Christ the Lord

Because I've gushed so much in recent posts over the movie The Chronicles of Narnia, I thought I would take a spin as a book critic as well. Anne Rice is best known for her vampire novels, several of which have been adapted into movies (Interview with a Vampire). Rice lived and worked as an academic and atheist for thirty years before a dramatic conversion to Jesus in 1999. That conversion rose from a fascination with Jesus, and it led her to "do violence" to her career (her words) as she focuses on religious themes.

Her latest novel is entitled Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. It tells the story of Jesus as a seven year old child in Egypt just as Joseph and his clan decide return to their homeland in Nazarath. The story is narrated by the child Jesus himself and focuses on his gradual journey to self-awareness. Why does he have miraculous powers? Why does he seem to know things a seven-year-old should not know? What was it that happened at Bethlehem of which Joseph and Mary will not talk? Rice powerfully captures both the normal child and the extrodianary being who is Christ as they exist together in a seven-year-old child.

Do I agree with all her choices? She writes as a Catholic, and Rice presupposes (as I do not) Mary's perpetual viginity and explains James as being from Joseph's earlier marriage. In fact, the older James becomes something of a foil that drives some of the tension in the book. And there are stories woven into the novel that come from The Gospel of Thomas, one of the Gnostic gospels. Rice almost appologizes for this in the author's note, but these stories do fit well the flow of the book. But then, if you are writing about Jesus as a seven year old, all the stories are going to be made up!

What isn't fiction is the great care and reverence as Rice handles her story. She is obviously dealing with something she feels is very holy, and so the telling comes across much differently than, for example, Dan Brown in The DaVinci Code or Angels and Demons. In fact, Rice's long and powerful author's note at the end explains why her extensive research led her to reject liberal recastings of the Jesus story and why she came to a very conservative and biblical view. Her title for the series captures her view of the hero of her story perfectly-- Christ the Lord.

Many points in the story touched me, but two more than the others. Tears came to my eyes as Mary finally tells Jesus the details of his birth-- the angelic announcement, the trip to Bethlehem, the manger, the magic. she tells him that he is the son of God-- not as a king or pious man might be; he is the Son of the Most High God.

If that brougth trears, the next brought chills. Later Jesus ponders over the meaning of Mary's revelation, and the power of the novel hits with full force. He says he finally understands why he was born. He reflects on all that that he has seen-- the death of a rebel killed by Romans, the death of his aunt deom a sickness, and the blood of sacrifices he saw in Jerusalem. He concludes that "Everything that is born is born to die." He knows who he is, and he also knows that he was born to die. But he was also born a child. That means that he was born to live and grow and love and learn and serve and experience what it means to be human. The book ends with his prayer, "Father in heaven, I am your child!"

Jesus was indeed born to die, as are each of us. But like Him, we are also born to live and grow and love and serve. And as in the life of Jesus, those two destinies are connected. How we live and grow and serve prepares us for our death. May God bless us all as we follow and serve Christ the Lord.

Good News of Great Joy

At 8:20 a.m. on Christmas morning twenty-four years ago, with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer playing quietly on the radio in the background and snow falling lightly outside the window, Tressa made her dramatic entry into our lives. For twenty-four years, December 25 has been a birthday as well as Christmas at the Tucker home. When you have a Christmas baby, you have to go to at least some trouble to separate the two events. Over the years, we have come up with some very specific rules that we are expected to follow—

• Fruit cake cannot be used as birthday cake!
• You can never combine Christmas and birthdays gifts;
• And you must never wrap a birthday present in Christmas paper!
  

Christmas birthdays make life complicated. But then at least I never have any trouble remembering Tressa’s birthday!

Things were a little complicated on Jesus’ birthday too. OK, He likely wasn’t literally born on December 25, but there was nothing ordinary about Jesus’ birthday whenever it was.

• He was conceived by God and born of a virgin;
• He was born in a barn and placed in a feed trough;
• And what other baby receives gold, frankincense and myrrh?

And Jesus’ birth announcement came from heaven and not Hallmark! Angels brought to the shepherds “good news of great joy.” That is an interesting choice of words. In fact, the word the angels use here is one of the most familiar words in all the Bible - the word “gospel.” What the angel literally said was, “I preach to you a gospel of great joy.” The birth of Jesus is gospel!

