The Bible says the Holy Spirit is "able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine" (Eph. 3:20, NIV). This is a very hopeful statement for the Church these days and it constantly reminds us that God is present in ways our minds and imaginations cannot fully grasp. Every moment we are presented with infinite possibilities as we live embraced by the power of God.

This is crucial because we certainly have our challenges, challenges rooted in contemporary issues such as the complexity all around us of multiple cultures, materialism, hedonism, conflicting ideologies, post-modern thinking, post-Christian thinking, spiritual warfare contending for the lives of people created for God, how to be church, how to do church, how to worship, how not to worship, how to reach lost and broken people, how to share the love of God through the means of compassionate ministries, to name just a few.

As we face our times a question is pressing down on us. Are we willing to “re-narrate” ourselves; that is, are we willing to do whatever is necessary to tell our story, the story of Jesus, in such a way that people will be drawn to Christ, even if it takes us out of our comfort zone?

Oliver Windell Holmes once said, "I find that the great thing is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving. To reach the port of heaven we must sail, sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it but we must sail and not drift, nor lie at anchor."

Using this metaphor, regardless of the circumstances in which we find ourselves we must sail with focused attention to wherever it is our faithfulness to God takes us.

We are the church of God so let's set our sails to the winds of the Spirit, and let Jesus captain this boat.

April 22, 2007

Have you ever wondered what a resurrected Lord has for breakfast? Does fish come to mind? I didn't think so. Yet, the third time Jesus revealed Himself to the disciples after the resurrection was at a breakfast to which He called them (See John 21:1-14). The disciples were fishing and weren’t catching anything and Jesus told them they were fishing on the wrong side of the boat. They switched sides and, wouldn't you know it, they caught 153 large fish (I wonder why they counted them) Anyway, not too bad for a carpenter, huh?

When it was over they came to shore to find that Jesus had started a charcoal fire and was preparing a fish breakfast. He invited them to place a few of their fish onto the fire, and soon breakfast was served, complete with bread; it was like communion on the beach.

Don’t you just love it that Jesus said to His men, "Come and have breakfast." I believe Jesus is always saying something like this to His people. On Sundays He says to us, "Come and have Sunday lunch with me. We'll have bread and wine. We'll sing and fellowship and read the Word of God. We'll pray and pass the peace to each other. It will be a great lunch. See you Sunday." On Mondays He says, "Meet me on your break, and we'll have coffee together. We'll encourage each other and remind each other of how good the Father is."

Being a resurrected Lord means that Jesus can meet us any place, at any time, under any circumstance. And, when we get there He'll probably invite us to have fish and bread, or maybe a cup and bread. These days He is calling me to Thursday lunch where three other men and I share sack lunches, our lives and prayer.

I have discovered that His life embraces all of life for me. Is that not wonderful? The living Lord draws near and invites us to eat with him (See Revelation 3:20). That's pretty special don't you think?

Easter evening found ten of the disciples behind closed doors for fear of those who did not believe in Jesus. However, their world was rocked and changed forever when Jesus suddenly appeared to them in that locked room. His first words to them were, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19).

Peace had not been with them since Friday evening when their hopes lay dead in a borrowed tomb. Suddenly everything changes. Jesus comes among them and speaks the word of renewal, the word of life, the word of hope -- PEACE. Interestingly enough, John tells us that Jesus didn’t just say it once but twice. “Peace be with you” (John 20:21).

I don’t know why He said it twice but I like to think that they were so shocked at seeing Him alive after the atrocities of Friday, that they didn’t hear Him the first time. I have no idea really. I just know He said it twice on that occasion and that seven days later when the eleven disciples were present in another gathering, He said it again, “Peace be with you” (John 20:26).

It was a common greeting so in a way we ought not to take it more seriously than we should. His presence, however, wasn’t so common. It was very shocking, incredible, as a matter of fact. So, if we just take it as a normal greeting, that makes it even more special; especially if one takes into consideration that the one giving the greeting is supposed to be dead. After all, they saw Him die.

The resurrection simply changes everything. It changes hearts. It changes goals. It changes life-focus. It brings peace into places where once there was despair and confusion and shattered dreams.

Be aware today that Jesus is on the move and that His first words to you might just be, “Peace be with you.”

Jesus Lives That Death May Die
An Easter Message

Jesus' resurrection lies at the heart and foundation of all it means for Christians to be Christian. Without the resurrection of Jesus there is no message of Christ. All He was is defined by the quality of His life, death and resurrection. His death and thus His resurrection speak to the deepest needs of creation and to that unique situation called, human. A brief progression of thought might be might be helpful.

The Bible says "the wages of sin is death" and that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 6:23, 3:23). John 3:16 reminds us that "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that who ever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Based upon this reality the apostle John wrote, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (I John 1:9). This reality led the apostle Paul to write in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." Further, this led Paul to teach, "Sin shall not be your master, because you … under grace" (Romans 6:14). He went even further when he said, "If God is for us, who can be against us... We are more than conquerors through him who loved us" (Romans 8:31, 37)

The entire Jesus event, particularly the cross and resurrection, reveal just how much God is for us. "He is risen," is our mantra. It embraces all that we are. It defines who we are and how we do life. It brings the possibilities of God to us and shows us that Jesus really is God who "actually entered into and authentically participated in our creaturely realm."[1] The truth is "We have a great high priest who is…able to sympathize with our weaknesses" and who invites us to live out our lives at "the throne of grace" where “we receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need" (Hebrews 4:14-16).

