The Chrietmas Bell

It was a rainy day about a week before Christmas in Atlanta, when the world was swathed in soggy shades of gray.  I was in the middle of my Christmas funk.  It's not that I don't like the season, but after a while, the season doesn't seem to like me.  I was in a round of church parties and school events. It had been a week since I had a single night off. 
I had always hoped for a Norman Rockwell Christmas,  with snow, carolers, festive people and glowing smiles. But no Christmas in my entire life has fully lived up to my expectations.  I have never seen a snowy Christmas.  Instead, they are always cold and soggy like this one or dry and sunny, witih a dry, brown winter landscape.  That momnt of quiet we all seeom to yearn for at the end of the year, escapes us.  Replaced instead by social pressures and frantic shopping.  It's business in high gear at the end of the year, which makes us think that the whole world is one giant treadmill.  Sometimes, I feel I am like the guy at the gym who turns up the treadmill too high, and has to run as hard as he can to keep brom being slung off.  One day, the Christmas machine, and the whole society t supports will come crashing down on our ears.  We cannot keep this up foreve.
this particular day, I was trying to finish my last bit of shopping with my last bit of money.  I awas at K-Mart walking the aisles of the Christmas section. 
Have you ever heard the word kitsch? It refers to the kind of cheap junk which is neither valueaboe, useful, or even tasteful. Chrstmas is kitchy season, to be sure.  The aisle of K Mart Christmas department are covered with it.  It thought about all those people whose livelihood depends upon selling junk we neither need nor want. 
One particular kitschy ornament caught my eye.  It was a plastic Christmas bell, made in Hong Kong.  There was a plastic ball attached to a white string.  It was mostly white with red and green paint badly painted on the top part.  I pulled the string on it, and it began to pay "Silent Night" as badly as I had ever heard it play.
The tone was off, the timing was off,  and it was barely recognizable. But you could hear the tune, nevertheless.  They words came back to me.
Silent Night Holy Night All is celm, all is bright
Round yon virgin mother nd child. Holy Infant so tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace.
Tears welled up in my eyes.  I don't know why.  I had heard th song so many times before in this frantic season, but somehow I had not heard it. 
You wonder where Christmas is, in the middle of the hectic holidays/  Its right there, in the core of our souls. In It's never left, but hides underneath all the glitter and junk of the season. Secular holiday songs ad parties can never fully wipe it out.  Commericalism cannot hide it forever. It's there, buried under the pile like a seed ready to spout.
Heavenly peace. It's there.  You may not see it or feel it but it's there, deep down underneath it all.  God's love in human form. All it takes is a little imagination and a change of attitude to see it. If we look at the outer Christmas, it's a wasteful, commercial mess. But if we look behind it, we see the love of the Father, the sacrifice of he Son, and the touch of the Holy Spirit. 
Christmas is what we make it. It's We shoose the Christmas we will have, just as we choose the lives we live all year.  We can focus on love or we can focus on obligation and anxiety.  Love prevails under the weight of the world, in the silent night of love. 

A Christmas Blessing

This is Christmas Eve Eve. Tomorrow the festivities begin in earnest. The kids will be here in the morning, and they will be super excited. Two of my daughters will be here overnight. There will be food and presents and laughing, no doubt.


But none of this is the best thing about Christmas. The thing that excites me most is the quiet of it. Quiet moments in a Christmas Eve service. A starry sky, Christmas lights twinkling on a hunred lawns, sold, still winter weather. Sometimes, I feel that if I listen a little harder, I can hear a baby cry and angels sing.

This Christmas Eve, I'm going to be working at Hope Inc. in the morning. We'll be handing out food and money to the people who really need it. I can't think of a better way to spend Christmas eve than that.

This year is tough for a lot of my family and church friends. One has lost a mother this week. Another has lost a grandmother. Two of my friends are looking for jobs. Still another is temporarily blinded, and can only hear Christmas. My parents are spending the first Christmas away from their home since he had to move into an apartment. My mother-in-law is just out of the hospital and can barely take care of herself, let alone do the preparations she usually does.

