First Lines

As are many of you know, I am a book reader.  I love reading.  For me, if heaven is to be heaven, my “mansion” will include a den with bookshelves on four walls, a fireplace, good lighting, a comfortable chair, at least one big window that opens onto a beautiful lawn and lets in the sound of waves washing against the shore, and an eternity to read.  When I’m shopping for a book, I turn to the first page and read the opening lines.  I’m intrigued to see just how the author will entice me to read her book.

There is a book to which I keep returning, reading again its opening lines. They captured me the first time I heard them read and again the first time I read them for myself.  This book is the first one I recall reading that I could call my own.  Before I could write, Dad wrote my name in the front of it.  Those opening lines still capture my attention: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

Fifty-eight years after receiving that book, those words still capture my attention and invite me to read on.  I want to know this God who can call into being both heaven and earth.  I want to know the places God created and creates.  I want to observe all that God has created.  In observing the created, I learn of the Creator.  I am not widely traveled; but I’ve seen a lot of God’s creation.  I’ve watch little green shoots push from the ground behind my house and burst alive with beautiful yellow and orange flowers.  I’ve watched the squirrels run and climb through the trees.  I’ve seen the fire-red sunset and the dawning of a new day.  I’ve stood atop a mountain and stared out across a sea whose end I could only imagine.  And, in it all, I saw God. 

“In the beginning . . . the Spirit of God moved . . . .”  The Spirit of God moves in nature.  The Spirit of God also moves on and through the printed page.  I’m as awed by the existence of the Bible as I am by nature.  Over a span of thousands of years, the Bible came to be.  From accounts and stories first passed along from mouth to ear and ear to mouth and mouth to ear, the printed Bible finally emerged.  Sixty-six books (for our Protestant Bible) all touched by myriad hands before they were finally bound together as the Word of God.  Those opening words invite me to read on.

I don’t claim to know God.  I claim to know of him. I see God’s handiwork all around me—in nature; in small room where five guys gather to study the Bible, to share, and to pray; in the lives of young people transformed by a week in Haiti.  All of these things and more move me to believe in God and to want to know more of God, but they are not enough.

It is in the pages of the Bible that I learn the most important lessons about this God who creates.  From the Bible I learn that I’m part of that Creation, and that God, like a good gardener, never stops loving me and caring for me.

We can learn of God from nature; but without the written Word, we will not know God.  Look around you at the work of the Creator and be awed.  Read those opening lines of The Book and begin the discovery of what it means for God to be the Creator.

Rejoicing Over Children--How Like God

I’m thinking this morning of the times I’ve watched parents embrace their newborn children.  For parents, it is a unique and holy moment.  For an outsider looking on, it is a unique and holy moment.  As parents embrace their newborns, you see a depth of joy and love that is a joy to behold.  Even macho papas take on a softer glow in those moments. 

One can observe something similar in parents as they watch their children move through various mileposts of life—the first birthday, the first day of school, graduation, leaving for college, bringing home that “special someone” to meet the folks, marrying, and then the baby and the cycle repeats itself.

Of course the cycle from birthing to seeing those birthed begin to birth their own is not without obstacles and struggles.  The bundle of joy can become a handful, and often does.  Most parents will spend some anguished moments rearing and loving their children, and most parents will encounter some point at which their children’s actions and choices will sadden them.

Yet through it all, good parents keep on.  They keep on loving the children they birthed.  They keep on giving direction and guidance.  They reprimand.  They give their children limits and freedom; and when freedom leads to the breaking of limits, they seek out the children who ran past the appropriate boundaries, forever calling them back.

And through it all, good parents rejoice over their children.

It’s a God-thing; for it is how God rejoices, loves, frees, seeks, and rejoices over those into whom the Divine Breath has been breathed.

Grace

I believe in grace.  I would not be who I am and where I am apart from grace.  I’ve experienced grace in a variety of ways and circumstances.  I believe in grace, but I do not understand it.

In its purest form, as received from God, grace comes unmerited.  Yet it seems that some people who receive grace are motivated to a higher level of living and become the recipients of more grace.  Is that a backhanded way of earning grace?  There also seem to be some people on whom grace just doesn’t fall.  Did they do something to warrant the withholding of grace?

Perhaps I struggle because I do as do so many others.  I too often equate the receiving of God’s grace with success and joy.  I know better.  I’ve experienced grace in times of failure and in times of deep sorrow.  I’ve known the wonder of grace in times when I’ve been afraid.  Yet when things are tough, for me or others, I want to ask God, “Where is your grace?” 

I don’t understand grace, but I give thanks for it.  I long for it, and I sometimes beg for it.  More often than not, I see grace in the rearview mirror of my life.  I can look back at four and a half hard and lean years in one pastorate and now see that those years led to the thirty-three plus years I’ve spent in Eminence.  Looking back to 1998 when my dad was the victim of shooting and spent 90 days in the hospital, I can now see that through that experience I became a more sensitive pastor than I might otherwise have been.  Dad, too, experienced grace in the experience and emerged as a better man.  Please understand . . . I don’t think God caused my dad to be shot so that he and I might be graced.  There are numerous things that caused the shooting.  Grace came because God doesn’t run and hide when stuff, including the stuff of our sin, occurs.

