Good Friday – Where is the Hope?

I have always wondered why this day is good…

I know all the theological reasons, how Christ had to die to atone for my sins, and all of that, but really, a man died on a tree and we call it good.  Is it like Genesis where God created and calls it good?  How can the death of a man, even when one dies so another does not be good?

The answer is many fold, and one I can not possibly explain, however I can show you the hope of Good Friday in a man named Nicodemus.

Now all of you probably have heard the name Nicodemus. He is the Pharisee who came to Jesus under the cover of darkness to ask him some questions.  Nic thought Jesus was a wise teacher, that is why he came to ask him questions, but why under the cover of darkness, why at night?  Nic was a part of the Jewish High Council and could not be seen asking Jesus questions, people would talk. They would think that Nic believed in Jesus and what the people were saying about him.  What were the people saying about him?

Jesus told Nic that one must be born from above, and Nic could not understand, a teacher of the law, yet does not understand the underlying principle of the faith…

So where is the hope?  Stay with me.  For most of us, this interaction in the 3rd chapter of John is all we remember of Nic.  He came to Jesus got really confused and then disappeared.  Have you seen this?  Some one comes to you and asks you questions about God, and then they are outta here!  You do not see them, maybe they go away confused, or not.  Or have you had people visit the church you attend and then never come back?  Why? Nic left Jesus and was never seen again, right?

Wrong!

Nic shows back up, in the meeting of the Jewish High Council in Chapter 7.  Now the High Council sent the temple guards out to arrest Jesus, but when they find him in the crowd, the crowd is supporting Jesus, so the temple guards do not arrest him.  Nicodemus speaks up and says the law does not convict a person without a trial.  The High Council was convicting Jesus, and Nic took a stand for Jesus.  Did you see it?  The Hope?

Is that it for Nic?  No sir.  One more time in the Gospel of John.  Chapter 19, after Jesus has been crucified, Joseph goes and asks Pilate for the body, and in John’s gospel, Nic goes with Joe.  Here it is!  The Hope of what this all means.

Jesus had a relationship with Nic, and Nic loved Jesus. We see it through his faith journey. First like many of us, he questioned God, and how this thing works.  What can you give me, what do I need to do. Then Nic took a stand for Jesus, all be it a lukewarm stand, but a stand.  He needs a trial, but this one was more public than the last, Nic was approaching the cross, and then finally after Jesus’ death, Nic throws caution to the wind and helps lay Jesus in the tomb from the cross!  He came under darkness, to a public stand (confession?) and then to open adoration by preparing him and caring for him after his death.  If only I could be such a faithful follower! To progress and not regress in my faith…

The hope in Good Friday is in our relationships and doing what God has called us to do!

So this day, Behold the life-giving cross, on which hung the Savior of the world!

What motivates you?

There are a lot of things in life that motivate us.  There are a lot of different things that make us do things.  Anger, misunderstanding, happiness, joy can cause us to do things we normally wouldn’t do.  But what is the motivator that we should allow to drive our lives?

There are other things that sometimes drive us to do and be what we are.  One of the most common things that motivates us to do things is fear.  Others are pride, and greed.  These cause us to do things and be people we do not want to be.

But if we look to what Paul tells us and the Galatians, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Galatians 5:6b.

Love is the only true motivator.  So let love permeate your life and be the things that drives you and causes you to be as God has called us to be.

A prayer from Dietrich Bonhoeffer

O God,

early in the morning I cry to you.

Help me to pray,

and concentrate my thoughts on you:

I can not do this alone.

In me there is darkness,

but with you there is light;

I am lonely, but you do not leave me;

I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;

I am restless, but with you there is peace.

In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;

I do not understand you ways,

but you know the way for me…

Restore me to liberty,

and enable me so to live now

that I may answer before you and before me,

Lord, whatever this day may bring,

Your name be praised.

Amen.

Conclusions

I awoke this morning to a tweet by Peter Rollins that said, “A conclusion is the place you reach when you get tired of thinking”…

What a way to start the morning!  When we are tired of swimming in the unknown, wallowing in the pain, moving through the chaos, we find a way to “solve” the problem.

