Wednesday, August 31, 2011
"Who knows whether you have not come...for such a time as this?"
Esther played her unexpected part in God's project to save people. Maybe God has plans like that for you.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
"Where Do We Go When We Die?"
I wrote this piece on that question three years ago. Hope you find it helpful.
Give Me Your Picks
In the comments below, give me your picks for:
- 2011 World Series winning team
- 2011 College football national champions
- 2012 Super Bowl winning team
Monday, August 29, 2011
"Hurricane Irene and the Death of 'Here'"
That's the title of this interesting slice of life from the Hurricane Irene experience by Annie Gottlieb.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Jesus' Alternative Universe
[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]
Matthew 16:21-28
In his book, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, Pastor David Platt tells about several people from underground house churches in Asian countries where it’s illegal to worship or witness for Jesus Christ.
Jesus talks about the strange alternative universe—the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God—in which people Jian and Lin live in today’s Gospel lesson.
It’s the world in which He calls us all to live, too. If that scares you, it probably should. It scares me. Yet there is no other place where true life can be found than in Jesus’ kingdom. Let’s learn more about it. Please pull out the Celebrate inserts and turn to the lesson, Matthew 16:21-28.
The lesson actually continues an incident we started looking at two weeks ago. Back then, you may recall, Peter confessed his belief that Jesus was “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
The first verse of today’s lesson follows: “From that time on, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”
How did Jesus “show” these things to the disciples, do you suppose? Pull out a pew Bible, please, and turn to page 609, to Luke 24:27. It’s part of Luke’s account of an encounter the risen Jesus had with two disciples on the road to a village called Emmaus on the first Easter Sunday. The disciples, blinded by their inability to believe in Jesus’ resurrection, don’t initially understand that the stranger with whom they’re speaking is Jesus. Then we’re told: “And beginning at Moses [in other words, starting at Genesis, the first of five Old Testament books traditionally attributed to Moses] and the Prophets [people like Isaiah and Jeremiah, whose prophetic ministries are recounted also in the Old Testament], [Jesus] expounded to them in all the Scriptures concerning Himself.”
Jesus always pointed to the God of the Old Testament to explain Who He was and what He was about. Jesus taught that everything that Christians confess about Him—from His virgin birth to His sacrificial death for our sin, from His kingship to His resurrection—was foretold in the Old Testament.
Peter though, wasn’t interested in what Jesus or the Old Testament had to say about the Messiah suffering, dying and rising. Peter wanted Jesus to be an earthly king who could produce results, like freeing him and his countrymen from Roman rule and their oppressive taxes. Peter wanted Jesus to make his life easy.
That’s why, in verse 22, we read: “Peter took [Jesus] aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This [suffering and crucifixion] must never happen to you.’”
Peter wanted to whittle the one he had just confessed to be the Messiah and the Son of the living God down to controllable dimensions. He wanted a king who would do things the way he thought that they should be done. He wanted a God who would wink at his favorite sins. Like Adam and Eve, Peter wanted to “be like God.”
You know, sometimes I go to God in prayer and say, "Now, Lord, what you need to do is thus and so. That will cause such and such a person to do what you and I both know they need to do. Then, I can step in and do this." Do you know what God's reaction to a "prayer" like that is? He laughs. We can't tell God how to do His job! If we do, our speech at that moment might be called many things, but it can't be called prayer.
Peter thought he was going to tell Jesus how to be God and King. Boy, was he wrong! Look at verse 23, for Jesus' reaction to Peter: “But [Jesus] turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Jesus uses the same word for Peter, the word Satan, which means accuser, that He used for the devil when the devil tempted Him in the wilderness. Back then, Satan tried to tempt Jesus to avoid the cross and take the easy way to becoming a king. No suffering. No cross. All Jesus had to do was worship Satan and Jesus could have the world He had come to reclaim for God. Jesus refused to take the easy way.
Like the devil, Peter wanted Jesus to take the easy way. The easy way, the way of going along to get along, is exactly what Jesus warned anyone who wanted to follow Him to avoid when He said, “The gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life.” What path are you and I following in life: the Jesus way or the easy way?
My mentor, Pastor Bruce Schein, used to tell us about counseling parents whose high school or college-age children were addicted to drugs. He told these parents that if they loved their children, they wouldn’t give the kids the money they knew the kids would just use to buy more drugs. “But we can’t stand the thought of our kids hating us and thinking they can’t turn to us for help,” they would say. “It’s too painful.” “How painful will it be,” he would ask them, “if you give them what they want and you lose them forever?”
Peter, like Satan before him, confronted Jesus with the same sort of choice that confronted those parents Pastor Schein counseled. It would have been far easier for Jesus to give people what they wanted, to be a king who led a revolution and tossed out the Romans, while leaving you and me imprisoned to sin and death. Jesus willingly endured the hatred of the whole human race and the punishment for sin we deserve so that He wouldn’t lose us forever, so that on Easter Sunday, when the Father raised Jesus from the dead, He could give new life to all who repent for sin and believe in Him.
It was by the hard way of the cross that Jesus won life for all who trust in Him. God’s saving grace in Christ is free, but we must give up life as it’s usually lived to be free to grab hold of it!
In verse 26, Jesus amplifies this point, when He says in part, “If any want to become My followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
To take up our cross is to acknowledge that our sins put Jesus on the cross. I love what Martin Luther says when, in The Small Catechism, he explains the meaning of Baptism for our daily lives:
When we live in daily repentance and renewal, we can confess with Jeremiah, writing in the Old Testament book of Lamentations: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning…”
But what does it mean to deny ourselves? It means to dare to trust God’s revealed word and will and not in our own reasoning or experiences. Psalm 118 says that “it is better to take refuge in the LORD than to put confidence in mortals [that includes ourselves].”
Denying ourselves means admitting that we need God not as we want Him to be, but God as He is, the God Who can only save us from sin and death when we give Him our unconditional surrender and when we sign over control over our lives to Jesus Christ.
There is a joy and a peace to a life like this which, I confess, I have only tasted at times, but which I want more than anything! In the New Testament book of Philippians, the apostle Paul writes, “To me, living is Christ and dying is gain.” (Talk about upside down!)
Peter rebuked Jesus because he was concerned about living and organizing life as he wanted it to be. He was a slave to his desire for personal freedom and control. He wanted God to bend to His plans rather than submitting to whatever God had in mind for him.
One of the reasons I have such an irrational fear of water and have never learned to swim, I’m sure, is because I’m afraid to let go and just…swim. I like the feeling of control I have on dry land. New Testament scholar N.T. Wright says that following Jesus is like learning to swim. “If you keep your foot on the bottom of the pool,” he says, “you’ll never work out how to do it.” If we are to follow Jesus into eternity, we’ll have to do something similar. Wright continues, “You have to lose your life to find it. What’s the use of keeping your feet on the bottom when the water gets too deep? You have the choice: swim or drown. Apparent safety, walking on the bottom, isn’t an option any longer.”