There will never be peace on earth and universal goodwill toward men. Two thousand years of human experience have taught that the coming of Jesus into the world did not bring the world total peace. But that was never the angelic announcement in the first place! What the angels announced was, “on earth let there be peace among the people who please God” (Luke 2:14, CEV). We can have peace with God because Jesus allows us to please God. Jesus is our peace. Because He was born, lived, died, and rose again we have peace.

Why We Should Keep Christmas

I ran across a list of the “The Top Ten Reasons We Should Keep Christmas.” With all the hustle and bustle of this season of the year, maybe we do need needed to be reminded why Christmas is a good idea. If it were not for Christmas--

• The fruit cake industry would completely collapse!
• Our boring, uneventful lives would have no stress at all!
• Eggnog would just be a slimy, high cholesterol beverage.
• Santa would just be a strange fat man with poor fashion sense!
• Three words— “No Christmas bonus!”
• Goofy snowmen and reindeer sweater would look even more goofy
• You'd have to spend your own money buying stuff that doesn’t fit.
• We would never wonder if reindeer really know how to fly.
• Your cat would never know the joy of coughing up tinsel!
• Number one reason—without Christmas, there could be no Easter!
  

That last one wasn’t meant to be funny (unlike the rest which just weren’t funny on their own). Without the birth of Jesus, there could be no cross and no resurrection. Without the Christmas story, Christianity has no message of eternal life. Unless Jesus really was born into this world as God in the flesh, then there is no story of redemption.

Christmas was originally a pagan holiday that Christians appropriated and connected to the birth of Christ. Sometimes this is cited as a reason not to observe the holiday at all, or at least not connect it to Jesus. Actually, I think that was an ingenious move-- keep new converts from reconnecting with their pagan past by connecting their main holiday with Jesus' birth! Brilliant! To avoid the religious significance of Christmas because of its pagan roots is like refusing to see The Chronicles of Narnia because C. S. Lewis was once an atheist! Lewis was converted long before he sent Lucy through the wardrone. And Christmas was converted long ago as well!

The way we choose to observe or not observe the Christmas holidays is entirely optional as long as our desire is to glorify God (Rom 14:5). What is not optional is the story. If this season reconnects you with the special and central nature of that story of Jesus' birth, then that is a good thing indeed. Merry Christmas.

Make Us One

In his book No Wonder They Call Him the Savior, Max Lucado tells of an encounter with Ian, a young Irish student at a Canadian university. Ian grew up in church; he had planned to go into ministry and had begun studies in theology and biblical languages. But he became disenchanted with religion. Ian wanted very much to believe again, but he just couldn't get a grasp on faith. As they sat down to drink a cup of coffee, Ian asked, “What really matters? What counts? Skip the periphery. Go to the essence. Tell me the part that matters.”

Have you ever had a conversation like that? I have. The chiropractor of one of our members visited one Sunday night twenty years ago. We ended up talking for a while, and he finally asked, “What does your church really believe about things.” I was just ramping up to give him a synopsis of our church organization and worship and teachings when he told me that he was Jewish. He had never been to a Christian church of any kind, and he really didn’t know anything about Jesus. What I was about to say became trivia. he wanted the part that matters!

Sometimes we can get hung up on our eloquence and (in our view) superior wisdom. We find ourselves fuming and fussing about things that we know (even if we won't admit it) are not really central to the Christian faith. The more we stress issues that stray from the center of faith, the more WE stray from the center of that faith. We live in a world that is progressively less and less Christian. All around us are people looking for spiritual reality, but they don't know Jesus at all. And they will listen... if we can find the time to stop feuding with other Christians over the minutia of how to do church.

Ken Young has written a song entitled "Make Us One." This song to me is a powerful reminder of both the ncessity of the world to hear the message of Christ and the need we have to proclaim it with one voice. Only when we allow the Spirit of God to make us one will we ever truly have a message for the world.

In this dark and violent world there is a war that rages on
For the hearts of the believers whom the Lord has called as one
We will take our stand together for the glory of the cross
And the walls that have divided us will crumble
As the sound of praise again is heard with one voice!
Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove; fill our hearts with your heavenly love.
Make us one; make us one--
Like the Father and the Spirit and the Son, make us one

Merry Christmas

The culture wars are again in high gear as we get closer to Christmas… or to the holidays. And that's the issue. There was a time when Christians worried that others were trying to take Christ out of Christmas; now the fear is that they are trying to take Christmas out of the season entirely. It seems that more and more the generic "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" are to be preferred over "Merry Christmas." But that, of course, is only the beginning.

