downtown Boston. I can see in my mind's eye the bright colors of the runners as they stretch and warm up for the grueling miles ahead. The task is clear before them. They are ready to run the race. If it is raining, it makes no difference. If it is cold or hot, it makes no difference. The course is set before them them, and the race will go on.
It is interesting that the Bible several times
compares the Christian life to a race. The apostle Paul says, "I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I my finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me - the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace." (Acts 9:24) Later, he returns to the theme of the race. "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever." (1 Corinthians 9:24)
Runners for the marathon have a strict schedule of training. Much of it takes place in the cold, dark hours of winter. The runners in my family have put in many hours of training while most of us were warm and snug in our beds. But it was worth the price to them for the possibility of running the race.
As Christians we must also train to live as Christ has commanded us. We must study his word and seek his guidance. We must listen to the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit as he directs our lives. We must be obedient to a lifestyle that prepares us for the spiritual race ahead. Then at then end of our lives we can join with Paul who says. "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day - and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing." (2 Timothy 4:7,8) In these two verses Paul looks back over 30 years of labor as an apostle and compares his life to that of an athlete who has engaged successfully in a contest.
The cry arose that first Easter morning in the garden when the women came to Jesus' tomb and realized that his body was no longer there. Then He appeared and the cry increased in intensity and echoed down the ages of history. It reverberated through the disciples' hiding places and emboldened them to speak out to all who would listen. He is risen!
It overtook the disheartened disciples on the Emmaus Road. He is risen!
It swelled and exploded with power at Pentecost. It traveled along the trade routes of ancient Europe and Asia. It created a bond between those of different skin colors and languages and cultures. He is risen!
It echoed through the catacombs as the early church met amid danger and secrecy. It was cried out as those early Christians faced the lions and gladiators. He is risen!
It empowered the early church councils and medieval monasteries. It brought comfort through the Plague and Black Death. He is risen!
It strengthened the reformers! It set Christianity apart from all the other religions whose founders lay buried in their tombs. He is risen!
It was whispered in the foxholes of the many wars. It has power to unseat and dispel evil. He is risen!
It resides among the Christians across our troubled world. He is risen!
It is clung to by immigrants seeking help and
desperate believers who have no hope apart from their Savior. He is risen!
It is emblazoned upon our hearts and souls. He is risen!
It mirrors the wonder of the scared and mysterious! He is risen!
It spread across the world and is still moving and gathering strength! Death is defeated! Hallelujah! He is risen!
Lent is a the season of time to prepare for Easter. Growing up in a Southern Baptist Church, I don't remember there being any focus on Lent. When I went to New Orleans to teach school, I learned that Lent followed Mardi Gras. In fact, Mardi Gras was a wild celebration that happened before Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the somber time leading up to Good Friday. The people of New Orleans partied first and then focused on the serious business of Christ's journey to the cross.
We are in the middle of a series of Wednesday night Lenten services here at First Baptist. We meet in the small chapel in the east wing of the church. We sing hymns and listen to a speaker talk about Jesus' life and ministry. Then we reflect on what is said and discuss it. We ponder how to apply Christ's teachings to our own lives. It is a special time for those of us who attend.
Perhaps one of the hardest parts of Lent is preparing our own heart to remember Christ's death on the cross for our sins. It calls for us to repent of our sins. We don't like to think about that. At our first service, Pastor Jon talked about how hard the concept of repentance is for us. He said that when we are feeling good and happy and strong, we don't want to focus on those things that we have done that are wrong. We see ourselves as pretty good people. We like being "up" and don't want to admit that we have sinned before a righteous God.
On the other hand, when we are feeling "down" we don't like to think that our own sinfulness is what made it necessary for Christ to have to die on the cross. We don't like feeling guilty. It's not a comfortable place to be. However, unless we accept the fact that we are all sinners, we can't truly understand the cost of the forgiveness of sin. The Bible tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
As we confess our sins, we realize the great gift that God gave to us when he sent Jesus to die in our place. Then we can truly look forward to Easter when we celebrate Christ's victory over sin and death. We can join with him and become free. Hallelujah!
I remember as a child wrinkling my nose and saying “Yuk!” when I heard the the story of Jesus healing a blind man. What prompted my response was the way Jesus went about getting the job done. Jesus, you see, spit into the dirt at his feet and rubbed some of the little puddle of mud he created into the man’s eyes. It’s not that I as a young boy objected to dirt, but the spit was another thing. I remember struggling with whether I would want Jesus to heal me or not if it involved him rubbing spit on me. Yuk!
As an adult I still have trouble with the way Jesus sometimes does things. It seems to me that often my ideas and my standards are so much more acceptable and appropriate than his. And, I confess, sometimes much more convenient and to my liking.