What Do we need for Christmas? Nothing. Nothing at all but the grace of God. Seeing those who are in deep need, I realize that I am already full. Two daughters are engaged. We all have jobs. We are all relatively healthy. God has blessed us so much that we can shower one another with more presents than we need. If I have any more health, wealth, and blessing, I will burst. This Christmas, if I need anything, it is to get my eyes off myself and onto those who really have needs.

I don't know who will read this, but if you really need something, may God grant you your deepest desires. Better yet, may God bless you with the gift of not desiring what we do not need, and make us content with what we have. Love, grace, and the beauty of the world is a far greater gift than we can eve imagine.

Mary's Faith

Most people think that ministers are paragons of faith. This is often not the case. Ministers, like everyone else, have moments of doubt. There is a skeptic inside of all of us trying to get out.


It is not having doubt that causes trouble, it is acting upon them. Faith is not so much an emotion as an intention. Faith is a choice to follow God, whether or not it always makes sense to our mortal minds to do so.

Nor all faith is the same, however. I classify faith into three categories. The first is belief--intellectual assent to a proposition. We may believe in flying saucers or Bigfoot, capitalism or Christianity without it making one bit of difference. This is a spectator faith, requiring no action or intention. A belief costs us nothing

Then there is tentative faith. This is the faith we must act upon. This faith costs us something

There is a famous story about the tightrope walker the Great Wallenda. He walked across Niagra falls on a tightrope. When e reached the other side, he picked up a chair and said “How many of you believe that I can carry this chair across the falls with me?” Every hand went up. Then Wallenda challenged them. “Very well, who is willing to get into the chair?” No one volunteered.

Faith is being willing to get into the chair. It is the willingness to put or lives, our time, and our money where our mouth is.

. But tentative faith is shaky, since it involves the will without necessarily changing our emotions.

Suppose you go to the amusement park and get on the roller coaster. You have faith that the roller coaster will hold you. But that does not guarantee you will enjoy the experience. Our sense of panic can ruin the ride, even when we are willing to take it.

But there is a faith that beyond doubt, a faith we call certainty. It is a faith that involves the emotions, will, an intellect. There is no complexity in it, but is a simple, childlike trust.

This kind of faith is not natural. It is supernatural. It comes from the Holy Spirit, not from human invention. God places certainty in our hearts, we do not put it there ourselves.

This is the certainty of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Consider the situation that Mary was in at the beginning of the New Testament. She was a young girl, probably no more than fourteen years old. Yet she already had the certainty of faith.

Let’s look at Luke 1:26-28.

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

Put yourself in Mary’s sandals. How would you react? She was scared, no doubt. The Bible says she was “greatly troubled.”



But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

How would you respond, if you were given a similar message? My initial response would be skepticism. How do I know this is an angel? How do I know this is not someone’s practical joke? Worse, it might also be a sign that I was losing my mind. That would be worse than being the butt of a joke. Even worse, it was possible that this was not a good angel. Not all angelic visitors are from God. How do I know this is an angel, or a lying demon from hell?

Suppose we could somehow get over our skepticism. Then we are in danger of an even worse trap--pride. Why was she highly favored? What had she done to deserve such an honor?

Catholics and Protestants disagree on the subject of Mary. Catholics think this favor fell on Mary as a reward for what she had done. They commonly teach that Mary was immaculately conceived, that she did not sin. But the Bible does not back his up. There is no hint in the Bible that this fourteen year old girl was more virtuous than others.

The gift of the messiah did not came as a reward, but as a burden. She faced the ridicule of the town. Her parents sent her off to live with relatives. Joseph almost divorced her. She had received a hard, cruel gift from God.

God does not choose the smartest or the holiest to do His will. He chooses whom he wishes. The faith to work miracles does not come by seeking it. It is a gift. Mary had this certainty of faith, because God planted that faith in her heart.

Mary’s second question is understandable. “How can this be, since I knw n man.?”

It was a simple, humble question, but there is no doubt in it. Contrast this with people like Moses and Peter. When Jesus washed Peter’s feet, Peter’s reaction was “Not so, Lord.” When Moses met God at the burning bush, Moses questioned God’s judgment in choosing him. But Mary does not question. She merely asks how it can be. 34-37

"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"

The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God."

ary did not question God’s ability. She merely questioned his means. She never doubted that, if God said it, it would happen.