True living, whether in this life or in eternity, doesn’t belong to those who play it safe. It belongs to people who give control of their lives to Jesus—to people who deny themselves, who take up their crosses, and who follow Him.
This life, no matter how many years we live here, is just a warm-up lap for the one to come.
Let Jesus take control of your life now. Start living in Jesus’ alternative universe—the kingdom of heaven—today. Let Jesus call the shots. Let Jesus set your priorities. Do everything you can to tell the world about the new life that only those with faith in Jesus have.
You may not win any popularity contests for living in Jesus’ kingdom. You may not gain power or wealth or ease. But you will live in the power of the only one who can give you life, the only One Who will be left standing when sin and death have done their worst to us.
And as you live with Jesus each day, you will, as Jesus promises at the end of our Gospel lesson, “not taste death before [you] see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” You will see the imprint of Jesus on every moment that you breathe. And you will be alive.
Today, right now, this moment: Follow Jesus!
Matthew 16:21-28
In his book, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, Pastor David Platt tells about several people from underground house churches in Asian countries where it’s illegal to worship or witness for Jesus Christ.
- He mentions Jian, a “doctor who has left his successful health clinic and now risks his life and the lives of his wife and two kids in order to provide impoverished villages with medical care while secretly training [a] network of house-church leaders.”
- There’s Lin, a woman who teaches at a university where it’s illegal to talk about Jesus. She secretly meets with students interested in knowing more about Him though, risking the loss of her job in the process.
Jesus talks about the strange alternative universe—the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God—in which people Jian and Lin live in today’s Gospel lesson.
It’s the world in which He calls us all to live, too. If that scares you, it probably should. It scares me. Yet there is no other place where true life can be found than in Jesus’ kingdom. Let’s learn more about it. Please pull out the Celebrate inserts and turn to the lesson, Matthew 16:21-28.
The lesson actually continues an incident we started looking at two weeks ago. Back then, you may recall, Peter confessed his belief that Jesus was “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
The first verse of today’s lesson follows: “From that time on, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”
How did Jesus “show” these things to the disciples, do you suppose? Pull out a pew Bible, please, and turn to page 609, to Luke 24:27. It’s part of Luke’s account of an encounter the risen Jesus had with two disciples on the road to a village called Emmaus on the first Easter Sunday. The disciples, blinded by their inability to believe in Jesus’ resurrection, don’t initially understand that the stranger with whom they’re speaking is Jesus. Then we’re told: “And beginning at Moses [in other words, starting at Genesis, the first of five Old Testament books traditionally attributed to Moses] and the Prophets [people like Isaiah and Jeremiah, whose prophetic ministries are recounted also in the Old Testament], [Jesus] expounded to them in all the Scriptures concerning Himself.”
Jesus always pointed to the God of the Old Testament to explain Who He was and what He was about. Jesus taught that everything that Christians confess about Him—from His virgin birth to His sacrificial death for our sin, from His kingship to His resurrection—was foretold in the Old Testament.
Peter though, wasn’t interested in what Jesus or the Old Testament had to say about the Messiah suffering, dying and rising. Peter wanted Jesus to be an earthly king who could produce results, like freeing him and his countrymen from Roman rule and their oppressive taxes. Peter wanted Jesus to make his life easy.
That’s why, in verse 22, we read: “Peter took [Jesus] aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This [suffering and crucifixion] must never happen to you.’”
Peter wanted to whittle the one he had just confessed to be the Messiah and the Son of the living God down to controllable dimensions. He wanted a king who would do things the way he thought that they should be done. He wanted a God who would wink at his favorite sins. Like Adam and Eve, Peter wanted to “be like God.”
You know, sometimes I go to God in prayer and say, "Now, Lord, what you need to do is thus and so. That will cause such and such a person to do what you and I both know they need to do. Then, I can step in and do this." Do you know what God's reaction to a "prayer" like that is? He laughs. We can't tell God how to do His job! If we do, our speech at that moment might be called many things, but it can't be called prayer.
Peter thought he was going to tell Jesus how to be God and King. Boy, was he wrong! Look at verse 23, for Jesus' reaction to Peter: “But [Jesus] turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Jesus uses the same word for Peter, the word Satan, which means accuser, that He used for the devil when the devil tempted Him in the wilderness. Back then, Satan tried to tempt Jesus to avoid the cross and take the easy way to becoming a king. No suffering. No cross. All Jesus had to do was worship Satan and Jesus could have the world He had come to reclaim for God. Jesus refused to take the easy way.
Like the devil, Peter wanted Jesus to take the easy way. The easy way, the way of going along to get along, is exactly what Jesus warned anyone who wanted to follow Him to avoid when He said, “The gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life.” What path are you and I following in life: the Jesus way or the easy way?
My mentor, Pastor Bruce Schein, used to tell us about counseling parents whose high school or college-age children were addicted to drugs. He told these parents that if they loved their children, they wouldn’t give the kids the money they knew the kids would just use to buy more drugs. “But we can’t stand the thought of our kids hating us and thinking they can’t turn to us for help,” they would say. “It’s too painful.” “How painful will it be,” he would ask them, “if you give them what they want and you lose them forever?”
Peter, like Satan before him, confronted Jesus with the same sort of choice that confronted those parents Pastor Schein counseled. It would have been far easier for Jesus to give people what they wanted, to be a king who led a revolution and tossed out the Romans, while leaving you and me imprisoned to sin and death. Jesus willingly endured the hatred of the whole human race and the punishment for sin we deserve so that He wouldn’t lose us forever, so that on Easter Sunday, when the Father raised Jesus from the dead, He could give new life to all who repent for sin and believe in Him.
It was by the hard way of the cross that Jesus won life for all who trust in Him. God’s saving grace in Christ is free, but we must give up life as it’s usually lived to be free to grab hold of it!
In verse 26, Jesus amplifies this point, when He says in part, “If any want to become My followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
To take up our cross is to acknowledge that our sins put Jesus on the cross. I love what Martin Luther says when, in The Small Catechism, he explains the meaning of Baptism for our daily lives:
[Baptism] signifies that the old Adam in us, together with all sins and evil desires, should be drowned by daily sorrow for sin and repentance and be put to death, and that the new person should come forth every day and rise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.Just as Christ’s crucifixion led to His resurrection, daily taking up our crosses, confessing our sins, and submitting to the death of our sinful impulses and orientations brings us fresh new life every moment we walk with Jesus.