• The national Christmas tree has now officially been dubbed a "Holiday Tree."
• A school in Texas asked children to bring white, not red and green, napkins to a holiday party
• Annapolis, Maryland, calls its evergreen boughs and ribbons on public buildings the "Hanging of the Greens," not "Christmas decorations."
• I even heard someone suggest (with tongue in cheek) that Nativity scenes should be called "The Holiday Homeless Family."

What do I think about all of this? I think these people are just behind the times. I was brought up to believe that the right way to approach Christmas was to avoid all religious references. The Bible doesn't authorize a winter festival; we're not commanded to observe Jesus' birthday. So we avoided the religious part of Christmas.. We did not use religious themes in decorations, we chose Christmas cards that featured snow or fireplaces rather than nativity scenes, and we sang about Frosty and Rudolph rather than Jesus. And we never, ever mentioned the birth of Jesus in church during the month of December! In other words, we were politically correct before political correctness was cool!

We meant well. But as our world has gotten more and more secular, I am so glad that we have rethought our view of Christmas. Our children are not going to have nativity plays or sing Christmas carols in school. I'm glad that we are free to let them do both in church. Saying "Merry Christmas," sending Christmas cards with nativity scenes, and finding other ways to honor Jesus during this time of the year says something to people around us. It says that we don't buy into the secularization of the public square. It says that Jesus remains the center of our world all the time, even around the holidays. Merry Christmas!

Back to Narnia

I wrote in an earlier post of how much I loved the new Disney flick The Chronicles of Narnia. I don't remember ever enjoying myself at a movie as much, and I can't wait for the girls to get home from Searcy so I can go see it again (to take them, of course). And I'm about halfway through reading Prince Caspian, the sequel to Wardrobe in the Narnia saga. I know these are children's books, but then I'm not a very deep person.

The question I'm pondering today is "Why did I like the movie so much?" Why do movies like The Passion of the Christ and Chronicles of Narnia create so much interest among Christians? Is it because they create a context in which we can share our faith with others? I can see discussing the movie with an unbelieving friend and saying, "You know the basic plot of the movie HAS been done before..." That is what several Christian marketing companies are banking on; I've gotten several offers of materials to use the movie to advertise the church and the faith. I don't think that is a bad idea.

But I do have to wonder a little if part of the reason that many of us see The Passion and Narnia as such positive things is because they somehow validate faith. Here are two incredibly popular movies (likely two of the best-selling of all time) that are based in different ways on our faith. The popular media is generally pretty negative to Christianity, but here are two cases it at least gives lip service to God. Well isn't that great? Maybe. I do hope that we don't need Hollywood to pat us on the back and tell us that its really OK to be believers after all! Faith has always placed us at odds with the world of the seen. Christianity has always been a counter-culture. Following God always leads us beyond the world, and the world is not going to make it easier to follow Him.

I hope everyone will see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I hope there will be those who will indeed have the imagination baptized, to use Lewis' words, and their hearts opened to the story of the true Lion of Judah. I hope that we will all take advantage of any opportunity we have to speak a word to others about Jesus. But let's not expect the world to make this easy for us. That is not going to happen!

On Keeping Your Focus

In his book Rumors of Another World, Philip Yancey struggles with the difficulties of living as a Christian in two worlds, the world of the flesh and the world of the spirit. He suggests that we face the constant tension of enjoying the good and pleasant things of this life on the one hand while fighting the temptation to allow them to blind us to more important things on the other.

Yancey suggests that we see ourselves as amphibians living in two environments, one physical and the other spiritual, at the same time. One of these comes easily; the other requires constant concentration. In the world of the physical, we breathe without thinking about and notice our neighbor’s new red sports car… without much thought. On the other hand, it takes great concentration to also notice and respond to things that are much more important— the homeless person beside the road with the hand-painted sign or the single mother with a disabled child who lives down the street. Quoting from Yancey—

At the heart of the Christian view of reality is the stark belief that two worlds coexist on planet Earth, constantly interacting and sometimes colliding, with human beings playing a central role in that drama. Somehow I must come to terms with that point of view and allow it to shape my everyday life. Faith is being “certain of what we do not see,” says the book of Hebrews, bringing the two worlds together.