We ask the question “how” of God often. But we do it for other reasons than Mary. We want to know how so we can believe. We want to know how so we can be certain. But knowing how does not necessarily bring certainty. If we understood all the mysteries of creation, would it convince us that God created the heavens and the earth? It think not. We do not understand so we can believe. We believe in order that we might understand. That is what Mary did.

Mary’s response is simple, childlike certainty.

"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said."

Faith like this is not natural. It is supernatural. God gives us certainty when we need it. God gives this kind of faith when it is called for. When we need it, God will provide it.

How do you suppose her friends and relatives would react if they knew that Mary was to be he mother of God? I would imagine they would burst into laughter. They would say “Mary? The priest’s daughter. Are you crazy? She’s no different than we are.”

But God can change an ordinary person into an extraordinary person with a wave of His hand. He can and will bestow extraordinary faith on all of us.

In Corey Ten Boom’s book The Hiding Place, she relates the story of how she once asked her father about faith. The Ten Booms were Christians in the Netherlands under Nazi occupation. They were attempting to smuggle Jews out of the country. As such, they faced death every day. She asked her father if he thought she had the faith to face death, if the time arose. Her father replied “When we take a train trip, when do I give you the ticket?”

“Just before we leave, otherwise I might lose it.”

‘God does the same thing. He gives us the faith we need just before we need it.”

Mary truly needed the faith. She had to explain to her parents and Joseph why she was pregnant. She had to face the suspicious townspeople. But none of this seems to bother Mary once she made up her mind to believe.

Mary was asked to believe an extraordinary thing. But whenever God requires of us extraordinary faith, He also gives us extraordinary proof.. Her cousin Elizabeth was also miraculously pregnant. Her baby leapt in her womb as Mary approached. Joseph also had a dream and an angel visitation. A star appeared at his birth, along with wise men and shepherds. At every step where Mary might have wavered, God provided another extraordinary proof of his mercy and existence.

Mary faced God’s burdensome blessing with faith and certainty.

What about you? Are you certain?

Many people believe in Christmas. That is, they believe that Jesus was born of a virgin and that He was the Son of God. But this belief costs us nothing. It requires no effort on our part to believe in a Jesus that everyone we know also believes.

Some of us have faith, but a struggling faith. We believe and are trying to build our lives upon that belief. We ask ourselves “what would Jesus do?” We confess our sins, and trust He hears us. But if we were called upon to put our lives on the line, we do not know what we would do. Could we face whatever God brings upon us and say “I am God’s servant, be it done with me whatever He wills.”

But do we have certainty? That requires a tougher faith--based not on the mind but the heart. That faith must be given by the Holy Spirit.

You don’t have to figure out Christmas. You only have to trust Jesus. He has the power to give freedom and strength in the middle of the harshest challenges.

Step out on the faith you have, and God will give you the faith you need.

The Man Who Saw the Future

This morning, I’d like to introduce you to one of the most remarkable men in the Bible—the prophet Isaiah.


If anyone deserved to be considered a prophet, it was Isaiah. He was an elegant prophet, a great writer and a scholar, a friend of priests and kings, but also a man who God gave the gift of precognition. He saw the future as clearly as we see our own day. He was a true prophet, in every sense of the word.

Isaiah lived in a time of great danger. The Assyrians had destroyed the Northern kingdom of Israel and almost destroyed the kingdom of Judah. Sennacharib, kind of Ninevah, had conquered most of the country, and surrounded what was left of the Judean army in Jerusalem. He surrounded the city with siege engines, catapults, archers, and 186,000 soldiers. Isaiah sat with good king Hezekiah, trapped behind the city walls.

Isaiah was not worried, though. He had seen the future. God was on their side. Isaiah knew with certainty that they would win.

How could he possibly have known that? All the evidence was to the contrary. They were far outnumbered by superior forces.

Historians say “It was a lucky guess. Besides,” they say “ What he said was written down after the event. Isaiah probably made it up later.”

But Isaiah was right and they were wrong. Isaiah knew the future, because he knew what God had said.