Perhaps grace is almost always baptismal grace.  It is what comes to us as we see ourselves as inside the circle of God’s love.  “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased,” the voice from heaven declared at Jesus’ baptism.  Is that not the message at every son’s and daughter’s baptism?   Sure, baptism is a sign of our profession of faith, of our dying and rising with Jesus; but it is more.  It is also a sign of God’s welcoming us, declaring what we should have known from the beginning: that we come from God, belong to God, and ultimately return to God.

That’s grace enough!  To be in God’s family is grace.  To be in God’s family is not to be free of all that comes with being human. We struggle; we grow ill; we hurt; we misunderstand; and eventually we die.  Yet in all of it, we discover grace, the grace of being and the grace of not being forgotten or left alone.

I don’t understand grace; but I have experienced it; and living in grace leaves me convinced that it comes to all.  What distinguishes us is not the outpouring of grace but our recognition of its presence. 

To know that we belong to the Creator of all that is grace.  Such grace leads me to cling to the promise of Isaiah 43:1-3 even when the waters run fast and deep and the fire burns toward me.  I cling to that grace because the Creator of all that is has redeemed me and called me his own.

May you know the wonder of discovering the grace at work in your life.

Tomorrow

With all the expectations we build into the holidays and with all the extra things we do, I suppose it is inevitable that when it’s over we breathe a sigh of relief. 

Having breathed our sighs of relief, we look forward to getting back to “normal.”  There’s the diet, for one thing.  Christmas food is not conducive to good health, but what would Christmas be without overfilled plates of delicious foods that come but once a year?  The foods, of course, include all those wonderful desserts.  We know we shouldn’t eat all that stuff, but Christmas comes but once a year, and we will get back to “normal” tomorrow. 

It occurs to me that many of us live our lives for tomorrow.  We are not unlike Annie who held optimistically to the hope that tomorrow would be better:

The sun’ll come out
Tomorrow
So ya gotta hang on
‘Til tomorrow
Come what may
Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
I love ya Tomorrow!
You’re always
A day
Away!

We’ve made it through the Christmas holidays.  We’ve held our tempers, most of the time; and we’ve kept stress to a minimum—well, we haven’t yelled at each other as much as we might have.  We’ve lived through it, knowing tomorrow would come and life could get back to “normal.”

Yesterday’s tomorrow may not be what we expected.  In the midst of the hustle and bustle of the Christmas holidays, something happened; and as a result, tomorrow is today and “normal” . . . well, “normal” is not the same as it was.

With the birth of Jesus, tomorrow is today.  The kingdom of the Lord has drawn near.  Oh, there is still another tomorrow; but to reach it, we will have to live today; and we dare not live today as if yesterday hadn’t occurred.  The angels’ message was and is true: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”  Because of this, today’s “normal” is not the same as yesterday’s.

Oh, life is not all that different.  The extra pounds have not magically melted away.  Jobs await us and not all of them are pleasant.  Difficult people still abound.  Violence is still too much a part of society.  Our government leaders continue to play a mean game of tennis, waiting to see who gets blamed for knocking the ball over the cliff.  Age and disease still ravage our bodies and those of our loved ones.  In spite of the angels’ message, life is, as it turns out, quite normal after all.  Quite normal after all, except . . . .

It’s all quite normal, except for one not so small factor: A Savior was born in the city of David!  God has come down to dwell with us.  His coming may not have changed everything . . . it may not have put everything right; but his coming has made a new normal.  With Jesus, I believe in tomorrow, but I believe as strongly in today.  Today, in the midst of all that confronts and threatens my living, I am not alone. 

Welcome to tomorrow today.  Jesus has come!

Can Their Be Joy?

I woke up Sunday morning thinking about the poem, “Casey at the Bat.” In the fictitious town of Mudville, all hope rested on Mighty Casey.  If he could get to bat, the team could win.  Strike one . . . strike two . . . and . . .
 

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;

He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.

And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,

And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out.

In Newtown, Connecticut, a real town with real people, there is no joy this morning.  A town and its people mourn the deaths of 20 elementary-age children, six of their teachers, and a young killer and his mother.  While some rush to use the tragedy to push their agendas for better mental health services and stricter gun controls, families and friends mourn.  With life suddenly taken away from 28 people, the future of families, a town, a state, a nation, and a world has been forever altered.  What might have been will never be.

A few miles from my home, a friend lies in an ICU bed at the UK Medical Center fighting for his life.  Leukemia altered his life last Christmas.  Chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant followed.  Days of hope and joy followed.  He came home, making progress toward full recovery; and then the progress ceased.  His body is now ravaged by disease.  In an effort to save his life, doctors removed his colon last night.  And now his wife and children, along with the rest of us who love him, pray . . . and wait.

