Time Stand Still Please!

Have you ever found yourself in a moment when you wanted time to stand still? It could have been a sunset so beautiful that you wanted it to last forever. It could have been a conversation with a friend or family member who meant the world to you. It could have been your wedding day. Moments like this happen every now and then. It is almost like the eternity of heaven fills the present of earth and there is something remarkably mysterious that takes place.

I don’t claim to understand it. In fact, I don’t always recognize it when it happens. Truth be told, we are often too busy to notice moments like this. It is only when we stop what we are doing, where we are going, and what we are saying that we are reminded of who we are being. These moments when we wish for time to stop are the moments when we are most in tune with who we truly are as a child of God. I believe that – because we are reminded of the brevity of time and the eternal nature of God and find ourselves living the intersection of both.

One of those moments happened to me this past Sunday afternoon. Sunday afternoon Annlyn woke up from her nap. Eva and Ronna were still sleeping. Annlyn wanted one thing: to go outside and ride her bike. You see, Saturday morning we spent time in the driveway and she was riding her bike and loved it. She was getting the hang of it and wanted to go out again Sunday afternoon. So we went.

The moment happened without me realizing it was coming. That’s usually how it happens, isn’t it? I watched this little girl at four years old with long brown hair pulled up in a pony tail. She was riding her bike that was decorated with Anna and Elsa and had little blue streamers coming off the bike handlebars. She was riding down the driveway to the mailbox and back up to ride in a circle. The grin on her face was as broad as the Grand Canyon.

All I could think about was that one day this same little girl is going to be grown. All I could see in my mind was one day walking her down the aisle to get married and that I would have to give her away to a man who loves her – not as much as her daddy, but close. In that moment sitting in the driveway, I wanted time to stop. I knew that in the future when I walk her down the aisle all I will be able to see is this four year old girl on a cute little bike with blue streamers riding in the driveway. Now and then. Then and now. I wanted time to stop. Not slow down. Stop.

The trouble is time doesn’t stop. It keeps moving. Time continues to click beyond us and beside us in ways we will never understand and, thankfully, never be able to control. Here we stand, at the crossroads of the past and the future, remembering what has gone before and hopeful for what is to come. Yet, we stand. We watch as time goes by. We applaud its arrival and mourn its passing. Isn't this what it means to be human? Isn't this part of what it means to bear God's image? Isn't this what it means to be a child of the God who is eternally bound to time?

I took time to pray for Annlyn and Eva - she was awake from her nap by this point and was outside with us - while sitting in the driveway Sunday afternoon. I prayed for their futures. I prayed for the men whom they will marry one day. I prayed they would always know, hear, and follow the voice of God. That they would grow to be followers of Jesus who give their lives every day in service to the Kingdom.

It caused me to think differently about the words of Paul to the Thessalonians:

"Rejoice always, pray continuously, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (1 Thessalonians 5"16-18)

I had read these verses a thousand times before. I have preached and taught these verses. But something happened Sunday afternoon as I re-read these verses. I had never really seen - not in the context of a girl riding her bike - the instruction to rejoice ALWAYS and pray CONTINUOUSLY. These words are irrespective of time. They encapsulate time. It is almost like time stands still in their midst. Where we are now is not where we were and it is not where we will be. Give thanks for the present moment. Allow time to stand still. Know that our prayers are as timeless as the God to whom our prayers are addressed.

The image of Annlyn riding her bike is one that will never leave my memory. It is forever treasured. When the then becomes now, I will give thanks for the now that has stayed in my heart. May we all have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to catch a glimpse of the inbreaking of God's presence among us.

Finding Our Place

Maybe more so than any other time of year, Christmas becomes an opportunity to celebrate our traditions as families. And we all have them. Whether we realize it or not, we all have traditions. Some of them are meaningful only to us and unique to our family. Some of them are kind of across the board, traditions that most people might keep but we put our own touch to them.

I can remember as a child how my mother would make her “famous” Christmas cookies every year. It was a recipe that she adopted from her mother then adapted to make it her own. I’ve known other families who have a tradition of watching “It’s A Wonderful Life” together as a family every Christmas. Others still might take a Saturday and volunteer at a soup kitchen and that act of service becomes a meaningful marker of the love of God during this time of year.

One tradition, however, that I have treasured since childhood and we are now attempting to instill into our children, is the reading of the Christmas story from Luke 2. Every Christmas Eve our family would attend the candlelight communion service at church and then hurry home to get ready for bed. But before we would put out milk and cookies and go over our wish list one last time, my dad would call us all into the living room. He would open his bible and read the birth of Jesus as told in Luke’s gospel.