After the war was over, there was a great celebration of victory. Then countries from all over the world came to congratulate them. Among the nations who sent emissaries was the king of Babylon. (We read about this in Isaiah 39.) King Hezekiah was honored to see them. It gave him an opportunity to show off his rebuilt country. He showed them everything.

3 Then Isaiah asked the king "What did those men say, and where did they come from?"

"From a distant land," Hezekiah replied. "They came to me from Babylon."

Isaiah answered.

"Hear the word of the LORD Almighty: The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."

How could he have known that? Again historians would argue that those words were added later. Or, that Isaiah was simply smart enough to know that these emissaries were merely sizing them up for future conquest.

But they are wrong. Isaiah knew the future, because he knew what God had said.

King Hezekiah was too happy to worry about it. Besides, like most of us he only heard what he wanted to here.

8 "The word of the LORD you have spoken is good," Hezekiah replied. For he thought, "There will be peace and security in my lifetime."

Then Isaiah wrot the second section of his book. It is a prophecy to the people who survive in Babylon, three hundred years later, when his prophecy was fulfilled. It contains names of people who had not yet been born.

Now, how could a man write a book for people who would not be born for three hundred years, naming names and places?

Historians say he didn’t. He didn’t’ because (they say) he couldn’t. It must be someone else who wrote these words, someone they call Second Isaiah. It would be an impossible miracle for Isaiah to have written it.

But they are wrong. Isaiah knew the future, because he knew what God had said.

Then, in the middle of this book, this so-called “second Isaiah,” he goes even farther in to the future, almost five hundred years more. In order to comfort those people who were not yet born, he tells them of future events in chapter 53. In a far-away time, God would sent a Suffering Servant to earth. He had spoken of him before, back in chapter 9 of his first book. He had called Him “wonderful, counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, the prince of peace.” He would be wounded for our transgression, bruised for our iniquities. He would be beaten and lashed until the blood poured out of his back. All this would be done for our cleansing. By His stripes we would be healed. He described the death of this Suffering Servant.

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living;for the transgression of my people he was stricken. 9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

Historians dispute this, of course. They suggest that this chapter is misinterpreted. Others have suggested that they were actually added later, in Jesus’ time by another writer, a so-called third Isaiah. After all, it would be an impossible miracle for Isaiah to have known something that happened eight hundred years after he was born. To believe differently would be to believe in a miracle.

But they are wrong. Isaiah knew the future, because he knew what God had said.

Wouldn’t it be great to have Isaiah’s abilities to see into the future? Think of how you could use it. We could win the lottery or play the stock market. But what Isaiah uses his gift to change people’s perception of the present. When we know we are going to win, we can enjoy that victory, even when enduring present problems. Think about how happy you could be if, during labor, you could knew that your baby would be healthy. Think of how useful it would be to know while you’re looking for a job, that you’re going to get a good one. It’s like playing with your presents before you even open them, and still having the fun of unwrapping.

That’s called faith.

Faith is borrowing on future joys to endure present suffering. Faith is what keeps us going in the dark. Faith is what keeps us going through the tough times when there seems to be no way out.It is the gift of knowledge that everything will be all right.

Is this really possible? Of course it is. A child has it on Christmas Eve. A bride has it on her wedding day. We have it when we stand on the promises of God.

Christmas is all about faith. On the winter solstice, December 21, is the shortest day of the year. It is a dark, miserable day. But we are not disheartened by it. December 22 will be a little bit longer Every day afterward will be little brighter. We are brighter when we know the night will pass.

The first Christmas was not much of an event. Aside from the shepherds and wise men, no one knew what was happening. A baby born in a manger would hardly make the papers. Most of the world slumbered through it, alone in the dark. But it was the start of a miracle.

It’s not their fault they slept. They sleep because they do not hear. Many hear, but do not understand. Many understand, but do not believe. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

It’s all there in Isaiah 40, as well as many other places.

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her

that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for,

that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins.

The people were conquered twice because of their sins—first by Assyria, and then by Babylon. Even so, there is comfort. There is always an end to disaster. There is never an end to His mercy.

In order to have faith, there must be righteousness. Isaiah writes

3 A voice of one calling: "In the desert prepare the way for the LORD ;

make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.

4 Every valley shall be raised up every mountain and hill made low;

the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.