It is a humbling and yet exhilarating thought to think that our lives are covered by the God we see revealed in Jesus. At minimum this means we are never without hope, that God's grace is sufficient. Take from us all that can be taken and there is still God in Jesus. Do to us what you will and there is still God in Jesus. Bless us, curse us, or snub us, Jesus is Lord not blessings or curses or snubbing. Kill us, and the last word isn't death but life, Eternal life in the One who is Lord, even over death.

In Jesus is life and His life is the light of God to us and in us (See John 1:4). To embrace Him is to take His hand, as it were, and to live both now and when this life is taken away from us.
There is no place we can go to hide from His grace. Isaac Watts reminds us in a hymn we sing at Christmas time,

No more let sin and sorrow grow…
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.[2]

So it was that Eliza Hewitt wrote[3]

My faith has found a resting place,
not in device or creed;
I trust the ever-living One,
His wounds for me shall plead.

Enough for me that Jesus saves,
this ends my fear and doubt;
a sinful soul I come to Him,
He’ll never cast me out.

I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.

God has spoken in Jesus Christ, hasn't He? That's our message. It begins and ends right here.

It is interesting to note, too, that Easter doesn't take us out of life; it puts us right down in the middle of life. In Jesus we don't run away from the world into some fantasy place where weak people go (an accusation that is often made against people of faith). Instead, we run to the world with the greatest news ever to come into the human situation ~~ He has risen.

After Easter life is never lived without a risen Lord and Savior in it. He can be ignored. He can be denied. He can be shunned. But, He cannot be driven off. He cannot be made less that who He is. This is His world and He lives in it as the One who has risen from the dead.
For those who will allow Him, He makes all things new. For those who will receive His grace, the reality of sins forgiven becomes their reality. For those who will let Him be Lord, He comes to live within them, administering His grace at every level of life. He doesn't take us out of life; He cleans us up in it.

I totally love the poem by Maya Angelou that speaks of the human situation but also of God's activity in it. She writes[4]

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not shouting "I'm clean livin".
I'm whispering "I was lost,
Now I'm found and forgiven."

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I don't speak of this with pride.
I'm confessing that I stumbleand
need Christ to be my guide.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not trying to be strong.
I'm professing that I'm weak
And need His strength to carry on.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not bragging of success.
I'm admitting I have failed
And need God to clean my mess.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible
But, God believes I am worth it.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I still feel the sting of pain.
I have my share of heartaches
So I call upon His name.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not holier than thou,
I'm just a simple sinner
Who received God's good grace, somehow!

On Easter an angel and Jesus, Himself, told the women who had come to the tomb to go and tell His disciples that He was alive. The Church has been doing that ever since. Somebody, somewhere, every minute of every day is telling somebody, somewhere, about Jesus and how He died but lives again. It's a story that resonates in the human heart. It is a message of life and hope. It stirs our imaginations to believe again that there is a future in this world and in the life to come.

I lost a good friend in death on Saturday morning, March 31, 2007. He was my friend, my colleague, a confidant. He was a pastor, a scholar, a leader, a shepherd. Today, somebody else is preaching in his place at New Life Church of the Nazarene in Lancaster, California. His name is Chuck and I will miss him until I go home to heaven and fellowship with him around the throne of God. And, that's the point that resonates in my very being today.

In the resurrection of Jesus Christ we are inundated with hope. Death spoke and we had no recourse but to listen; but for those of us who believe in Jesus death is not the final word. The life that is in Jesus is the final word.

At the of the last book in the Chronicles of Narnia called, The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis has Aslan, the lion, and a Jesus figure, speak to Peter, Edmund and Lucy. He says to them:

"There was a railway accident," said Aslan softly. "Your father and mother and all of you are — as you used to call it in the Shadowlands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."[5]

This is the hope we have because of Jesus ~~ hope for today and hope for tomorrow.

Because He lives we can face tomorrow triumphantly.

Because He lives we can face today in the power of the resurrected Lord.

Because He lives, we live.

Because He lives we too can say and know in our very being,

I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.

Prayer: Father, fill us with Jesus until our very lives are captivated by His life. Help us to be the people you have created and called us to be. Help us to embrace the life of Jesus that the life of God may embrace our lives. Help us to be a people of the resurrection. Help us to live and move and have our being in Jesus. Amen.

[1] Thomas Jay Oord and Michael Lodahl, Relational Holiness: Responding to the Call of Love, (Beacon Hill: Kansas City, 2005), 93
2 From the third verse of “Joy to the World,” by Isaac Watts, 1719
[3] "My Faith Has Found a Resting Place Word" by: Eliza E. Hewitt, in Songs of Joy and Gladness, 1891. Hymnals often show the author as Lidie H. Edmunds, Eliza’s pseudonym.
[4] Christians by Maya Angelou
[5] C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle, 228