Spiritual living takes much more concentration and hard work than living a life focused only on the here and how. This life comes easy. We don’t need any prodding to tell us we’re hungry and need food. But when we choose to live a spiritual life, that is harder. We have to focus harder and search harder. We have to focus. The invisible world is much harder to see. And when we search for it, we become out of step with those around us whose only focus in the seen reality. Paul saw that spiritual reality, and thus he could say “From now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view” (2 Cor 5:16). That is a lot easier to say that it is to live, but then we have to keep our focus!

Like a Child

¹ My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.

² But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

³ O Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.

(Psalm 131:1-3)

The above is the Psalms portion of our daily Bible reading for today. It is also a reminder that God calls us to come to him in humility and quietness. David says that he comes to God with neither a proud heart nor haughty eyes; he does not presume to an ambition that is beyond him. He rather rests with God as a weaned child who rests against his or her mother not because of hunger pains but simply out of a desire to be near her. There are times when nothing satisfies a child except to be near Mommy. David was that he was that quieted child nuzzling up near to God. Only God supplies real hope; only God can truly calm our souls.

It is no accident that this psalm is numbered among the “Songs of Ascents,” those psalms which Israel sang as pilgrims on the way to worship. This psalm prepared the way for worship by reminding the worshipper that God is always God. We don’t supply anything that God needs by the fervor or format of our worship. We don’t secure our place before God through the precision or passion of our beliefs. We are rather children who rest and rely on God to provide for us what we can never provide for ourselves. All we can do in response is to love God back as best we can.

The next time that we are tempted to think we are righteous because we are right, we need to think of this little Psalm. If we depend on ourselves to figure everything out, we will be disappointed. And we will never know the security of resting everything in God.

Aslan Is on the Move

Opening tonight at a theater near you is Disney’s blockbuster The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The movie is based on a children’s book about four schoolchildren who pass through a magic wardrobe into the land of Narnia. There they have many adventures as they battle the White Witch who has usurped power and oppressed the strange inhabitants of the land. And there they meet Aslan the Lion, the rightful ruler of Narnia. Aslan defeats the White Witch only after giving his life to atone for the treachery of one of the children... and then returning to life. If that story line seems a little familiar, it is supposed to be.

The seven-book series The Chronicles of Narnia was written by C. S. Lewis, one of the most prolific and influential Christian writers of the 20th century. In books like Mere Christianity, Lewis presented a rational defense and explanation of the Christian faith. His books that had a great impact on his generation, and they continue to influence many today. The Chronicles of Narnia was intended by Lewis as a "suppositional story" as in "suppose the Son of God had come to another world." In this story, Aslan does not represent some messiah-like figure; he represents the Christ who dies for the guilty and rises again to defeat evil. Lewis saw the Narnia tales as a way to "baptize the imagination" to prepare the way for the gospel story. Narnia is a fanciful place filled with many strange creature and events, but you’ll recognize the plot!

I am curious to see what Disney does with Lewis' book. I recently re-read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to refresh my memory of the story. I’m really looking forward to seeing the movie.

Update: I saw it last night, and it was wonderful! Not only did it not try to remove the metaphor, it even added a few! (After the dramatic battle in which Aslan kills the White Witch, he turns to Peter and says, "It is finished!" Not in Lewis' book, but it seems like I have heard that before somewhere). I guess the most lavish praise I can give it is that Lynn loved it, and the last fantasy movie she liked was The Wizard of Oz! See the movie!

Suicide Machines and Sabbath Clocks

Kate Looney sent me a URL of an article on euthanasia in Israel. Jewish law forbids one person from taking the life of another, so how can the terminally ill be assisted in suicide. (In other words, law is unhandy when you need to help kill someone!) The Jews, no strangers to matters of legalism, have developed a "euthanasia machine" that takes care of the problem. The law says nothing about a machine taking a life, so now mechanized active euthanasia is OK. The article compares the machine to devices known as "Sabbath Clocks" that are used to automatically turn on light switches and other electrical devices on the Sabbath. Orthodox law says a person can't turn on the lights on Sabbath; it doesn't saw you can't program a timer on Friday!