Sin puts mountains between us and faith. It makes us impossible for us to see God’s plan. We all know instinctively that when we do something wrong, God is not going to like it. But what we forget is this. He may not always like what we do, but he never stops loving us.

Jesus takes down those mountains between us and God and makes them into plains. He straightens the path between us and God, not for us to come to God, but for Him to come to us. If we are so broken that we cannot walk, God will come looking for us.

In order to have faith, we must have one who is worthy trust. He can save not only us, but the whole world with us . Isaiah writes.

5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it.

For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

What is God’s glory? It is His reputation, his fame, his influence, shining not only through space but also time. Isaiah saw his glory from hundreds of years in the past. We see it from thousands of years into the future. The birth of Jesus still warms our hearts today.

Isaiah saw the future. Now it’s your turn. Where do you see your future with God? Jesus came so that you could have a future. His death and resurrection bought you a place in the eternal heavens. Our celebration of Christmas is just an eternal reminder of the coming victory of Christ.

There are some who doubt this, of course. They only see gloom, doom and disaster. But they do not know the miraculous power of God.

They are wrong. We are right, because we have heard what God says.

Silent Night

I"m entering the "Scrooge" phase of Christmas today. I go thught this every year.  By the time I get to the middle of December, I have been into Christmas for almost a month. By the time I get to the big day, it starts to feel like the dirty dishes from a Thanksgiving meal. We've glutted ourselves on materialism and candy so badly that all apetites have been sated, and all I can think of is getting over it.
On an old Saturday Night Live  sketch,  Father Guido Sarducci suggested that we should have "big" Christmas and "little" Christmas Every other year we should have a merry "little" Christmas, without all the presence, decoratons, etc.  It's not a bad idea, really.  Once, I'd like to get through the holidays with my checkbook, diet, and sanity intact. 
It's not that I hate Christmas, I dont. It just that Christmas gets buried under a pile of wrapping and tinsel every year, until it becomes hard to find it. 
What's Chrismtas for, anyway.
At it's core, Christmas is a spiritual exercise.  It's an opportunity to get closer to God by meditating on th comng of the Messiah. 
Christmas is the fulcrum f hstory.  Its the moment when everything changed.  The miracle of s it that it reminds us that every moment could be a new moment of changing  Jesus can enter into any waking mmen, and transform us. 
It begins in silence.  Then there was a baby's cry.  No one recognized what was happening at first, but soon they did.  Wide-eyed shepherds appeared ut of nowhere with a fantastic story of angels.  Oriental mystics appeared, babbling about a star. Then there was more silence, silence for a long time, before all heaven broke loose. 
I seek out the quiet moments of life.  There seem to be so few of them.  I am listening for that baby to cry again.  I am waiting for the moment when the Kingdom of God comes in my life and my world. 
If only Christmas were the moment it was meant to be, a moment for quiet listening and hearng.
This year, I've enjoyed listening to a Christmas album by Sting.  I head him speak about it on NPR one morning.  Though I'm sure he's not a Christian, he said something that stuck in my mind.  He said that the winter season was a moment for reflection.  The cold weather drives us into ourselves,  helping to remind us of the possibilities that there are. 
I would rather think that Christmas reminds us of the possibilities that God can bring forth. 
If only it could be this and not an excuse for indulgence. God,  give me a silent night again!

Daily Affirmations

Today, I will remember that I am forgiven

Today I will remember that I am beautiful in God's eyes.

Today I will remember that I am already loved enough

Today I will remember to give others my honesty and my friendship

Today I will remember the shortness of life

Today I will remember the privilege of living this moment

Today I will remember to be thankful to God for every moment

Today I will remember the holy sensuality of praise

Today I will remember I can do all Through Christ

Today I will remember that I can trust

And in trusting hope

And in hoping know

And in knowing rejoice.

Advent: From Darkness to Dawn

We have Christmas exactly backwards. Consider how we celebrate our modern Christmas. It starts when we get past Thanksgiving. It is a time of parties, good cheer, and feasting, lasting for at least the entire month of December. Then sometime around New Year, we take down the decorations. About that time, we realize that we’ve been overly indulgent. We go on diets, join health clubs, and make New Year’s Resolutions to do better next year.