I was always captivated by the reading of the story. It is the most grand birth announcement and at the same time is invitingly simple. Mary. Joseph. Angels. Shepherds. Sheep. Travelers. Innkeepers. Caesar. Jesus.

The birth is broadcast to the world via the largest screen in nature: the pixels of the night sky. Cracked open with the glory and joy of heaven the angels step forth to tell a bunch of night watchmen about the arrival of a baby boy in Bethlehem. It is the news of good tidings of great joy are for all people.

I have always been most blown away by what the Angels say to the shepherds: “This will be a sign to you: you will find the baby wrapped in cloths lying in a manger” (Lk. 2:12). The angels somehow knew the shepherds would want to join in the action. After all, who wouldn't? Out in the cool Judean night air and all of a sudden the host of angels announcing the birth of the Son of God. Surely that will get your attention.

The shepherds looked at one another and decided it was time to go into Bethlehem and see this thing that they heard about. Luke goes on to tell us – you likely know the story better than I do – that they found the baby with his mother and father. Things were just as the angel of God told them they would be.

I think what has always drawn me into this story is that while there is something for everyone – those who want drama, those who crave action, those who are on the lookout for political power – this is also everyone's story. From the Caesars of the world to the innkeepers of our lives, the story is for everyone. But the story of the shepherds is the story of you and me. We have heard the grand and glorious announcement once again that Christ has been born. We have all been the ones sitting out minding our own business when the interruption of incarnation comes our way.

And we are invited to go and see the place where the baby lay. The angels had a gut feeling the shepherds would want to be a part of this in some way. They never tell the shepherds to go but they let their own desire to be part of the story take over. Call it the move of the Holy Spirit or call it a hunch of curiosity, there is born within all of us a desire to know God and God’s work in the world.

These guys were not the Caesars of Rome. They were shepherds. They did not manage an inn in the center of town. They managed flocks of sheep. Their jobs as shepherds is all we know that they had in common with one another. They may have come from different families and certainly all had different hopes and dreams about what they wanted to see out of life.

But each of them became one when they hurried off to find this child born in Bethlehem. They became part of the action of the story together. They have been written into salvation history because they desire to know this thing that has happened. They share the urge to know what God is doing.

That has always been one of the most incredible things about the story of the birth of Jesus – each of us are written into the story of salvation by our desire to see this thing that has happened. To experience it both ourselves and together.

I can still see our family gathered around my fathers chair in the living room to hear the story of Christmas told once again. I remember going to sleep at night being blown away at the sheer power of it all. That God would come to us in the form of a baby and that each of us are invited to come and see. Thus taking our place in the story ourselves.

Another great Christmas tradition for so many families is the decorating of the Christmas tree. No other time of year do we haul a tree inside, set it up, and put ornaments on it. But this time of year it is ok. Just last week our girls helped us decorate the Christmas tree in our living room. They loved it. For days leading up to it Annlyn would ask if she would be allowed to help decorate the tree. She was desperate to put the star on top. Eva has “ooed” and “aahed” over the brilliancy of the lights, being drawn to the beauty of the tree with childlike awe.  They both wanted part of the action. They both wanted in the story.

In this simple act of decorating the tree, we are coming to take our place in the story. The tree is an evergreen – symbolizing the eternal nature of Jesus. When we come to take our place in the story of Xmas we are finding our place in Jesus. We are grafted into the evergreen tree of Jesus Christ and his story of the salvation of the world.

The Christmas Tree is always much larger than the individual ornaments. There is always room for ornaments. We hang ornaments on the tree and might be finding bare spots until the tree is taken down. There is room for you on this tree of evergreen life. The tree is the central piece to the whole story. Without the tree the ornaments are left floundering in a sea of desired purpose. However, the ornaments hung side by side become part of the story as individual ornaments and as part of the larger whole.

That too is you and me. The ultimate expression and fulfillment – the completion of our own story and who we are is found only when we take our place in the story of Christmas. One of the greatest interruptions of the incarnation is that we are brought into the story of salvation. No longer are we bound to wandering in darkness for a great light has been lit in Jesus. Our own individual story, the flocks we have tended our whole lives, the night skies we have seen week in and week out, and the inns that are full of traveling emotions and desires, are now brought into the story of redemption.