We are in a quick fix society.  Everybody has an answer to the issue and it is a quick fix scheme.  I mean any one who has been up late knows how many get rich quick schemes there are, and Dave Ramsey will tell you that none of them work.  We are looking for the quick answer, the quick solution.  I mean we have Easy Macaroni and Cheese, and Easy Microwave hot dogs.  How hard is it to make Mac and Cheese, or a hot dog?  And if you want you kids to have these as snacks when you get home, then cook them the night before and have them heat them up.  Why does everything have to be so convenient that I do not have to give any of my time…

We want what we want and we want it now!  God has called us though to live in the chaos.  God has called us to walk in life and to live for him.  Not to have it easy, or to have all the solutions right when the problem hits.  Sometimes the right solution only comes when we have swam in the unknown, wallowed in the pain, walked in chaos…  God is there with us, swimming, wallowing, walking, and guiding us along the path that is before us.

It is time for us to step out of the quick fix and live with God in the here and now and tell people about his calling and his love.  So throw away the box and swim, wallow, and walk with your creator!

Extravagant Love

The prayer of the day for our service this past Sunday was:

Creator God, you prepare a new way in the wilderness, and your grace waters our desert.  Open our hearts to be transformed by the new thing you are doing,  that our lives may proclaim the extravagance of your love given to all through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. (emphasis added by me).

The gospel text for this past Sunday’s service was about Mary taking the perfume at the dinner party and anointing Jesus’ feet, and wiping it with her hair.  The perfume was an extravagant means to do this.  The perfume could have been sold for 300 denari.  But what does this mean?  Well a days wages in Jesus’ day was 1 denari.  So 300 denari is about a years wage.  To put this into prospective, the average US household income in 2004 was $42,000.  So in today’s time Mary spent $42,000 on this pound of perfume!  That is over kill.  I mean really is that a good use of resources?  But that is not the point, it is extravagant.  It is meant to be over kill, it is meant to be the preparation of Jesus for his burial.  It is meant to show us the extravagant measures God is going to for us.

The extravagance of the love of God is shown to us in the cross of Christ.  Jesus went to the cross for YOU.  The extravagance of the love of God is that Jesus would have gone to the cross if you were the only one who needed him to.  He would have gave his life for YOU.

God loves you so much, He gave His only Son.  Now that is what I call extravagant love!

comma, comma, where does it go???

In the 23rd chapter of the gospel of Luke Jesus is hung on the cross between 2 thieves. One of them say to Jesus, “remember me when you get into your kingdom.”  And Jesus’ reply?

See here is where we get ourselves into a little of a quandary. You see in the original Greek, there were no punctuation marks.  So our translators add the punctuation to help the text make more sense, but the little comma can change the statement completely.  You see Jesus’ reply to the thief from the NRSV is “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Do you see the comma?  Where does it actually go?

Did Jesus say to the thief, “Truly I tell you, today…”  or did Jesus say, “Truly I tell you today, …”

Do you see the difference?  One states that this day you will be with me in paradise.  The other says that I am telling you today, that at some point you will be with me in paradise.  One says this moment we are going to paradise, and the other says that we will be together, but we don’t know when…

So where does the comma go?  When is the thief with Jesus?  Or what did Jesus say?

Really in the end, the answer is, Jesus forgave the thief, and welcomed him with open arms into the kingdom of God! He looked beyond what this man did and said you are forgiven, and welcome to come with me where I am going…

Are we ready to ask Jesus to remember us when he comes into his kingdom?

Prodigal Son verses Loving Father

We all know the story of the prodigal son and how the son wants his inheritance, and when he gets it he goes off and squanders all his money on living…

The 15th chapter of the gospel of Luke is about repentance.  The story of the son is about him getting what he thought he wanted, and then figuring out he really screwed up and repented about his decision.  Now is that really all the story is about.  I am not saying that the son did not repent, but is that really all the story is about.  What about the older son, or the stories that come before of the lost sheep or the lost coin.  How does the older son repent?  How does a sheep repent?  How does a coin repent?

A sheep repents by saying, “sorry I’ve been baaaaaaad.”  And a coin repents by saying, “I promise I’ll change.”  Ok bad jokes, but really I have heard this chapter is about repentance, and to me it really does not fit.”

The story is not about the younger son either… The story of the prodigal son starts, “Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons.”  It does not say, “then Jesus said, “there was a younger son who had a father and an older brother…”  It clearly says, “There was a man who had two sons…”  It is about a man, the father.  It is not about the son, and what he did or did not do.  The story of the prodigal son in my opinion, should be called the Loving Father.  It is about how the father dishonors himself, first in giving what the younger son asks for, saying that he is dead to his son, then running to his son, and giving him a ring, sandals, a robe, and then going out to get the older son…

And what about the lost sheep, and the lost coin…  They are not about the sheep or the coin.  The stories are about the shepherd and the woman.