This is the total reverse of how Christmas was celebrated for nineteen hundred years. For most of the history of the church, December was a month of fasting, not feasting.

But the Victorian Christmases of Scrooge and Dickens happened after December 25. The Twelve Days of Christmas started on Christmas day and ended on the Feast of the Three Kings, on January 6. Christmas did not come until after Advent.

The Advent season was solemn and soul-searching, like Lent. During that time, people refrained from worldly pleasures, not indulged in them.

No one ever believed that Jesus’ birthday was actually December 25. It was a date chosen by the church to begin the liturgical drama of the year. December 21 is the darkest day of the year. The birth of Jesus afterward symbolizes the dawning of the light.

We know what Christmas is supposed to mean, but we often fail to feel it. We are so taken up with shopping and partying to experience this transition from darkness to light. We do not appreciate the light, because we do not know the darkness. To us it is a time for merriment. If we are going to understand the light of Christmas, we have to understand that darkness first.

When my family was younger, we made an annual pilgrimage to see Joy’s parents in Michigan. It was a thirteen to twenty-four hour drive, depending upon where we lived. Early on we discovered that the easiest way to travel with small children was to travel overnight. So before the trips, I would sleep as much as I could. Then armed with coffee, protein, and caffeine pills I would stay awake all night, until Joy woke up at dawn and relieved my driving.

Between six and midnight was easy. Then as one o’clock came it became harder to stay awake.. By two in the morning, the dark seemed to close in around me. The world shrank to a small tube of light on an abandoned road, with no one but truckers and policemen on the road. I would gulp more coffee and keep going.

By four in the morning, the coffee was wearing off. I had used up all the tricks I knew to stay awake. I was thinking that this whole trip was a foolish idea. Sometimes, I would consier whether or not to turn off the road and rest. It was too late to check into a hotel, but I did not know if I could make it.

Then, about four thirty or five in the morning, I saw something that woke me up again--a faint lightening of the eastern sky. It wasn’t much, but it enough to remind me that the night was coming to an end and the dawn was coming.

This is what the Nativity was—the coming of the light. It wasn’t much at first, a baby in a manger, a star in the sky, but it was enough to start us rejoicing. The night had an end to it, and the dawn was coming.

The darkness fell in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve committed the first sin, and ever since we’ve gotten steadily worse. The forbidden fruit in one generation led to murder in the next. Murder led to conquest. Conquest led to genocide. Men became haters of God and followers of a lie. But since the beginning of the darkness, there was always a glimmer of hope. In Genesis 3:15 God said. “And I shall put an enmity between your seed and her seed, and you shall bruise his heel, but he shall crush your head.” A savior—a seed of woman alone—would come and destroy the works of the devil. So wherever there was darkness there was hope.

Hope--what a frail word! When we say hope, we really mean wishes. “I hope to be married someday.” “I hope I win the lottery.” But Biblical hope is much, much stronger than that. It is a certainty of future deliverance. It is not a wish—it is the firm belief in something better coming.

Without hope, we do nothing. Who would work at a job if he did not hope for a paycheck? Who would practice the piano if he did not hope to get better at it? Hope is a very necessary element of our endurance of suffering.

Hope is the Christmas present that Jesus brings to us.

In the NIV version of the Old Testament, the word “hope” appears ninety-two times. The first reference is in Ruth 1:12, when Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi admits there is no hope for her to have more children. The second reference is I Chronicles 29, is from King David. He saysto say that our lives on earth are like a shadow, having no hope. Both references are to hope that we do not have. We cannot reverse time. We are all going to die.

The first positive reference to hope is in Ezra 10:2 Ezra condemns the people of Israel for marrying into foreign families and practicing idolatry. Then Ezra tells them that there is still hope, if they are able to keep the Law of God.

What a faint “hope” that is! The Law contains six hundred and twenty-five ordinances. It is impossible to keep it all. Yet according to Ezra, it was their only hope.

So in the early part of the Old Testament, references to hope are few and far between. But then we come to a book that is full of hope. The word is used eighteen times, one sixth of all the references in the Bible. Surprisingly, the most hope is the book of Job.