Reading the story of the birth of Jesus is refreshing because it truly interrupts everything about life. It interrupts where we are headed on our own. It interrupts our inclination to be self-sufficient. It interrupts the taking of censuses to remind us that there is a much larger story being told than the story of ourselves. It is the story of what God has done, is doing, and will do by finishing what God started. It reminds us that when we hear the words of the angel that there will be a sign, and we head for Bethlehem to see this reality, we are all of a sudden part of something so much bigger. We are part of something that fills the skies with the glory of heaven and the praises of God. We are part of the story of stories that never gets old. We are part of the evergreen tree of Jesus as His ornaments of grace.

I will always remember Christmas traditions. But finding and taking our place in the Christmas story is something we have to do on a daily basis. Each day we decide to be part of what God is doing in the world. I pray this Christmas begins that very journey. I am grateful that the season of Advent is the beginning of the Christian year – may this year be the year of finding and taking our place in the story of the evergreen, the story of Jesus, the story of the shepherds.

So come to the tree and find your place in the Christmas story as you gather around the chair of our father to hear the good news again.

Oh God who has split the night sky with angels, to you we come. Running. Leaping for joy at the good news for all people. We are grateful for your call on our lives and that you bid us come, find our place in you, and grow as one onto the tree of your evergreen salvation. May this Advent be one of grafting and growing, one of searching and knowing, one of coming and going to find each and every day the place where you are writing us into the story. In the name of the one who has been born that man no more may die.... 

Is God At Rest Or At Work?

Luke 24:1-12: At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the women came to the tomb carrying the burial spices they had prepared.  They found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb, so they walked in.  But once inside, they couldn't find the body of the Master Jesus.  They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this.  Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there.  The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship.  The men said, "Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery?  He is not here, but raised up.  Remember how he told you when you were still back in Galilee that he had to be handed over to sinners, be killed on a cross, and in three days rise up?  Then they remembered Jesus' words.  They left the tomb and broke the news of all this to the Eleven and the rest.  Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them kept telling these things to the apostles, but the apostles didn't believe a word of it, thought they were making it all up.  but Peter jumped to his feet and ran to the tomb.  He stopped to look in and saw a few grave clothes, that's all.  He walked away puzzled, shaking his head. (The Message)

Have you ever been afraid to go to sleep at night?  What was the reason for your fear?  Was it because of the events of the day you are leaving behind?  Did those events have some kind of impact on you that left you in fear?  Were you afraid to go to sleep because of what you knew was waiting for you in the morning?  As if to say that what the new day will hold strikes fear and terror in your heart.  Was it because you knew that your heart was so worked up that you would not sleep well?  What if it were all of these things?

You are afraid to go to sleep because of what has taken place during the day.

You are afraid to go to sleep because of what the tasks that wait for you the next day.

You are afraid to go to sleep because you are so anxious that you know you will not sleep well.

I feel confident that the women in Luke 24 were afraid to go to sleep.  Much had taken place during the day before them.  Jesus, the one they were looking to as the Messiah, the one who would deliver them from Rome, had been arrested because of one of His own, muscled through an unfair trial, and died on a cruel cross only after having been beaten.

They follow Jesus and watch His body be placed into a tomb.  And they went home for the night.

What a terrible way to end a terrible day.  Everything they had hoped for was gone.  And now they must try to sleep?  How can you sleep with these things tossing around in your heart and in your mind?  How can you rest knowing what has just happened?  How can you sleep knowing what you have to do in the morning?  This is the day of Sabbath; this is supposed to be a day of rest.  But not this week.  The day that has been set aside for us to rest in God has brought us to a place where there is no rest at all!

Often times, as Christians, what keeps us from resting is wondering what in the world God is doing.  We toss and turn and even lie awake, worried about the future and what it is God is up to.  Are you spending sleepless nights worried about what God is doing….or maybe, like in this case, what you think God is NOT doing?

Most of the time we cannot see what God is doing.  If we could see all that God is doing, we would likely not believe it anyway, because God is….God.  God is up to something.  God is doing something, in the darkness of the night.  There is a work stirring that no one can see and, until it is seen, no one could believe.  God, the Father of all life, is breathing resurrection into His own Son!

While the women, and the other disciples, attempt to sleep, God is doing something that will change their lives FOREVER.  It will change the world…FOREVER.  It can change YOU forever.

Now, after a sleepless night of tossing and turning, terrified from the day before and worried about the day ahead, the women get up to accomplish the task that they really don’t want to do: to visit the tomb of Jesus with the spices they have prepared.  Because the day before was so terrible, they did not have time to properly prepare the body of Jesus for burial.