When we live in daily repentance and renewal, we can confess with Jeremiah, writing in the Old Testament book of Lamentations: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning…”
But what does it mean to deny ourselves? It means to dare to trust God’s revealed word and will and not in our own reasoning or experiences. Psalm 118 says that “it is better to take refuge in the LORD than to put confidence in mortals [that includes ourselves].”
Denying ourselves means admitting that we need God not as we want Him to be, but God as He is, the God Who can only save us from sin and death when we give Him our unconditional surrender and when we sign over control over our lives to Jesus Christ.
There is a joy and a peace to a life like this which, I confess, I have only tasted at times, but which I want more than anything! In the New Testament book of Philippians, the apostle Paul writes, “To me, living is Christ and dying is gain.” (Talk about upside down!)
Peter rebuked Jesus because he was concerned about living and organizing life as he wanted it to be. He was a slave to his desire for personal freedom and control. He wanted God to bend to His plans rather than submitting to whatever God had in mind for him.
One of the reasons I have such an irrational fear of water and have never learned to swim, I’m sure, is because I’m afraid to let go and just…swim. I like the feeling of control I have on dry land. New Testament scholar N.T. Wright says that following Jesus is like learning to swim. “If you keep your foot on the bottom of the pool,” he says, “you’ll never work out how to do it.” If we are to follow Jesus into eternity, we’ll have to do something similar. Wright continues, “You have to lose your life to find it. What’s the use of keeping your feet on the bottom when the water gets too deep? You have the choice: swim or drown. Apparent safety, walking on the bottom, isn’t an option any longer.”
True living, whether in this life or in eternity, doesn’t belong to those who play it safe. It belongs to people who give control of their lives to Jesus—to people who deny themselves, who take up their crosses, and who follow Him.
This life, no matter how many years we live here, is just a warm-up lap for the one to come.
Let Jesus take control of your life now. Start living in Jesus’ alternative universe—the kingdom of heaven—today. Let Jesus call the shots. Let Jesus set your priorities. Do everything you can to tell the world about the new life that only those with faith in Jesus have.
You may not win any popularity contests for living in Jesus’ kingdom. You may not gain power or wealth or ease. But you will live in the power of the only one who can give you life, the only One Who will be left standing when sin and death have done their worst to us.
And as you live with Jesus each day, you will, as Jesus promises at the end of our Gospel lesson, “not taste death before [you] see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” You will see the imprint of Jesus on every moment that you breathe. And you will be alive.
Today, right now, this moment: Follow Jesus!
Friday, August 26, 2011
Good Advice vs. Good News
Lutheran Christians have always taught that understanding the Biblical categories of Law and Gospel and the distinction between the two is central to getting what God is all about in His dealings with us.
My colleague, Pastor Dave Mann, who is on the pastoral staff of a congregation here in Ohio, but is deployed in Haiti, recently wrote this on his Facebook page:
The Gospel--the good news that Jesus Christ died and rose to give new life to all who repent and trust in Him--is something that comes to us. All we need to do is respond to it with trust. As Jesus puts it, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes [trusts] in Him may not perish but may have eternal life" (John 3:16).
The Law points us to our need of someone to save us from ourselves.
The Gospel points us to the Savior Who does just that.
My colleague, Pastor Dave Mann, who is on the pastoral staff of a congregation here in Ohio, but is deployed in Haiti, recently wrote this on his Facebook page:
During a vacation Sunday this month, I attended a non-Lutheran congregation and heard one of the best sermons rooted in Lutheran theology I've ever heard. Here was one of the points the preacher made.Jesus once said that nothing from God's law had been eliminated. The Law--embodied in the Ten Commandments--give expression to God's will for human beings. But we all know that none us can go a single day without violating one or all of the commandments. (In my case, I can't go a day without repeatedly violating the commandments.) The Law is good advice.
What's the difference between Good Advice and Good News? Good Advice is advice about what you should do in the future. It may be wise counsel, something you really ought to do, but the burden is then on you to put it into action. News, on the other hand, is an announcement about what has already taken place. It does not depend upon you to make it happen; it's already part of history -- you simply respond. Good News is what Jesus Christ brings to you.
Without ever dropping the name of Luther, Lutheranism, or theology, this preacher made a very clear distinction between Law and Gospel.
The Gospel--the good news that Jesus Christ died and rose to give new life to all who repent and trust in Him--is something that comes to us. All we need to do is respond to it with trust. As Jesus puts it, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes [trusts] in Him may not perish but may have eternal life" (John 3:16).
The Law points us to our need of someone to save us from ourselves.
The Gospel points us to the Savior Who does just that.
A Book Like No Other
If we prayerfully read the Bible with our wills open to God, God will give us a deepening faith in Christ and will build our characters.
Conversely, when I fail to read God's Word and pray each day, the wheels pop off my life, my priorities are put askew, I more readily fall prey to temptations and sin, my ego gets out of hand, and I panic in the face of life.
The Bible is like no other book. It is, as the New Testament book of 2 Timothy says literally, "God-breathed," inspired by God, filled with the same grace and power God used to call the universe into being and that He used to raise Jesus from the dead.
Enjoy these thoughts on the Bible from today's installment of Our Daily Bread.
Conversely, when I fail to read God's Word and pray each day, the wheels pop off my life, my priorities are put askew, I more readily fall prey to temptations and sin, my ego gets out of hand, and I panic in the face of life.
The Bible is like no other book. It is, as the New Testament book of 2 Timothy says literally, "God-breathed," inspired by God, filled with the same grace and power God used to call the universe into being and that He used to raise Jesus from the dead.
Enjoy these thoughts on the Bible from today's installment of Our Daily Bread.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Sarah and the Meaning of Life
[This was shared during the funeral for Sarah, a twenty year old member of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]
2 Timothy 4:6-8
John 14:1-7
The day after it was determined that Sarah had sustained her fifth relapse with cancer, I walked into her room on J5 at Children’s Hospital in Columbus. What I saw surprised me a little. Sarah was sitting in a chair, looking healthy and strong, eating like a horse! For a moment, I looked at her and said nothing. She looked back and then said, “I know. I’m complicated.”
The fact is that Sarah was not complicated. By that, I don’t mean that she was simple or lacking in sophistication. She was, in fact, wise beyond her years. She had a fantastic, insightful sense of humor. Even on the Sunday before her passing, barely able to talk, she threw out a few pithy remarks that had us chuckling. But she was not complicated.
She was intelligent, gifted, direct, loving toward everyone she met, and faithful to Jesus Christ. With Sarah, except when she didn't want you to know how badly she was feeling, what you saw was who she really was. And who she really was, was one of the most remarkable people I have ever known.
But her life was complicated by a deadly adversary with which she fought for nearly eight years. It brought her pain and difficulties few of us could imagine bearing for moments, let alone years.
Yet I feel safe in saying that the last thing Sarah would want you to remember when you think of her is cancer. Sarah never allowed cancer to define her.