The people with Jesus were convinced there was a place to lay the blame for the man’s blindness. “‘Rabbi, who sinned: this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?’ Jesus said, "You're asking the wrong question. You're looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do.” (The Message, John 9)
Have you ever wondered why Jesus used spit to heal the man? The Jewish believers didn’t wonder - they knew exactly why he did it. In the beginning God took the dust of the earth, breathed on it, and brought to life the first human being. Now Jesus symbolically takes the dust of the earth, repeats this act of creation and for the very first time the man sees.
Right before everybody’s eyes -- including the blind man’s -- Jesus was showing what God can do. By creating sight, Jesus was revealing that he was God the Son. Jesus wasn’t just a traveling rabbi, he wasn’t a small time evangelist who went from town to town putting on a carnival show of old fashioned revival meetings. Jesus was and is God’s only begotten Son who originally created the world, who still held the powers of creation in his hand, and who today brings healing and life to his people.
During lent we do a lot of talking about sin. Sin! That’s something I’m quite comfortable pointing out in the lives of other people. Facing the sin in my own life? Yuk! I’d avoid that like spit. We also talk about God’s solution for sin. It involved such nasty things as Jesus’ blood, cross, and death. Yuk!
As an adult I wonder if God couldn’t have done it some other way. Maybe it would have been more acceptable and appropriate to deal with sin by using nanotechnology, or holding a big fund raising rock concert, or having Congress pass a law. But bringing sight, forgiveness, healing and life by using spit, mud, a cross, and a grave? Yuk! I guess the question we must struggle with is whether we want Jesus to get the job done in our lives. If so, let’s stop wrinkling our noses, yield control of our lives to Jesus Christ, and be amazed as we “Look instead for what God can do.”
There are words I do not understand. These include the words of the year for 2007. Merriam-Webster has has chosen “w00t”, which is an expression of happiness, similar to “hooray”, as in “w00t! I won the lottery.” You might find this word in “facebook”, which is their runner-up. As in “Facebook me some time and we’ll talk.” The American Dialect Society has chosen “subprime” as their word of the year, and nobody likes that. The New Oxford American Dictionary has decided on “locavore.” Now that is a word I can live with. You might be a locavore if you pass up the supermarket and buy your apples and tomatoes at the Arlington farmer’s market. Locavores prefer to eat something that is environmentally friendly, and they don’t mind shaking the hand of the farmer that grew the thing.
Then not only do hundreds of new words pop up every year, but there are words that change their meaning. This is what makes me feel sorry for middle school English teachers. For example, even I know that if you’re hot you’re really cool, and if you’re good you’re bad, and if you’re really good (or is it bad?) you’re wicked good. As an uncool clergy person I know enough to recognize when somebody says the Patriots are wicked, they are not specifically talking about Randy Moss’s alleged behavior off the field. To make this even more confusing, when somebody tells you something exciting, your wicked cool response is “Shut up!” That is not a rude comment, but an affirmation.
“We just got back from a vacation surfing in Hawaii.” “Shut up!”
“I got a brand new Toyota RAV4!” “Shut up!”
“I’ve lost ten pounds since New Year’s.” “Shut up!”
You get the idea. Frankly, I sometimes don’t know what to say. Speaking of “frankly,” that’s a word I just can’t stand. People use it: “Frankly, we’ve always done blah blah blah...” It’s as if using “frankly” gives the statement more importance, more authority. It’s like a “win-win” situation. Lots of business types use this to describe an arrangement that is best for everybody. I doubt it. When the saleswoman who’s selling that Toyota starts talking real fast about a “win-win” deal, I usually suspect the poor customer is about to lose his shirt. Can you imagine Bill Belichick talking about a “win-win” outcome for the Patriots and the Giants in the Super Bowl?
So there are words I do not understand, words that change their meaning, and words I do not like.Then there are words so clear and unchanging, that I just cannot escape their call upon me. Words like Jesus said in Luke 11:28, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."
I wonder what words would be used to describe First Baptist Arlington if we took that comment of Jesus most seriously in 2008? “w00t!”
It has been many years now since Dr. Norman Vincent Peal wrote has famous book, The Power of Positive Thinking. There are many other books out there which promote positive thinking. A recent check of Amazon showed almost 17,000 books available in that category. So there must be something to be learned from having a positive attitude.
People who have a positive attitude seem to attract others. But we usually try to avoid critical, negative, unpleasant people. We often don't even listen to their good ideas because they present everything in such a negative light. So I was surprised this weekend to hear on the news that Saturday was the Grumpiest Day of the year. The news article said that by this time in January, most people were unhappy that they had already broken their New Years Resolutions, that the holiday bills were in their mailboxes, and that the weather was gray and dreary.