And there they see it….the stone is rolled away.  They have already been wondering what God is up to and now that wonder, that fear, is taken to a new level.  The news they receive upon arrival to the tomb, from an angel, is the news they were not expecting.  God has done something!

While we were attempting to rest in our worry, all we needed to do was rest in God’s work.  God was up to something in the lives of these women.  I can promise you, God is up to something in your life.  God is up to something in your heart. 

God is raising Jesus from the DEAD!  Our days sometimes can keep us from sleeping at night because we are worried about what God is doing or not doing.  But, He is up to something! 

This Easter sunrise, allow the surprise of Easter to awaken you to a new reality – the reality of resurrection.  Allow the power to Easter to bring peace to your heart and life – the peace of resurrection.  Allow the work of God at Easter to bring you rest.  After all, the one who is not dead but alive….He’s the one who said,

"Are you having a real struggle?  Come to me!  Are you carrying a big load on your back?  Come to me - I'll give you rest!  Pick up my yoke and put it on; take lessons from me!  My heart is gentle, not arrogant.  You'll find the rest you deeply need.  My yoke is easy to wear; my load is easy to bear." -Matthew 11:28-30

When we arise this morning, we can arise well-rested because God, the Father of all life and the giver of eternal life, has risen His own Son from the dead.  This gives us reason to say, “We have nothing to fear!  For our God is ALIVE and death is now dead!”

I pray we all will move forward in the power of Easter!

We hear the glorious news, Jesus, that you are alive!  You are not dead!  Yet we come this morning with fears and worries and anxieties that keep us awake a night.  We are unable to rest.  May it be so that what we find this morning, the reality of Your resurrection, awakens us to a whole new world – a world where we can rest and trust in Your work.  We ask that You, once again, defeat the powers of death that hold us down so often.  –AMEN!

1,826 days.....

1,826 days equals 5 years.  Think about the last five years for a moment.  It would be my guess that out of the last 1,826 days some of them have been good and some have been terrible.  Some have been marked with victory while others wear the shroud of sorrow. 

And think of how much has changed in the course of the last 1,826 days.  The children Ronna is teaching this year in Kindergarten were but babies 1,826 days ago.  They could not walk 5 years back and now they are writing their name, going to the lunchroom, and learning to read, add and subtract, and about the five food groups.  Think of all of the growth that has taken place in their lives during the last 1,826 days.

Today marks the anniversary of the day in my life, and in the life of my family, that wears the darkest shroud of sorrow.  It was 1,826 days ago today that my parents were involved in a fatal head-on collision that killed my mother instantly and left my father to linger for eleven days before he, too, slipped from this world into the arms of God.  And today, I stand, looking back over the last 1,826 days to see how life has changed not only for me but how life has changed in me as well.

In many respects, I feel almost like one of those kindergarteners who, looking back, has grown.  And maybe that is truly the best approach to this who story…growth.  There are so many areas in my own life that have become areas of growth for me.  Things I have learned and most of them are things I never wanted to learn…at least not in this classroom.

I have learned a lot about grief.  Having been a minister of the Gospel for more than ten years now, I have been with a lot of people in the midst of death and grief.  But, it was not until I began walking the road myself that I began to learn how terrible we have become at grieving in America, and especially in the church.  What we fail to see is that we are filled with God-given emotions that can truly serve us well in coming to terms with the loss of a loved one.  But, instead, we make statements such as “I have to be strong.”  My response to that is, “Why?”  “My grace is enough for you; my power comes to perfection in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).  If we truly believe these words of our Lord spoken to Paul, then why should we not allow our selves to journey through grief in an honest and broken manner?  Maybe, just maybe, if we allowed ourselves this freedom, a freedom to grieve, a freedom to hurt, a freedom to lament, we would find less issues that haunt and plague us later in life.  Maybe, if we took advantage of the opportunity to grieve our losses, and truly grieve them as one who is weak and allow the grace of God to be enough and the power of God to be brought to perfection, we would see dramatic changes in our mental health. 