Job is one of the most depressing books in the Bible. It is about a wealthy, righteous man who had everything. Then everything in his life falls aparte. Even his very flesh is cursed. For forty-three chapters he and his friends lament his fate, and try to make sense out of what has happened. It is a very dark book indeed. Yet sprinkled about it are jewels of hope, like stars in the dark night sky. Here is are a couple of examples.



Job 13:15 “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face.” Job has faith in God. Even if God kills him, he will not give up. He knows that God will vindicate him in the end.



Job 19:25-27 “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him, with my own eyes — I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”



Ezra’s only hope was that people would obey the law. Job knew better. Even the most righteous man is a sinner sometimes. Even if you never sinned, your world can still fall unexpectedly on top of you.

My volunteer work at Hope, Inc. has been an eye-opener about the nature of human suffering. I meet Jobs in there every time I go. Like Job’s comforters, many people I speak with who do not go there think that those who do suffer because of their sins. Many do. If people practiced temperance and chastity a full half of the people who go for emergency assistance would not need it. But these are not all the people who need help. They are not even half. Many suffer, not because of their own choices, but because they are victims of neglect and abuse. Many women are stuck with children by men who abandoned their families, for example. A far larger group are people who are there because of an act of God. They have lost their jobs due to a bad economy, they have had a serious illness or accident, or they are so depressed due to serious loss that they live in a permanent state of confusion and depression

Job did nothing to deserve his fate. He obeyed the Law, as Ezra suggested, yet things did not go well with him. He had every reason to wallow in grief and depression. Job wailed and complained bitterly.

Even so, Job’s faith held. He still believed that God’s help was on the way. He believed that God was good even when what he did appeared to be bad. His faith did not depend upon his perception of what God did, but in his relationship with God. If God killed him, God would still be good. One day, his Redeemer would arrive.

Job saw that glimmer of light in the eastern sky. Somewhere in heaven was a person who would redeem him. When he finally came to earth, then we would understand why we have to suffer. We would see that God is still good in the midst of suffering.

We say that Christmas time is for children. Nonsense! Children may have a good time at Christmas, but they are mostly incapable of understanding it. Most adults are clueless, too. Only a person like Job, who lost everything, has a chance to understand the real purpose of Christ’s coming. It is not until we fully grasp the darkness that we know the light.

Isaiah spoke prophetically of the coming of Jesus in Isaiah 9:2-7



2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

. . .

6 For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.



We all walk in some kind of darkness. For some, it is the threat of lost jobs or lost security. For others, it is illness. For others, it is grief. For others, it is obsession and addiction. For others, it is depression. For many people, it is just the general feeling of guilt for our sins.

For those who suffer like Job, there is a redeemer. Job did not know his name. But he knew that he lived. He anticipated His coming, like we look for the dawn.

We know His name. We know all about how he came—we just don’t understand it. We fail to see how a baby in Bethlehem can help us cope with grief, temptation, poverty, and rejection. Job understood the meaning of the cross better than we do. His redeemer lived. He didn’t say he would live, but that he lived now. Christmas is the birth of one who is our friend forever.

We learned this in Bible School. But it is not until we go through he crucible of suffering that we understand what it means to know the close, intimate presence of the Lord.

This is the meaning of Christmas. It is Emmanuel—God with us. Whatever dark road we travel, there is always a glimmer of light, the light of Christ, shining through.

The City and the Vine

Jonah 4



But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.


He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home?


That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."


But the LORD replied, "Have you any right to be angry?" Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city.


Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine.


But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered.


When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live."


But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?"


"I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die."


But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"

When I was a little boy and I used to watch westerns on TV, I asked my father how to tell who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. “It’s easy,” he told me, “The good guys wear white hats and the bad guys wear black hats. The Indians are always bad guys, unless it’s Tonto.”

That simplified things. When my friends and I played cowboys we always knew how to tell one another apart. If we wore a white hat, we were the good guy and were supposed to win, and if we wore a black hat, then we were supposed to lose. The Indians were also supposed to lose.

That simplified things Good guys, white had. Black hats and Indians, bad guys. We also knew how good guys were supposed to behave. The good guys didn’t smoke, cuss or drink. As for the bad guys—well, they were just there to be shot.

