Holy Week

It's Maundy Thursday, and we're preparing to sit in the Upper Room and ponder the meaning of the Bread and Cup. Tomorrow we'll be walking the path of the cross at Breakheart Reservation, and on early Eastern morn is the Sunrise Service. In amid the activity we find ourselves thinking (I hope) of why Jesus came to die. I used to view Jesus as a martyr, hated for his teachings. I then came to understand the cross in terms of sacrifice...for sin...for me. The just (Jesus) for the unjust (me again). And this changed my life. Theologians call this the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. In simple terms, Jesus died in our behalf, taking our place, taking the punishment we deserved. God is just and does not overlook sin. It must be punished--and was--upon the cross. And the resurrection seals our salvation. The Father is merciful because the Son died for us...and that makes life worth living and death nothing to dread.

Set free!

Romans 6:18 says, "Having been freed from sin, we have become slaves of righteousness." This brings to mind a reflection by Thomas Merton..."The mind is the prisoner of conventional ideas, and the will that is the captive of its own desire cannot accept the seeds of an unfamiliar truth and a supernatural desire. For how can I receive the seeds of freedom if I am in love with slavery, and how can I cherish the desire of God if I am filled with another and an opposite desire? God cannot plant His liberty in me because I am a prisoner and I do not even desire to be free. I love my captivity and I imprison myself in the desire for the things that I hate, and I have hardened my heart against true love. I must learn therefore to let go of the familiar and the usual and consent to what is new and unknown to me. I must learn to 'leave myself' in order to find myself by yielding to the love of God. If I were looking for God, every event and every moment would sow, in my will, grains of His life that would spring up one day in a tremendous harvest."

The Church of AA

Alcoholics Anonymous is a kind of grass-roots church. People attend on a regular basis and seek help from Above; they confess their sins and find life-affirming fellowship. When an addict begins, he/she is encouraged to do "90 meetings in 90 days" and to get a "sponsor", i.e. a mentor who's "been there." This is all very good, and something the Church needs to model. I wish people who go to church would approach worship with the same sense of urgency as those who attend AA meetings. We are addicted to sin, and desperately need pardon and new direction, which is available. We have much to learn from AA and the 12 Steps, which apply to daily living, regardless of whether you're addicted to a substance or activity, or not. I did a sermon series on these steps, and my congregation "got it"; they realized that the principles of AA are life-building blocks for an effective/full life. Let's make sure we make a meeting this Sunday!

Super Bowl Sunday

I like football, but I am frustrated at the hype over the Super Bowl. Some act like it ought to be a national holiday, and many church goers skip church to prepare for the game...even though their team isn't playing. This is an indication of misplaced priorities. Churches with evening worship either cancel or have a Super Bowl party. When I lived in Texas, I got the impression that football was the state religion. Well, that's my rant. Next time I'll keep it positive.

Are you called?

Seminarians facing ordination encounter the question of calling, which vicinage councils usually ask about. Being trained, gifted, and ready to do the work doesn't seem enough; yet how does one define and defend a "calling"? A few years ago I ready Gary Friesen's book Decision Making and the Will of God, which is the best study I've seen on the subject, and I'm in the process of reading The Call by Os Guiness. When Friesen came before his vicinage council they weren't pleased that he hadn't received an inner "impression," yet (and I mentioned this to him when he was at GCTS) what might they have said if he said "An angel came to me and told me to be a pastor"? There are two options: special revelation (the Scriptures) and direct revelation (God or an angel appearing to an individual), but nothing about "impressions" in Scripture, which is very subjective. Friesen's council even had trouble defining the "call to the ministry" when he asked for a definition. I decided to give it a try... A calling is a vocation lived out as a willing, committed response to God's summons based on a godly desire to serve, prayerfully verified by others. This may help somewhat, but ultimately we have the God-given wisdom, freedom, and responsibility to decide how to live for Him.

The origin of "Footprints"?

Was Spurgeon the Original Inspiration for the “Footprints” Poem? The opening paragraph of a Spurgeon sermon from 1880: Were you ever in a new trouble, one which was so strange that you felt that a similar trial had never happened to you and, moreover, you dreamt that such a temptation had never assailed anybody else? I should not wonder if that was the thought of your troubled heart. And did you ever walk out upon that lonely desert island upon which you were wrecked and say, “I am alone—alone—ALONE—nobody was ever here before me”? And did you suddenly pull up short as you noticed, in the sand, the footprints of a man? I remember right well passing through that experience—and when I looked, lo, it was not merely the footprints of a man that I saw, but I thought I knew whose feet had left those imprints. They were the marks of One who had been crucified, for there was the print of the nails. So I thought to myself, “If He has been here, it is no longer a desert island. As His blessed feet once trod this wilderness-way, it blossoms now like the rose and it becomes to my troubled spirit as a very garden of the Lord!” —Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “The Education of the Sons of God” (Metropolitan Tabernacle: June 10, 1880).

The Suffering of the Innocent

"The suffering of the innocent is less of a problem to me very often than that of the wicked. it sounds absurd: but I've met so many innocent sufferers who seem to be gladly offering their pain to Christ as part of the Atonement, so patient, so meek, even so at peace, and so unselfish that we can hardly doubt they are being, as St. Paul says, 'made perfect by suffering.' On the other hand, I meet selfish egoists in whom suffering seems to produce only resentment, hate, blasphemy, and more egoism. They are the real problem." -C.S. Lewis