Too often we feel the need to suppress the power of grief because it gets in the way of a normal way of life.  “I am ready for some normalcy again” we often say.  One of the things I have learned about grief in the last 1,826 days is that things will never return to that state of “normal.”  This way of living is the new normal.  This is the way life is now.  I feel that when we swallow our grief and pain and sorrow instead of expressing it, we rob ourselves of the gift of God that grief truly can be.  Maybe this comes from our culture where everything is instant.  Instant coffee and potatoes.  Instant downloads to our iPhones.  Instant 5-step fixes for a broken toilet.  Instant grief?  There is something about putting the words “instant” and “grief” together that repulses me.  Grief is not instant.  In fact, it has been 1,826 days since the worst day of my life and I will admit there are still days when the absence of my mother and my father is incredibly painful.  Whoever says that “time heals all wounds” was misspoken.  Time does not heal.  Only God heals.  God uses time to help us learn to walk again after having both legs knocked out from under us. 

Maybe one reason we try to rush our way through grief is because we are not sure to do with all of the stuff that is inside us.  All of the emotion.  All of the pain.  All of the….stuff.  What do we do with it?  Where do we take it?  How do we even look at it?  And at the heart of all of these feelings, emotions, and whirlwind of stuff is anger.  We are angry that death has taken our loved one.  We can be angry at anyone or even everyone.  We can be angry at our departed loved one.  We can be angry at God.  And then we begin feeling guilty for feeling angry and think and even say, “God doesn’t want me to be angry.”  And again, my response after 1,826 days into the journey, is “Why?”  Why should we not be angry?  Why should we not express our anger?  Do we not believe that God is big enough or strong enough to handle even our anger?  Do we not think that even God is angered by death?

The gospels tell us about the emotions expressed by Jesus.  Not the least of which was anger.  In fact, He was angered at the death of Lazarus.  John 11:33 speaks of Jesus being “deeply moved” while approaching the tomb of his friend.  Every time I find myself standing with Jesus and a grieving family at a graveside service, I am like Jesus and deeply moved.  In Greek, there is a sense of frustration and anger in this text.  I cannot help but think that Jesus was thinking, “Death, you stealing cheat!  You have struck again and one of these days I am going to deal with you FOR GOOD!”  I have learned that if Jesus is okay with something, I should be too.  Anger was a part of Jesus’ grief over his friend, Lazarus.  Why should it not become part of ours? 

Now, I must take a moment to say, that all freedoms can be exploited, grief included.  For all of the freedom we can find in honest grieving, we must be careful not to allow these things to rule over us.  There is a difference in allowing God to use these things to bring us to a healthy place of living and making these things (anger, grief, etc) gods in our own lives.  The latter leads to a most unhealthy way of living.

But, maybe the greatest lesson I have learned over the last 1,826 days, has been that we need a solid theology of resurrection in our lives, our homes, and our congregations.  Some may be crying, “In layman’s terms, please, Andrew!”  This means that we need to begin embracing the power of the resurrection of Christ Jesus and allowing God to do to us what He did to His own Son: raise us back to life.  We need to understand what resurrection power can do in our lives.  Until 1,826 days ago, I will admit, the doctrine of the resurrection was just that, a doctrine that I tipped my hat to every Easter.  Every one of the last 1,826 days, I will admit, that I have done more than tip my hat to this 2,000-year-old teaching of the church.  The resurrection of Jesus is not simply a doctrine and a church teaching.  The resurrection of Jesus is a reality!  When Jesus was standing at the tomb of Lazarus, and snorting as He was deeply moved by death, no one around Him knew just how moved He was.  He was moved to action.  The action was that He would take death on: head on!  He would allow death to take Him out so He could, in turn, three days later, take it out!  Living in light of the resurrection is the mission of the church.  For the Christian, the resurrection should be more than the chief doctrine of the faith.  It should be the single-most life changing-truth ever encountered. 

The resurrection is what makes grief, in the darkest and deepest of days, even bearable.  The resurrection is what makes the anger of grief expressible.  The resurrection is what gives us the truest freedom to be honest with God about where we are and what this grief is doing to us.  The resurrection gives hope to those hopelessly stuck in grief.  The resurrection shines light onto those who are desperately wandering in the darkness of grief. 

You know, looking back, things are much different now.  1,826 days have passed.  The world is a different place.  I am a different person.  I have learned about life, faith, marriage, parenting, and so much more.  Life has been full of ups and downs in the last 1,826 days.  Maybe in the days, weeks, and months ahead, I will take the time to write about these things.  But, for now, here’s to the next 1,826 days!

He is risen...just as He told you…

-ASR

Good Friday?

Blood.  Agony.  Pain.  Suffering.  These are not words we like to think about, much less incorporate into our daily vocabulary.  But, these are the adjectives of today, Good Friday.  For most of us, we live in a fairly safe place.  Most of us, that is.