That’s how she kept achieving despite the odds.
That’s how she graduated from high school with honors.
It’s how she kept up with her studies at Denison University and was on track to graduate in four years' time.
It’s how she sang without missing a note at her beloved grandmother’s funeral several years ago.
And it’s how she lit up a room by her mere presence.
And this morning I can tell you that while the cancer that took Sarah’s earthly life is dead forever, Sarah is alive today with God in eternity!
I don’t say that because eternal life with God is a given. It’s not. Jesus, in the passage from John we read a few moments ago, is trying to comfort His first followers. He had told them earlier that He was going to Jerusalem to lay down His life, to be executed on a cross, taking the punishment all of us deserve for our sin: death.
Jesus then tells them—and us—that He is going to prepare places for those who trust in Him in eternity. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says, “Believe in God, believe also in Me.” Later, Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you know Me, you will know My Father also.”
Sarah is in eternity because, thanks to the witness of her family at home and the witness of her family here at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, she believed in Jesus Christ. It is as simple and uncomplicated as that.
And Sarah lived her belief in Christ. When she had her second bone marrow transplant back in 2008, I was shuttling between Children's Hospital, where she was a patient, and The OSU Medical Center where, Dee, another member of our congregation was undergoing another procedure. After looking in on Dee, I went back to see how Sarah was doing. The first thing she asked when I walked into her room was, "How's Dee?"
I heard second-hand this week about a young woman who graduated from high school with Sarah. This young woman said that she was sometimes subjected to ridicule by “the popular kids.” But Sarah, one of the popular kids herself, always made a point of speaking with her and befriending her.
You see, when you’re secure in your relationship with the God Who came to die and rise for you and when you’ve faced down death with that Savior by your side, it changes both the way you live and the way you die. You don’t need to go along with the crowd. You saw that in Sarah.
Of course, none of this banishes our questions this morning. This side of eternity, we cannot know why one so young and so wonderful suffered so much or left us so soon.
Sarah told me about a year-and-a-half-ago during an interview for a county youth newsletter, “Sometimes I get angry with God. But I know that He’s always with me. And He helps me focus on the meaning of life.” If any of you feel angry with God today, it’s OK. God is big enough to take your anger and still love you. And, as Becky and I have discussed many times, you don’t get angry with a God you don’t believe is there. But, as was true for Sarah, even now God can help you focus on the meaning of your life.
And the meaning of life is also an uncomplicated thing. We are each meant to love God, love others, trust in Christ, and share Christ with others by our words and our actions so that they too can trust in Christ and have life through Him. These were all touchstones for Sarah’s life.
She wanted more, of course. She wanted to graduate from college. She wanted to counsel young people fighting things like cancer because she would understand their struggles and give them hope. Like you, I prayed often and fervently that God would make Sarah’s aspirations come to pass. It hasn’t turned out the way any of us prayed it would.
But Sarah always understood that was a possibility. Two years ago, from this pulpit, Sarah preached on Easter Sunday morning. At one point, she retold the legend of three trees that her father, Bryan, sometimes read for children’s programs here at Saint Matthew. Each tree had hopes for itself.
One tree hoped that it would become a treasure chest, filled with jewels and precious things. “On the outside,” the first tree said, “I will have intricate designs and everyone will be dazzled by my beauty.”
The second tree wanted to be a ship that carried kings and queens. “Everyone will feel safe in me because of the strength of my hull,” the second tree said.
The third tree wanted to grow to be the tallest, straightest tree in the forest. “Everyone will look at me on top of the hill, see my branches pointing up to heaven, and think of God,” the third tree said. “I will be the greatest tree of all time and people will always remember me.”
The first tree became, not a treasure chest, but a feeding trough. One night in Bethlehem, it held the greatest treasure the world has ever seen: God-in-the-flesh, Jesus, just after He was born.
The second tree was turned into a fishing boat that plied the Sea of Galilee where, one day, a ferocious storm frightened Jesus’ disciples. From its hull, Jesus, the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords, quieted a storm, inciting the disciples to ask, “Who is this whom even wind and waves obey?”
The third tree was chopped down and turned into lumber. Some of its boards were made into a cross on which Jesus was crucified. For a while, the third tree felt ugly and hateful. Yet on the third day after Jesus’ crucifixion, it felt differently. Jesus had risen from the dead and the empty timbers of His cross pointed then, as it still points today, to heaven. It reminds us that through faith in Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life, God gives to all who turn from sin and believe in Christ eternal life with God.
After recounting that legend in her Easter sermon, Sarah said that the story was “a reminder to me that God has a special path that each of us will journey in our lives.” She continued, “For me on this Easter Day, I remember the past six years of my life. Through those years I knew that my life was and still is in God’s hands and I need to trust in him just as Jesus did when he died on the cross.”
Sarah lived a life filled with meaning, short though it was. And her life pointed to Jesus. It still does.
All this past week, whenever I thought of Sarah, I remembered the words of Saint Paul to the young pastor Timothy, which we read a little while ago. Paul knew he would die soon. But he could say words I can easily hear Sarah saying, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”
Sarah’s fight has ended and Christ has won it for her. She is in the presence of God at this moment. Our fight remains before us and it will only be won, as Sarah’s was, by holding on tenaciously to the nail-scarred hands of the Savior Who died and rose for us. I pray desperately that we will all do that!
Bryan, Becky, and Stephen, to you and your extended family: We love you. We stand with you. We pray for you. In the days and years ahead, keep looking to Jesus. He will give your lives meaning. He will sustain you as He has sustained you these past eight years and as He sustained Sarah. And He will hold onto you all the way to an eternity filled with a never-ending reunion with Christ and with all who, like Sarah, have loved His appearing.
What a reunion that will be!
God bless you!
2 Timothy 4:6-8
John 14:1-7
The day after it was determined that Sarah had sustained her fifth relapse with cancer, I walked into her room on J5 at Children’s Hospital in Columbus. What I saw surprised me a little. Sarah was sitting in a chair, looking healthy and strong, eating like a horse! For a moment, I looked at her and said nothing. She looked back and then said, “I know. I’m complicated.”
The fact is that Sarah was not complicated. By that, I don’t mean that she was simple or lacking in sophistication. She was, in fact, wise beyond her years. She had a fantastic, insightful sense of humor. Even on the Sunday before her passing, barely able to talk, she threw out a few pithy remarks that had us chuckling. But she was not complicated.
She was intelligent, gifted, direct, loving toward everyone she met, and faithful to Jesus Christ. With Sarah, except when she didn't want you to know how badly she was feeling, what you saw was who she really was. And who she really was, was one of the most remarkable people I have ever known.
But her life was complicated by a deadly adversary with which she fought for nearly eight years. It brought her pain and difficulties few of us could imagine bearing for moments, let alone years.