This is the worst kind of legalism! Why? Because it is the kind of which we are guilty! Our tradition teaches us that it would be wrong to have a woman give a report or have a chorus concert during church. So we have a closing prayer (technically ending the service) and then have the report or the concert. Do we really think God in heaven looks down on us and says, "Hey, wait just a minute there... Oh, that's OK; you had a closing prayer!). Come on!

The real point of legalism is the comfort of the legalist! It lets us do what we want to do and feel holy at the same time. It lets us hang onto tradition (which almost never has real connection with scripture) while getting around it when it becomes a bit too restrictive and unhandy. When our focus is on the heart and mind of God, we are much less likely to play those kids of games.

It's OK if a machine turns on Sabbath lightsd just so long as a person doesn’t do it? So maybe if we just had a player piano... Nah!

The Obligation of Grace

I usually don’t look for deep insights from TV shows, but the opening of Monday night’s CSI: Miami surprised me. (Of course, I don’t really watch TV). Horatio, the show’s main character, confesses to a priest a sin that he has evidently confessed many times in the past. He killed someone; there is blood on his hands. No details are given, but he is convinced that he had no choice other than to do what he did. And yet he feels intense guilt. He desperately wants to be forgiven and to feel forgiveness. The priest tells him, “God is not looking so much at the life that was lost in the past as He is looking at the people that you can save now.” Horatio responds, “But I need to hear the words.” He needs to hear that he is forgiven. But the priest replies, “When you’ve done enough, then you will know it.” Of course, then he has to leave church to run out and shoot someone also!

How horrible to go through life always feeling guilty and never feeling forgiven. How hard it must be to think that you must do enough in order to be forgiven, but then at the same time you know that you haven’t done enough and can’t do enough. How frustrating it is to work and work hoping to reach the point when you feel you have done enough… but never really getting there.

But it is shallow to go through life feeling no obligation to God’s grace. No, we can never earn grace through obedience. But if we truly understand the gift of grace, then we are placed under a tremendous obligation. In 1 Corinthians 15:10, Paul says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” Paul clearly understood the obligation of grace. He understood that not only does grace lead us to work for God, but it is grace that works through us. Do we view grace in terms of obligation? Or do we rather see it excusing us from serious service? We might want to go back and seriously study some of those grace passages again!

Getting Big Through Getting Small

The most recent edition of The Christian Chronicle has an article you really need to read. If you don't get this newspaper covering events relating to Churches of Christ, you need to subscribe. The center-spread article features the Fairfax Church of Christ, our sister congregation to the north. Our teens recently visited Fairfax for the Powerhouse youth rally. You can read the Christian Chronicle article online.

Several things struck me about the feature, but what hit me the hardest was the emphasis given at Fairfax to small groups. Several interviews with Fairfax members gave powerful testimony to the way small groups had impacted their lives and walk with the Lord. One new member said, "This church, and especially this small group, they complete me...I’m an almost 40-year-old divorced woman, and I’m whole here." Another new member observed, "They’re very good about encouraging you to get into a small group. People introduce themselves and one of the first things they say is, ‘Are you in a small group? Do you want to come to ours?’”

The church at Fairfax is very mobile and transient. Like Denbigh, a large percentage of their membership is in military and goverment service. Like Denbigh (and even more so), their members live miles distant from one another. In a setting like that, small groups give people a place to quickly plug in and belong. According to the article, about half of the 1,000 people who worship at Fairfax on Sunday mornings also participate in the small group program; the goal of the elders is to increase that number to closer to 75 percent.

Small groups are not just an alternative to traditional Sunday night services. They are a way to connect people in a world that has become disconnected. May God use our Body Life small groups to bring us closer together and closer to Him.

The Meaning of Life

Mike Royko once wrote a piece about a man who noticed a sign at a Chevron gas station that said, “As you travel ask us.” So every time he pulled into a Chevron station, he’d point to the sign and say, “I’m a traveler and I’d like to know what is the meaning of life?” He usually got an answer along the lines of “Sorry, I’m new here.” Most people just gave him a blank stare and cleaned his windshield. But he kept asking. One day he got a call from Chevron customer relations saying, “We understand you’ve been asking our managers questions and you have been getting unsatisfactory answers.” The Chevron official suggested he send his question to the Chevron Corporate. So he wrote, “What is the meaning of life?” and sent it to the corporate office. A couple weeks later he received back an application for a credit card.