However is this where this story ends?  The great thing about the Bible and texts in it is they are living breathing texts that give us something new each and every time we read them…

This year around on this story I heard the older son saying, “that son of yours…”  and then the father turns it around on the older son by saying, “your brother…”  It is not just about the loving father who runs to us and goes way beyond what he should to get us back after we leave home, but it is about the community that is around the story. Also on the Good Shepherd and the woman with the money is they invite others to come and celebrate with them that what was lost, now has been found.  And the older brother is a vital part of the story.  He is the part of the story that comes in and says why is he here.  It is the story of when you die and you stand at the gates of Heaven with St. Peter, and look over his shoulder into heaven, and see the person that really did you wrong, and you ask, “why are they in there?”  Are you not going to go into heaven because of this?  There are people everywhere that we wonder why they are here, but we still need to be in relationship, and we are a part of the body, if all of the body is not there then it is not complete.  We are our brother’s and sister’s keepers…  We can not push our interpretations and laws on all our brothers and sisters though, we need to love them where they are and let it go at that.  We are called to love, and accept them even in there sin…  Your brother needs you.  Celebrate that what was lost has been found, by the loving father who also found you.

Let’s get ready to Worship…

How many of you got up this morning and said to yourself or your family, “We need to get ready to go to church.”?

How, may I ask, can you go someplace that is in existence where you are?  The church is not a building where you go to have a service, or a building you rent to have your service in.  The church is the people of God. You are the church, so how can you get ready to go to yourself?

We have tried to be diligent, my wife and I, about telling our girls we are going to worship.  That is where we go on Sunday mornings, not to church, but to worship.  And that is why we are here, to worship the one who took our sin upon himself and made a relationship with God possible by pronouncing to us God’s forgiveness of our sin…

So Let’s get ready to worship, and remember that every where we go that is where church is!

Do you have a clean desk?

A clean desk is the sign of completed work, of having all your ducks in a row…

A clean desk is the sign that there is no more work to do, or a sign that we are ready to take on the world…

My devotion for this morning included a thought on how the writer is never quite comfortable with a person in an office who always has a clean/tidy desk.  Well when I read this it made me feel good, because my desk is not tidy.  I know where everything is on it, and my Mac Book is sitting on papers and there are piles all over it, a very big mess!

A clean desk is very sterile and shows tenacity to make sure your work is done, but it also could mean that the person is disconnected from daily life. The frenzy of life is not invading this persons space and causing them to leave things half done to be completed later.

As leaders in the church, God calls us to have a messy desk!  He wants us to be connected, not in the books so the sermons we deliver or the things we do for his church are sterile and filled with theologically right thoughts, but filled with his love and connected with the world around us!  So be connected to the expense of that project not getting done. God needs us in the world to show everyone his love…

What do we show the world?

What is it the world sees when they think of or look for the Christian Church?

Is it the boundless love we give?  Is it the calm in the storm?  Is it the grace that flows freely from the throne of God? Is it political fights and hypocritical people that see specks in spite of planks in our own eyes.

Today in our Lenten services we here the story of Jonah in the belly of the fish, all alone or is he?

Here is a wonderful story I found on bible.org by Keith Krell.  Here is a link to this article I took the story from

One tribe of Native Americans had a unique practice for training young braves.1 On the night of a boy’s thirteenth birthday, he was placed in a dense forest to spend the entire night alone. Until then he had never been away from the security of his family and tribe. But on this night he was blindfolded and taken miles away. When he took off the blindfold, he was in the middle of thick woods…by himself…all night long. Every time a twig snapped, he probably visualized a wild animal ready to pounce. Every time an animal howled, he imagined a wolf leaping out of the darkness. Every time the wind blew, he wondered what more sinister sound it masked. No doubt it was a terrifying night for many.

After what seemed like an eternity, the first rays of sunlight entered the interior of the forest. Looking around, the boy saw flowers, trees, and the outline of the path. Then, to his utter astonishment, he beheld the figure of a man standing just a few feet away, armed with a bow and arrow. It was the boy’s father. He had been there all night long.

So just like this brave, Jonah was not alone. God was with him, just as God was with Jesus on the cross…

So do we show the world our love, and our unshakable nerve in the face of fear?  Know that no matter where you are or what you situation is, God is with you.