I think that the beginning of a new year fills us with hope that things will be better this year. Some of the mistakes that we've made in the previous year are left behind. We have a fresh start. Disappointment seems to come when things don't change. We don't lose weight. We don't exercise and eat right. We don't save more money. We just continue to do things as we have always done them.
But I've already learned something about change this year from my 5 year-old granddaughter. She likes my exercise bike and has learned to sit on it backwards to ride since her feet reach the pedals that way. One day after pedaling away, she noted that no matter how much she pedaled the bike didn't go anywhere. She said if you want to ride just for the sake of riding, it's fine. But if you really want to go somewhere, you have to find a bike that can move. I made the switch from the bike to other things in my life. If I want it to make changes and go somewhere different, I can't just do the same thing over and over in the same place. I have to change my bike, or plan, to move forward. I want to try that in 2008. I want to move forward.
This applies to our spiritual lives and our church lives as well. We can use this year to try some new ideas about worship, about reaching out to our community, about ministering in the name of Jesus, and about doing church business. We can seek guidance from the Holy Spirit to move forward and not just pedal in place. Let's give it a try.
1. The Bible will still have all the answers.
2. Prayer will still work.
3. The Holy Spirit will still move.
4. God will still inhabit the praises of His people.
5. There will still be God-anointed preaching.
6. There will still be singing of praise to God.
7. God will still pour out blessings upon His people.
8. There will still be room at the Cross.
9. Jesus will still love you.
10. Jesus will still save the lost.
God whispers in your soul and speaks to your mind. Sometimes when you don't have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at you. It's your choice: Listen to the whisper, or wait for the brick.
-- Author Unknown
This was sent to me by Shirley and Jack Donaldson.
We are beginning a new series on Saturday morning with our Women's Bible Study. The group has decided to study the life of Paul. We are calling it Saul to Paul. We began last Sat. with the stoning of Stephen where we are introduced to Saul. We read the account from Acts.
As a part of the study we regularly name those we know who need prayer and commit ourselves to pray for them. Later we discuss how God has answered those prayers. One of our recent prayer concern's has been Maria's nephew who needed a heart transplant. We felt sure that God would heal him, we just didn't know how or when. We asked believing that that would happen. On Thanksgiving that prayer was answered. He has a new heart. We rejoice and praise God for answered prayer. When I say that he has a new heart, I mean that literally. So often when we talk about having a new heart, we mean it spiritually. God can create a new heart within each of us if we ask him to. When we ask Christ to forgive our sins, we does create a new heart within us.
Tracy pointed out that we have now been having this Bible study for two years. One of our first prayer requests was for a safe birth for her baby. Victoria was born in June of that year and has blessed all of our lives. Last Saturday, as the meeting ended, little Victoria folded her little hands to pray. As Tracy guided her, she prayed a simple prayer. She will grow up knowing that God answers prayers.
Praise God!
I’ve heard the story of a three year old who jumped up and down with glee when her aunt visited at Christmas time. She grabbed her aunt’s hand and led her to the nativity set the child and her mother had just set up. “Look! Look!” she exclaimed with excited pride.
Her aunt asked the child “What is that?”
With a very big girl attitude the three year old replied, “It’s breakable!”
Breakable. Fragile. The child’s answer is wise. The Christmas of faith is so fragile and breakable. So many forces seem to compete in distracting us. Retailers call this time the shopping season, where often their profitability for the entire year is determined. The watchdogs of politically correctness call it the winter holiday season. Others see it as the social focal point of the year.
Christians call these days leading up to the celebration of Christ’s birth Advent. People of faith value Advent as a time to reorient and focus on the marvel that God actually came into our world as a tiny baby so we might be saved. Grasping that holy truth is a precious yet fragile insight.
Jesus was so much like us. He was breakable. Vulnerable. He came into a world of broken people knowing that the only way to bring healing was to be broken himself. On the cross he made it possible for breakable people like you and me to be redeemed, made whole, and to live as God’s people. He then empowers us so we can help other broken people find wholeness.
It’s funny that a delicate, fragile baby can turn out to be the strongest person the world has ever known. It’s paradoxical that the vulnerable infant turns out to be the invincible Savior. It’s incredible that the little child of the nativity turns out to be the the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace. But that’s the truth of Advent. Jesus Christ came to earth. Christ the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer of the universe came to live here that first Christmas so we who live here this Christmas can experience life in a new way. Let us use this Advent season to prepare ourselves, to let God prepare us, so that our faith might be strong and unbreakable. And be sure to share some of the same excitement of the three year old as we show others the nativity.