For many in our culture, a credit card seems to be getting pretty close to the meaning of life! This is the time of year when we really start racking up the cha-chings on our credit cards doing our Christmas shopping. (We'll reflect more on this in January when the bills start coming due!) But our purpose in life certainly isn't credit cards. Our purpose is not the accumulations of possessions, relationships, or experiences. God makes it clear through Isaiah that we were created for God's glory.

Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth— everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. (Isaiah 43:6-7)

Our purpose in life is to bring glory and honor to the God who loves us and who saves us. Paul tells us that we have been "called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). That purpose is to live in relationship to God and share that relationship with others. There are many ways in which we bring God glory-- worship, service to others and the church, sharing our faith, and so on. But our main purpose in life is to bring God glory.

Are we living daily so as to fulfill our purpose?

Forsaking the Assembly

Today's New Testament reading is Hebrews 10, a rich chapter where the writer concludes what commentators call "the longest sustained argument in the New Testament." But what stands out to me is Hebrews 10:25, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together" (KJV). That verse stands out because I remember it being used so much when I was growing up. It was the reason we attended Wednesday and Sunday nights, supported all gospel meetings and always found a church when traveling. It was also the reason why summer camp began on Sunday afternoon; to start on Saturday (the original practice) caused us to "forsake the assembly." (I remember having Sunday worship at camp in the early days before the change. I remember it largely because the little glasses they used for communion were snuff glasses, which I thought was hysterically funny!)

I'm glad we attended every service. I'm especially grateful for my Dad's example of leaving his business on Wednesday to be at church with us even though that often meant him returning to work after church and staying until midnight. I never doubted where my Dad's heart was! I'm glad we always found a church when we went on vacation. Sometimes you need to make a commitment to something good and allow that to become a good habit. But the point of Hebrews 10:25 is much deeper and more important than "You gotta go on Wednesday nights."

The next verse says "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left" (10:26). Hebrew Christians were leaving the Christian assembly to return to the life they lived before Christ. But to leave Jesus means there is no more sacrifice for sin. Thus to leave off assembling with other believers was to give up on the quest for holiness and forgiveness. being with other Christians was what constantly called them back to Jesus.

It is good for church attendance to be a habit, but we need to see the reason behind the habit. We live in a world that continually seeks to suck us back into the unholiness, materialism and selfishness that we left behind when we committed to serve Christ. Daily we pray and praise and study to keep focused on who we are. But one powerful tool God gives us to help us in our fight with sin is our assembly with other Christians. The word used here for assembly is used of formal church gatherings (1 Cor 5:4), more informal prayer gatherings (Acts 4:31) and even elders and deacons meetings (Acts 15:6). It is also used of Jesus gathering us together at the end time (2 Thess 2:1). Sunday morning church is not that is addressed in Hebrews 10:25. The writer is talking about Christians gathering together as a spiritual support group.

The Hebrew writer doesn't want us to do is quit gathering with Christians because our gathering is a powerful tool God uses to help us in our fight with sin and Satan. The question is not, "How many church services must I attend in order to please God?" The question may be "How serious am I about living a holy life for God in this unholy world?" And the question is also, "How serious am I about encouraging others to live for God?" You see, even when you don't think you get anything out of a worship service, a small group, a Bible class, an after-church activity or some other "assembly," your presence may be a encouragement to someone else.

So... how serious are we?

Hearts of Stone and Flesh

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

There's a story about a man who cleaned out his attic and threw out a lot of the old junk he found there. Among the discards was an old Bible. Now we usually don’t throw away old Bibles; that just seems sacrilegious somehow. But this one was falling apart and had writing all over it, so he threw it away. A friend collected antique and he expressed interest in the old Bible.

The man said, “You wouldn't have been interested. It was in German; somebody named Guten-something-or-other printed it.”

“Gutenberg!” exclaimed the book collector in horror. “That Bible was one of the first books ever printed! Why, it could have been worth millions!”

“Nah,” said the man. “It wasn’t worth anything. Somebody named Luther had scribbled all over it!”

We live in a culture prone to discarding old things. Mass production and planned obsolescence make it easy to throw old things away and get new ones. No one makes a living repairing old coffee pots, toasters, or VCR’s anymore. It’s easier to discard them and buy a new one.