Yet I feel safe in saying that the last thing Sarah would want you to remember when you think of her is cancer. Sarah never allowed cancer to define her.
That’s how she kept achieving despite the odds.
That’s how she graduated from high school with honors.
It’s how she kept up with her studies at Denison University and was on track to graduate in four years' time.
It’s how she sang without missing a note at her beloved grandmother’s funeral several years ago.
And it’s how she lit up a room by her mere presence.
And this morning I can tell you that while the cancer that took Sarah’s earthly life is dead forever, Sarah is alive today with God in eternity!
I don’t say that because eternal life with God is a given. It’s not. Jesus, in the passage from John we read a few moments ago, is trying to comfort His first followers. He had told them earlier that He was going to Jerusalem to lay down His life, to be executed on a cross, taking the punishment all of us deserve for our sin: death.
Jesus then tells them—and us—that He is going to prepare places for those who trust in Him in eternity. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says, “Believe in God, believe also in Me.” Later, Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you know Me, you will know My Father also.”
Sarah is in eternity because, thanks to the witness of her family at home and the witness of her family here at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, she believed in Jesus Christ. It is as simple and uncomplicated as that.
And Sarah lived her belief in Christ. When she had her second bone marrow transplant back in 2008, I was shuttling between Children's Hospital, where she was a patient, and The OSU Medical Center where, Dee, another member of our congregation was undergoing another procedure. After looking in on Dee, I went back to see how Sarah was doing. The first thing she asked when I walked into her room was, "How's Dee?"
I heard second-hand this week about a young woman who graduated from high school with Sarah. This young woman said that she was sometimes subjected to ridicule by “the popular kids.” But Sarah, one of the popular kids herself, always made a point of speaking with her and befriending her.
You see, when you’re secure in your relationship with the God Who came to die and rise for you and when you’ve faced down death with that Savior by your side, it changes both the way you live and the way you die. You don’t need to go along with the crowd. You saw that in Sarah.
Of course, none of this banishes our questions this morning. This side of eternity, we cannot know why one so young and so wonderful suffered so much or left us so soon.
Sarah told me about a year-and-a-half-ago during an interview for a county youth newsletter, “Sometimes I get angry with God. But I know that He’s always with me. And He helps me focus on the meaning of life.” If any of you feel angry with God today, it’s OK. God is big enough to take your anger and still love you. And, as Becky and I have discussed many times, you don’t get angry with a God you don’t believe is there. But, as was true for Sarah, even now God can help you focus on the meaning of your life.
And the meaning of life is also an uncomplicated thing. We are each meant to love God, love others, trust in Christ, and share Christ with others by our words and our actions so that they too can trust in Christ and have life through Him. These were all touchstones for Sarah’s life.
She wanted more, of course. She wanted to graduate from college. She wanted to counsel young people fighting things like cancer because she would understand their struggles and give them hope. Like you, I prayed often and fervently that God would make Sarah’s aspirations come to pass. It hasn’t turned out the way any of us prayed it would.
But Sarah always understood that was a possibility. Two years ago, from this pulpit, Sarah preached on Easter Sunday morning. At one point, she retold the legend of three trees that her father, Bryan, sometimes read for children’s programs here at Saint Matthew. Each tree had hopes for itself.
One tree hoped that it would become a treasure chest, filled with jewels and precious things. “On the outside,” the first tree said, “I will have intricate designs and everyone will be dazzled by my beauty.”
The second tree wanted to be a ship that carried kings and queens. “Everyone will feel safe in me because of the strength of my hull,” the second tree said.
The third tree wanted to grow to be the tallest, straightest tree in the forest. “Everyone will look at me on top of the hill, see my branches pointing up to heaven, and think of God,” the third tree said. “I will be the greatest tree of all time and people will always remember me.”
The first tree became, not a treasure chest, but a feeding trough. One night in Bethlehem, it held the greatest treasure the world has ever seen: God-in-the-flesh, Jesus, just after He was born.
The second tree was turned into a fishing boat that plied the Sea of Galilee where, one day, a ferocious storm frightened Jesus’ disciples. From its hull, Jesus, the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords, quieted a storm, inciting the disciples to ask, “Who is this whom even wind and waves obey?”
The third tree was chopped down and turned into lumber. Some of its boards were made into a cross on which Jesus was crucified. For a while, the third tree felt ugly and hateful. Yet on the third day after Jesus’ crucifixion, it felt differently. Jesus had risen from the dead and the empty timbers of His cross pointed then, as it still points today, to heaven. It reminds us that through faith in Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life, God gives to all who turn from sin and believe in Christ eternal life with God.
After recounting that legend in her Easter sermon, Sarah said that the story was “a reminder to me that God has a special path that each of us will journey in our lives.” She continued, “For me on this Easter Day, I remember the past six years of my life. Through those years I knew that my life was and still is in God’s hands and I need to trust in him just as Jesus did when he died on the cross.”
Sarah lived a life filled with meaning, short though it was. And her life pointed to Jesus. It still does.
All this past week, whenever I thought of Sarah, I remembered the words of Saint Paul to the young pastor Timothy, which we read a little while ago. Paul knew he would die soon. But he could say words I can easily hear Sarah saying, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”
Sarah’s fight has ended and Christ has won it for her. She is in the presence of God at this moment. Our fight remains before us and it will only be won, as Sarah’s was, by holding on tenaciously to the nail-scarred hands of the Savior Who died and rose for us. I pray desperately that we will all do that!
Bryan, Becky, and Stephen, to you and your extended family: We love you. We stand with you. We pray for you. In the days and years ahead, keep looking to Jesus. He will give your lives meaning. He will sustain you as He has sustained you these past eight years and as He sustained Sarah. And He will hold onto you all the way to an eternity filled with a never-ending reunion with Christ and with all who, like Sarah, have loved His appearing.
What a reunion that will be!
God bless you!
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
So, You Think You Know the Truth About Marie Antoinette?
According to Juliet Grey, you may not.
It seems that Antoinette was (and remains) the victim of numerous falsehoods noised around in the blogs and the 24-hour news channels...er, in the newspapers...of her time.
Often, it seems, we forget that the public figures we excoriate are, first of all, human beings, and second, that the things we "know" about them may not be true at all.
God's eighth commandment is, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." Jesus makes clear that our "neighbor" is any other human being. In his explanation of the eighth commandment in The Small Catechism, Martin Luther says:
We are to fear and love God so that we do not betray, slander, or lie about our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain his actions in the kindest way.Luther himself, of course, would have done well to remember the commandment's meaning when he debated. But it doesn't make his explanation any less valid.
I've probably been as guilty of saying nasty things and asserting unproven "facts" about public figures as The National Tattler.