In Newtown, Connecticut, and Henry County, Kentucky, and at the UK Medical Center, and where you are, we are all praying and waiting—praying and waiting for the word of the Prophet Zephaniah to alter our realities: “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing” (3:17). 

In disquiet and agony, we cry out, Come, Lord God!  If we listen carefully, in the midst of our cries, we will hear, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1b); and through eyes blurred with our tears, we will see the One who declared, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20b).

The message of Advent remains true.  In Jesus we find love, hope, joy, and peace.  And so, this morning, I pray for the families of Newtown, Connecticut, and I pray for my friend and his family.  I pray knowing what perhaps those caught in the midst of disquiet and agony cannot know that Jesus loves us and is in times like these the source of our hope, joy, and peace.

The Fiscal Clif and a Promise

The fiscal cliff lies just ahead. While the people of the nation rush toward it, their government leaders draw lines in the sand and play double-dog-dare-you games with each other. Those who play the games have secure jobs, secure pensions, and a nice financial cushion—just in case the voters should choose not to reelect them at some point in the future. They play their games with those of us in the trenches always gladly throwing in the “ante” to keep the pot going.

 

What are we to do? Some“prophets” tell us that the cost of going over the fiscal cliff will be a return to recession with more job losses and less income for all of us—well, for all of us without special interest groups who will keep our treasuries filled. Others tell us that going over the cliff will actually turn out to be a good thing. (Is this not close to calling good evil and evil good? Jesus seemed to have something to say about that. Oh, well, what does Jesus know?)

 

What are we to do? Well, I am not one to go over the fiscal cliff, or any other cliff, silently. I will be screaming all the way there, over, and to the bottom. The President and members of Congress need to own the task of governing for the good of all. Those who don’t will not have my support or my vote.

 

I shall do more. I shall remember that it was not a president or a congress who said, “Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11 KJV). It was a messenger from God.

 

I long for an equitable tax code, for justice for all, and for an end to the greed and envy which eventually leads to war and death. But my hopelies in the Christ whose love led him to take upon himself the sins of the world—mine, yours, the president’s, and those of congress.

 

While living to make our world a better place and while striving to hold elected officials accountable to govern for the good of all, I hold to the Christ celebrated in Advent—the One who is our HOPE . . . LOVE . . . JOY . . . PEACE. Because the Christ is all this and more, I will cling also to the promise made though Isaiah (2:2-4, ESV) long, long ago:

 

It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go the law,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore.

 

 

The Gift of Christmas

It’s December and Christmas is just around the corner!  Most folks are scrambling to get it all together before the big day arrives and praying that they can keep themselves together until torn wrapping paper is thrown out, the leftovers are distributed to guests and sent away, and they can fall peacefully into bed. It is such a wonderful, crazy time of the year.

As a pastor, I’ve been encouraging folks to celebrate Advent (that special time of the year in the church that includes the four Sundays before Christmas).  If we could get Advent right, we might discover a means of keeping “Christ” in Christmas. 

Alas, the Season of Advent is out of date!  It is, after all, a season of anticipation marked by expectant waiting!  Waiting!  Who has time to wait?  Even if one has the time to wait, why wait?

Even with a broken economy, we have at our disposal the means to have what we want NOW!  I have access to over $30,000 in instant money.  Three little plastic cards grant me the privilege to claim ownership immediately of whatever I can buy within those limits.  And that does not count what I might be able to borrow to purchase a new car or a house.  Wait!  Why and for what?

There are, of course, a few people still around who dare to believe and to preach that “all good things come to those who wait.”  But let’s face it.  Such people are really behind the times. 

God is behind the times . . . and for this we should give thanks.  Time moves as it moves.  Things come and things go.  Plants emerge from the soil, bloom, produce fruit, and die.  Babies are born, grow and mature, produce fruit, and die.  Knowledge and wisdom come in small doses over time.  The New Testament even reports that the long-awaited Messiah came only in the “fullness of time” (See Galatians 4:4).  God is behind the times and that is our only source of Hope.

The One who came in the fullness of time promised that he would send his Spirit as our constant companion and that in time (the fullness of God’s time) the day would come when the kingdom would be fulfilled.  For this, the best we can do is wait . . . understanding that this calls for expectant waiting.

There is good news about this waiting.  What is promised—the Spirit and the fulfillment of the kingdom—is prepaid by the Giver of all good gifts.  Our task is to wait expectantly—to live as righteously as we can, to be diligently honest with ourselves, and to face the present knowing that the future includes a kingdom fulfilled.

The season of Advent is not out of date.  It is dateless.  It is for all time.  We’ve been given a promise . . . a promise marked by Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace.  Come!  Gather around the Advent wreath and its candles.  Watch as candles begin to burn and give off their light week by week.  In Jesus there is Hope . . . there is Love . . . there is Joy . . . and there is Peace. All of that is the gift of the Christ to us.  We need only to embrace the promise.

Behold . . . “the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).  The greatest Gift of Christmas will not be under a tree.  It will be found in a cradle and on a cross.  His name is Jesus.