Unfortunately, we are that way we people and relationships. Companies discard old employees and replace them with new ones who don’t require as much salary or benefits. People are far too quick to throw away marriages that don’t seem to be working; it’s easier to just move on to a new relationship. And Christians are too often much too quick to give up on a church and move on to a new one.

But the secret to repairing old things is the God who makes all things new. God promises his people to give them a new heart. He will replace rebellious hearts of stone with hearts of flesh, hearts that are led by His Spirit to obey His words. God would not discard his people; He will rather make them new. That is what God wants to do with each one of us. How blessed we are to serve a God who repairs and restores and makes new!

Thanksgiving Day

I enjoyed a pretty traditional Thanksgiving Day at my in-laws yesterday. By traditional I don't mean turkey and dressing; our new tradition is my father-in-law's special prime rib which everyone loves, including Maggie the mut. No, by traditional I mean someone else did all the cooking while I gorged myself and then vegged-out in front of football. I'm not sure who started that tradition, but I'd like to shake his hand some day! (And we are sure it was a "he" who started it, right?)

It was a great day all around, but the best part for me was the drive there. Normally I don't mind the hour and a half trip over the river and through the woods, but I usually don't enjoy it. But yesterday I did. We started out listening to some praise music I recently downloaded (legally of course) from iTunes for Lynn. We soon went from listening to singing along, Tressa singing alto along with Lynn and Angelynn's soprano. And I sang also. We've made a trip or two like that with anything but harmony coming from the backseat! And we weren't in the car 5 minutes coming home until the CD was going and we were singing again.

There's no better way to reconnect with the true meaning of Thanksgiving than through worship. The day isn't really about prime rib, coconut cake and pecan pie (I'll write the Atkins people an apology letter later). It's about family and reflecting on the goodness and blessings of our gracious God. What better way to focus on both of those than worshipping together?

Yesterday was a great day! Then the Cowboys lost, and that made it perfect!

Hospital or Museum?

I really hate going to the dentist. It is not because I’m a big sissy. OK, maybe I am a big sissy, but that is not the real reason I'm dentaphobic. I hate going because of the lecture I that I almost always get because of lousy flossing. Now, I'm no Neanderthal; I know I should floss and I do floss; evidently I'm just not good at it! On one occasion after getting the flossing lecture, I insisted, perhaps a bit too adamantly, that I did floss regularly. So the hygienist ripped off a piece of dental floss, handed it to me, and snootily said, “OK, then show me how you do it!” And she then scolded me for being such a flossing klutz! I didn’t need that! What I needed was someone to help me, not someone to tell me how lousy and pathetic I am.

Could this be why some people give up on church? They come searching for God and spiritual meaning in their life precisely because they know that is what is missing in their life. But too often what the searcher finds is a healthy dose of brimstone as their sins and weaknesses are categorized and condemned. But then, they knew that they were sinners when they came. Oh, maybe they did not know the correct theological categories, but they knew that they needed God. And what they needed from us is to be gently and lovingly shown how to find God and make Him a part of their lives.

The church is no spiritual museum where we place on display spiritual giants who have all their spiritual ducks in a row. It is rather a spiritual hospital where the spiritually sick can come for recuperation and healing. And the spiritually ill include each one of us. The church at Denbigh is not perfect and it never will be-- either in its programs, its perspectives or its people. But we serve the perfect Christ who remains the Great Physician who continues to heal us and equip us to serve as wounded-healers who reach out with His healing message to the world.

Change and Decay

One of my favorite church songs used to be "Abide with Me." Now, I usually go for more upbeat tunes, but this one has an interesting tenor deal going on at the end that I always liked. And the idea of a God who is "Help of the helpless" who would always "abide with me" is an important message. But there is a phrase in the song that bothered me. "Change and decay in all around I see..." I know the message of the song is that God is changeless, but to imply that "change" and "decay" are somehow the same concept is not helpful. A lot of changes that we see around us are both good and positive.

As I write this, my daughters are on the road driving home for Thanksgiving. One is in college in Searcy and the other has graduated and is working there. Both of them are quite different from the little girls I used to carry around on my shoulders and play "roof ball" with in the back yard. They have both really changed and grown as people. And as nostalgic as I sometimes get for the good old days when they (and I) were younger, their changes have been growth-- not decay. They don't even have the option whether or not to grow and change. The only alternative to growth is death.