The law--even God's law--can't clear away our guilt or help us chart new courses when it comes to the eighth commandment, any more than it can with our violation of any of the other commandments.
But God's law, His commands, can point us to the things for which we need to repent, driving us to seek the forgiveness God offers to all through Jesus Christ. The charity (what the Bible calls, grace) we find in Christ brings not only forgiveness, but the presence of God's Holy Spirit in our lives. The Spirit, in turn, can help us grow in God's grace. The Holy Spirit can teach us to defend, speak well of, and explain the actions of others...can cause us even to question the myths we might believe about public figures, historical and contemporary.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't criticize politicians, of course. But it does mean we need to ask for God's help in doing so with civility, charity, and even love. As some prominent contemporary media types could tell you, habitual slander, gossip, or lying about others and the bad reputations they create can sometimes boomerang on us. If we live by the ethic of "where there's smoke, there must be fire," we must not be surprised when others believe the smoke people may blow about us.
And about that dismissive quote, "Let them eat cake," falsely ascribed to Marie Antoinette, I have to admit that I've always liked cake!
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
The Best Reunion: I Pray It for You
From 2 Timothy 4:6-8, in the New Testament, words from the first century preacher and teacher Paul to a young pastor:
I pray that timeless, eternal moment for you!
More thoughts here.
As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation [a drink offering], and the time of my departure [death] has come. 7I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.I sometimes let the rush of everyday events and even the love I share with my wife, my family, and my friends, get in the way of the fact that nothing is as important as my relationship with Jesus Christ...and that no reunion is more to be anticipated than the one that will come when, by God's grace through my faith in Christ, I get to see Jesus face to face in eternity.
I pray that timeless, eternal moment for you!
More thoughts here.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Heart Cath Report (Goofball Edition)
The video speaks for itself, I suppose. (No, I'm not referring to how plain it makes it that I'm a goofball.)
I had a heart attack in June, 2010, initially undiagnosed. It damaged 40% of my heart. After the diagnosis was made at Mid-Ohio Cardiology in Columbus, I underwent a heart catheterization at Riverside Methodist Hospital, also in Columbus.
Today's cath procedure was indicated by a stress test I took last week. It indicated a slow flow of blood in the heart. The cath showed no blockages.
However, my heart has not bounced back as fully as the doc would have liked. So, in October, as a precautionary measure, a defibrillator will be implanted in my chest. Should any arrhythmias develop (there have never been any previously), the defib will send electrical impulses to ensure that the heart beats uninterruptedly.
Got home after dinner with Ann at Cosi's. Relieved and happy. Thanks to everyone for their prayers. God bless!
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Insecurity and Egotism
“Insecurity results from egotism,” someone wrote on Twitter recently.
That single sentence so jarred me the moment I read it that I neither responded to nor noted the name of the writer. The words have made me think and I’ve concluded that while insecurity may have many sources, personal vanity is definitely one of them.
Taking myself as a test case, I know that many of my insecurities—whether over talking too much, saying the wrong things, getting a sermon or project I’m planning just “right,” meeting new people, wondering whether I’ve worked hard enough each day, or, very specifically, going to my fortieth high school reunion as I did several weeks ago—are born of a desire to make the “right” impressions on people, to be seen as competent and proficient and a “good guy,” to please people, to be esteemed.
How stupid of me!
As a Christian, I believe that, through Christ, we know that God loves us as we are, leaving us with nothing to prove, assured that He gives us His Spirit to help believers in Him to become all that we were meant to be, no matter what other people may think of us.
I know that, in reality, I only play to a gracious audience of One. But too often, my vain desire for affirmation from those whose word about my life ultimately doesn’t matter can cause me to quake in fear instead of living with love and abandon.
God, help me to get over myself and get out of the way as Christ lives in me.
[By the way, my reunion was a blast!]
That single sentence so jarred me the moment I read it that I neither responded to nor noted the name of the writer. The words have made me think and I’ve concluded that while insecurity may have many sources, personal vanity is definitely one of them.
Taking myself as a test case, I know that many of my insecurities—whether over talking too much, saying the wrong things, getting a sermon or project I’m planning just “right,” meeting new people, wondering whether I’ve worked hard enough each day, or, very specifically, going to my fortieth high school reunion as I did several weeks ago—are born of a desire to make the “right” impressions on people, to be seen as competent and proficient and a “good guy,” to please people, to be esteemed.
How stupid of me!
As a Christian, I believe that, through Christ, we know that God loves us as we are, leaving us with nothing to prove, assured that He gives us His Spirit to help believers in Him to become all that we were meant to be, no matter what other people may think of us.
I know that, in reality, I only play to a gracious audience of One. But too often, my vain desire for affirmation from those whose word about my life ultimately doesn’t matter can cause me to quake in fear instead of living with love and abandon.
God, help me to get over myself and get out of the way as Christ lives in me.
[By the way, my reunion was a blast!]
Why God Doesn't Overwhelm Us
Why does God veil His glory in a crucified Savior? Why doesn’t He just come on strong and overwhelm us like a Super Bowl halftime show?
The simple truth is that we couldn’t handle that kind of revelation of God. Exodus 20, in the Old Testament recounts God giving the Ten Commandments to His people Israel through Moses. It was an event accompanied by stunning signs of God's presence. Just after the giving of the commandments, Exodus says:
Even in Jesus, the suffering servant, though, Peter and others who spent time with Him, saw the almighty, perfect God and their distance from Him. Once, Jesus performed a miraculous sign. Peter was overwhelmed and said, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
But Jesus never goes away from those who honestly submit to and trust in Him. God is holy and infinitely powerful. But God also loves us. That's why He brings salvation "from below," coming to us as a Servant, rather than from above as a conqueror. It was only as a servant Who dies on a cross that He could take our punishment for sin, conquering sin and death through His servanthood.
The simple truth is that we couldn’t handle that kind of revelation of God. Exodus 20, in the Old Testament recounts God giving the Ten Commandments to His people Israel through Moses. It was an event accompanied by stunning signs of God's presence. Just after the giving of the commandments, Exodus says:
When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die." (Exodus 20:18-19)Human beings in the unveiled presence of God see their distance from God’s holiness, perfection, and power. Instead of overwhelming us, God comes to us in the God-Man Jesus, bringing forgiveness and peace with God to all who believe in Him. It’s Jesus Who makes it possible for us to approach God as our Father and it’s in Jesus’ Name—and not in our own merit or power—that we can come to God in prayer.