Also as I write this, our church pews are on their way to southern Mississippi. They will have a new home in a church building that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. We will sit on borrowed chairs as we wait for our new chairs to arrive next month. Change. The auditorium does look very different; in fact, it even looks a little sad. I know I am a little sad. My girls grew up sleeping on those pews and climbing over those pews. They both got up from one of those pews to walk down front to name Christ as Savior and be baptized. There is a lot of history in those (extremely heavy) pieces of particle board furniture. It will be a change sitting on form-fitting, lumbar-supporting chairs. But it won't be decay. Growth. Churches like people grow, and growth is change, not decay.

Sour Grapes

In 2002, the African nation of Swaziland suffered a famine in which 250,000 people were on the brink of starvation. At the same time the UN asked for emergency funds to relieve the suffering, the king of Swaziland ordered a $55 million private luxury jet. The money was taken from a development fund for projects aimed at making Swaziland economically self-sufficient. In the meantime, a quarter of a million Swazis were starving to death. The injustice of so many suffering so much due to the corruption of a few is overwhelming.

This injustice gave Israel in the time of Ezekiel a bad case of "sour grapes." An entire generation of Jew grew up in Babylonian captivity due to Israel's rebellion against God. But this generation of captive had not rebelled; that was the sin of their fathers. They used the proverb, "The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge" (Ezek18:2). They were being held guilty of sin that was not theirs. They even saw in this a proof of God's injustice, "The way of the Lord is not just" (Ezek 18:25). God's gave a clear answer to their proverb--

For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son—both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die. (Ezekiel 18:4)

While sometimes the innocent must suffer the consequences of the sinful choices of others, only the soul that sins will be held accountable as guilty. Fathers will not be held guilty for the sins of their children; neither will children inherit the sins of their parents (see Ezek 18:19-20). Ezekiel here may not be giving a full treatment on the doctrine of "Original Sin," but what he says here is powerful. As is the fact that God ends the text with an invitation--

“Therefore, O house of Israel, I will judge you, each one according to his ways, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live! (Ezekiel 18:30-32)

Assignment 2006

I need your help on this one! What do we do for next year? This year we have read through the Bible together suing a reading calendar with an Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs reading. I have preached on one of the Sunday texts in the series. I'll likely not do that again, but what do we do for our daily devotional reading?

• Maybe we read through the Bible in canonical order, Genesis to Revelation.
• Maybe we use the Chronological Bible to read the Bible in historical order.
• Maybe we use the One Year Bible (similar to this year, but less repetitive.
• Maybe we study through 12 long Bible books (1 a month) at a slower pace.
• Maybe we use a devotional guide like Power for Today or Morning and Evening.

What do you think? I like the idea of us having a "recommended plan" for our quiet time. At least this encourages those of us who have a hard time staring on task! Whatever the plan, it won't have us read through Proverbs 12 times in 2006!

So what do you think? Post a comment below to let me know what you are thinking!

On Biting and Devouring

Some time ago, Cindy Byrd sent me a video clip a dog with a bone. He reaches up with his hind leg to scratch his ear or something, but the dog evidently sees his leg as a rival that is after his bone. He is so intent on protecting his bone that he growls at and snaps at and then finally pounces on his own leg. Click here to see the video.

That reminds me too much of how the church acts at times. We can be so intent on eating our bone (our perspectives, interpretations, traditions) that we are suspicious of and snap at other believers not realizing that we are attacking our own body. I wonder if we look as silly to the world and to God as the dog in the video looks to us!

The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. (Galatians 5:14-15)

Now For Something Completely Different

In 2005, I sent out daily email articles (OK, there were really 3-4 a week) that were devotional thoughts and musings driven on one of that day's daily Bible reading texts. See this link for some of those articles. I appreciate all the nice comments many of you send me.

I thought that for 2006 I would try a blog (Web Log) that will do much the same thing. The comments I post here may be rambling thoughts (OK, they will almost certainly be rambling thoughts) on the sermon, a class, a comment I received or something that I've read that I found either helpful, interesting or maybe even a bit infuriating.

Hopefully the blog format will make it easier for you to comment, share your thoughts and reflection and add to the discussion. I am curious to see where this goes. Hey, I am curious to see if this even works!

-- Tuck