Even in Jesus, the suffering servant, though, Peter and others who spent time with Him, saw the almighty, perfect God and their distance from Him. Once, Jesus performed a miraculous sign. Peter was overwhelmed and said, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
But Jesus never goes away from those who honestly submit to and trust in Him. God is holy and infinitely powerful. But God also loves us. That's why He brings salvation "from below," coming to us as a Servant, rather than from above as a conqueror. It was only as a servant Who dies on a cross that He could take our punishment for sin, conquering sin and death through His servanthood.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Chestnut Ridge Park
My wife and I were feeling bummed on Monday night because a heart catheterization I must undergo will prevent us from taking a long-planned vacation. (Ann took responsibility for the planning, arranging for us to visit friends Michigan and Minnesota and a crossing of Lake Michigan via car ferry from Ludington, Michigan to Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
But a recent nuclear stress test showed that there is a minor issue affecting blood flow to the heart at the site of a stent implanted in my heart after I suffered a heart attack last year.
The catheterization is a precautionary measure. The cardiologist's assistant says that absent my heart attack, the issue at hand wouldn't warrant a heart cath.
But my cardiologist is very thorough. Despite our disappointment over the scrubbed vacation, we appreciate the doctor's thoroughness.
So, on Monday evening, we went to Chestnut Ridge Park near Carroll, Ohio, one of the great parks in the Columbus Metropolitan system. With temps in the 70s at the time, there was a breeze that held the promise of autumn. We briefly walked a trail, then settled on a deck next to a large pond. It was beautiful to look at and wonderful to listen to the silence. I also enjoyed watching the many fish swimming just below the pond surface. (Only those under 15 and those over 60 can fish there.)
It reminded me again of what beautiful world God created.
It was perfect.
Your prayers for my health would be appreciated, especially if it's determined that a new stent will have to be implanted.
(By the way, the close-up at the beginning of the video is my attempt to show all those fish. If you look closely, you can sort of make them out.)
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Question
Who do you think will represent the National and American Leagues in this year's World Series?
Saturday, August 13, 2011
The Kindness Outreach Chronicles (Part 6)
A group of Saint Matthew folks went out again today for a Saturday morning Kindness Outreach. Once more today, we gave away 210 bottles of cold water to folks in cars stopped at traffic lights, walkers, a fellow trimming hedges at a nearby house, and one dog. (More on the dog later.)
The writer of the New Testament book of Ephesians reminds followers of Jesus Christ that their relationship with Christ and the eternity with God that Jesus offers comes not because we're good or virtuous people nor for any good things we might do. "For by grace [that is, God's charity] you have been saved [from sin, death, and hell] through faith" (Ephesians 2:8). We are saved by God's grace, which we claim as our own when we dare to trust Jesus' promise to erase the death-dealing power of sin over our lives AND that He will give us new lives with God.
Kindness Outreaches present a great picture of how "grace through faith" works. We saw it again today.
The water we give is free. All people need to do is trust us enough to take it.
But some don't. Of course, we don't force the water on them any more than Christ forces Himself or His grace on anyone. Until the light turns green, when handing out water would entail stopping traffic, something we don't do, people can change their minds. Similarly, as long as we draw breath or until Jesus comes back, we can--like the thief on the cross who knew his sin, but turned to Jesus for forgiveness and the promise of paradise with God--we can turn to Christ and live. But why wait? The blessing of being sustained and accompanied, actually being dwelt in, by Jesus in this life are too good to pass up!
Few of the people who receive or reject the bottled water we offer them on Saturdays will ever think of themselves as participants in a living parable about how salvation works. But we do hope that the water and the little cards that accompany each bottle will help them think, "I wonder why people who believe in Jesus are out giving away something for free on a Saturday morning?"
If they are spiritually disconnected people, asking that question could lead them on a road to Christ. That's what we pray will happen because it's only through Jesus that the free gifts of forgiveness and life with God can come to a person. As Jesus says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6).
So, what happened today?
No Kindness Outreach next Saturday. But we'll do another one on Saturday, August 27.
The writer of the New Testament book of Ephesians reminds followers of Jesus Christ that their relationship with Christ and the eternity with God that Jesus offers comes not because we're good or virtuous people nor for any good things we might do. "For by grace [that is, God's charity] you have been saved [from sin, death, and hell] through faith" (Ephesians 2:8). We are saved by God's grace, which we claim as our own when we dare to trust Jesus' promise to erase the death-dealing power of sin over our lives AND that He will give us new lives with God.
Kindness Outreaches present a great picture of how "grace through faith" works. We saw it again today.
The water we give is free. All people need to do is trust us enough to take it.
But some don't. Of course, we don't force the water on them any more than Christ forces Himself or His grace on anyone. Until the light turns green, when handing out water would entail stopping traffic, something we don't do, people can change their minds. Similarly, as long as we draw breath or until Jesus comes back, we can--like the thief on the cross who knew his sin, but turned to Jesus for forgiveness and the promise of paradise with God--we can turn to Christ and live. But why wait? The blessing of being sustained and accompanied, actually being dwelt in, by Jesus in this life are too good to pass up!
Few of the people who receive or reject the bottled water we offer them on Saturdays will ever think of themselves as participants in a living parable about how salvation works. But we do hope that the water and the little cards that accompany each bottle will help them think, "I wonder why people who believe in Jesus are out giving away something for free on a Saturday morning?"
If they are spiritually disconnected people, asking that question could lead them on a road to Christ. That's what we pray will happen because it's only through Jesus that the free gifts of forgiveness and life with God can come to a person. As Jesus says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6).
So, what happened today?
- A woman was walking with her dog. She said that she wasn't thirsty, but that her dog was and loved to catch water from a bottle as she poured it. My wife Ann said, "Mark, you've got to get a picture of this!" I did. It's below. After Ann and Fran had a conversation with the woman, Ann told her, "Here's a bottle for you." She took it and said goodbye to us all as she walked on.
- Jesse, a college sophomore from our congregation, took water to the occupants of a stopped vehicle. A little kid offered the entire allowance he had just received in exchange. Even kids find it hard to fathom getting something for nothing...which is why the good news about Jesus is so hard to accept and so fantastic to receive!
- A woman stopped at a light on Hunter Street, her windows rolled down, had initially turned down my offer of water. But I persisted. "Really?" I asked. "It's cold and wet and free!" She laughed and said, "All right." She took the bottle and thanked me.
- A woman in her sixties wasn't going to take a bottle. "You're not going to get thirsty?" I asked her. "OK," she said, "but just one."
- Another woman was skeptical. "What's the catch?" she asked. "Nothing," I told her, handing a bottle to her and telling her, "Have a good day."
- A woman told Fran and Ann that she didn't need water, but wondered if she could make a donation to our work. They said, "No, thank you." We never take money.
- A young mom happily accepted water and told us, "This will get me through the drive home!"
- Three guys involved in lawn care were bunched together in the cab of their truck, the first vehicle in a line at the red light. At first, they refused our offer. But as they saw us giving away water to people behind them, they evidently thought better of it. "Hey!" the guy riding shotgun called out, "Could we have some of that water?" Sometimes all we need to take the leap of faith or trust is the example of others living with faith or trust.
No Kindness Outreach next Saturday. But we'll do another one on Saturday, August 27.
Friday, August 12, 2011
On Making Plans
"Plans are the prerogative of God; obedience is the privilege of His children." (Luis Palau, The Moment to Shout: God's Way to Face Walls)
Monday, August 08, 2011
A Few Thoughts on the Psalms
[This week, as we together read the Bible in a year here at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, we're moving into the Psalms. Below is the text of what will be both a handout for the discussion groups on Wednesday and an insert in this coming Sunday's bulletin.]
The Psalms are sometimes referred to as “liturgical poetry.” Leitourgia, the word that is transliterated into English as liturgy, literally means “work of the people.” To worship God for all His goodness, grace, and power is the work of God’s people and it’s something we’re to do 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But there are special times when God’s people come together to worship God. The Psalms, compiled over many centuries, are words that the Jews of ancient times and of today, have used for their public worship for centuries. As people who have, through Jesus Christ and our faith in Him, been made part of God’s family, the Psalms are for us, too.
Traditionally, the largest share of the Psalms has been attributed to David, Israel’s second king. Others are said to be written by people like Moses and Asaph. Some are ascribed to nobody in particular.
Who wrote the 150 psalms in this book isn’t as important as what each of them does. Basically, they function to help us have an honest conversation with God, no matter what our circumstances, feelings, or needs.
According to one prominent scholar, Claus Westermann, there are ten types of psalms:
• The Community Psalm of Lament
• The Community Psalm of Narrative Praise
• The Individual Psalm of Lament
• The Individual Psalm of Narrative Praise
• The Psalm of Descriptive Praise or Hymn
• Creation Psalms
• Liturgical Psalms
• Royal Psalms
• Enthronement Psalms
• Wisdom Psalms
In general terms, lament psalms give voice to feelings we have in times of trouble. They could arise from personal suffering and grief or national calamities. Examples of community lament include Psalms 44, 74, and 79. Examples of individual lament are Psalms 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and many others.
Psalms of narrative praise speak of God’s greatness through the narration of specific events. Examples of community praise include Psalms 106, 124, and 129. Examples of individual praise are Psalms 9, 18, 30, and many others.
Psalms of descriptive praise give honor to God while describing His blessings. They had a special place in ancient Jewish worship. Some in this category include Psalms 29, 33, 65, and 145-150, among many others.
Creation psalms speak of God as the Sovereign Who created and rules over His creation. They praise God as Creator. Psalms 8, 104, and 139 fall into this category.
As to liturgical psalms, Westermann says that those psalms referred to as “liturgies…are clearly shaped by…a combination of liturgical speech with liturgical actions.” Most commonly, this involves what we call antiphonies, when a worship leader or one group issues a call and all in the congregation or portions of the congregation respond. Good examples are Psalms 66 and 107. There are subcategories in this grouping like Pilgrimage Songs, sung by people as they processed or traveled to the temple in Jerusalem; Songs of Zion, which were probably Pilgrimage Songs specifically asking God to protect Jerusalem from attack; Psalms of Blessing, special benedictions for those who had worshiped in Jerusalem during a festival and were returning to their homes; and Entrance Instructions, dealing with entering the sanctuary during a festival.
Royal psalms have to do with the rulers of the nation, while enthronement psalms hail God as the one and only true King!
Wisdom psalms are liturgical poetry that present wisdom from God, akin to the book of Proverbs. Examples include Psalms 37, 49, and 112.
The word psalm refers to a sacred song or hymn. There are psalms in other books of the Old Testament and the categories into which scholars sometimes divide the book of Psalms can overlap.
But hopefully, this overview is helpful.
The Psalms are sometimes referred to as “liturgical poetry.” Leitourgia, the word that is transliterated into English as liturgy, literally means “work of the people.” To worship God for all His goodness, grace, and power is the work of God’s people and it’s something we’re to do 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But there are special times when God’s people come together to worship God. The Psalms, compiled over many centuries, are words that the Jews of ancient times and of today, have used for their public worship for centuries. As people who have, through Jesus Christ and our faith in Him, been made part of God’s family, the Psalms are for us, too.
Traditionally, the largest share of the Psalms has been attributed to David, Israel’s second king. Others are said to be written by people like Moses and Asaph. Some are ascribed to nobody in particular.
Who wrote the 150 psalms in this book isn’t as important as what each of them does. Basically, they function to help us have an honest conversation with God, no matter what our circumstances, feelings, or needs.
According to one prominent scholar, Claus Westermann, there are ten types of psalms:
• The Community Psalm of Lament
• The Community Psalm of Narrative Praise
• The Individual Psalm of Lament
• The Individual Psalm of Narrative Praise
• The Psalm of Descriptive Praise or Hymn
• Creation Psalms
• Liturgical Psalms
• Royal Psalms
• Enthronement Psalms
• Wisdom Psalms
In general terms, lament psalms give voice to feelings we have in times of trouble. They could arise from personal suffering and grief or national calamities. Examples of community lament include Psalms 44, 74, and 79. Examples of individual lament are Psalms 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and many others.
Psalms of narrative praise speak of God’s greatness through the narration of specific events. Examples of community praise include Psalms 106, 124, and 129. Examples of individual praise are Psalms 9, 18, 30, and many others.
Psalms of descriptive praise give honor to God while describing His blessings. They had a special place in ancient Jewish worship. Some in this category include Psalms 29, 33, 65, and 145-150, among many others.
Creation psalms speak of God as the Sovereign Who created and rules over His creation. They praise God as Creator. Psalms 8, 104, and 139 fall into this category.
As to liturgical psalms, Westermann says that those psalms referred to as “liturgies…are clearly shaped by…a combination of liturgical speech with liturgical actions.” Most commonly, this involves what we call antiphonies, when a worship leader or one group issues a call and all in the congregation or portions of the congregation respond. Good examples are Psalms 66 and 107. There are subcategories in this grouping like Pilgrimage Songs, sung by people as they processed or traveled to the temple in Jerusalem; Songs of Zion, which were probably Pilgrimage Songs specifically asking God to protect Jerusalem from attack; Psalms of Blessing, special benedictions for those who had worshiped in Jerusalem during a festival and were returning to their homes; and Entrance Instructions, dealing with entering the sanctuary during a festival.
Royal psalms have to do with the rulers of the nation, while enthronement psalms hail God as the one and only true King!
Wisdom psalms are liturgical poetry that present wisdom from God, akin to the book of Proverbs. Examples include Psalms 37, 49, and 112.
The word psalm refers to a sacred song or hymn. There are psalms in other books of the Old Testament and the categories into which scholars sometimes divide the book of Psalms can overlap.
But hopefully, this overview is helpful.
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