In the Sixties things changed. Movies became more naturalistic and nihilistic. Cowboys stopped wearing white hats and black hats. They stopped having heroes, too, in the old sense of the word. Sometimes the good guys did bad things. But mostly, like in those old Clint Eastwood westerns, you could still tell. Then they made Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Bonnie and Clyde. In those movies, the heroes were the bad guys, and the bad guys were good guys.

Sometimes I long for those simple days of yesteryear when we could tell who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. But it was never that simple. There never were good guys and bad guys. There were just guys, frail and fallible, but sometimes capable of goodness.

A man came up to Jesus and started by saying “Good master—.” Jesus stopped him. “Why do you call me good? There is no one good but God.” Right there, Jesus had him. There are no good guys, except one. God is good, the rest of us are only sometimes good.

When Jonah was a little boy, what do you supposed he and his friends played? Israelites and Philistines? Judeans and Ninevites? Jonah grew up thinking that he had the world all figured out. The good guys were his people. The Ninevites were the bad guys. And we all know that the Ninevites were there only to get stabbed by the Israelites. It was a simple childhood world, good and bad were easy to discover.

But God messed it up for Jonah. God told Jonah to go and preach to the Ninevites. Preach to the Ninevites? Did the Lone Ranger ever preach to Butch Cavendish? Did Gary Cooper preach to Lee Van Cleef? No, they shot them or locked them in the calaboose. That’s what bad guys are for. Jonah was convinced that the Ninevites were not worth saving.

That was why he ran from God. But then God got him thrown overboard and swallowed by a fish. Then he had him vomited up on the shores of—of all places—Ninevah.

So (Jonah thought) God must have a different plan. He wanted him to go to Nineveh and tell them off. Yes, that had to be the plan. They deserved a good tongue-lashing.

But that was not God’s plan. God really did want to save the Ninevites.

Jonah built a booth on the east side of Nineveh, along the Tigris River. He built a shelter and settled back to watch when God rained down fire and brimstone on the Ninevites.

But God disappointed him again. The bad guys repented. The black hats put on white hats and became good guys. Jonah did not like this. If the Ninevites are the good guys, what does that make Jonah--The bad guy?

So now God had to correct the prophet. He did it a living parable.

God made a vine grow around Jonah. Now a vine doesn’t seem like much, but In Iraq the temperature there reaches over 120 degrees. A vine can make the difference between life and death.

Jonah took it as a sign. If God let a vine grow up to protect him, then he must be the good guy after all! After all, God would not work a miracle for the bad guy.

But the next night, a worm ate the vine. A Then a howling wind came. Most likely, this

was a desert sandstorm, where the wind can tear the paint off of a house. Imagine what it would do to a plant!

Jonah complained bitterly that it was better to live than to die. Three times Jonah mentioned dying. Did he have a death wish? He did not want to live in a world so unstable that Ninevites could become bad guys.

God asked him could he have compassion for a stupid plant, and let a city of a hundred and twenty thousand souls, not to mention their animals die. These people needed God’s love and mercy.

Life is not a television show. The sufferings we inflict on others are real. But God’s mercy is also real.

We talk a lot about evangelism in the church. We talk a lot about charity and mercy, too. But to tell the truth, I am not sure we want it. I am convinced that most of the time the church doesn’t care about the lost.

If we idealize the lost, we can get a certain sentimental feeling about them. But when we see the lost up close, they often repel us. They curse, drink, practice sexual immorality, use drugs, and act hateful. But so are we, if we are honest. We all act like the lost sometimes. It’s just that we don’t want to be around those who have no manners. We’ve been told since we were children to avoid such people. But God told us otherwise. He told us to go preach the gospel to everyone, not just the good people, but the bad ones as well. To God, there are not good guys or bad guys but people who need his grace.

So we are all Jonah’s in a way. We have been called to go to people we don’t like and tell them about Jesus. It’s the only way they will hear. God doesn’t want us to just go to good guys. He wants us to go to that neighbor we can’t stand, and that kid who is no good. He wants us to let them know that Jesus can change their lives, whether they wear a white hat or a black hat. Like Jonah, most of us would rather be swallowed by a whale than to do that.

But this is God’s hard mercy, that He loves the unlovable. He does not discriminate. He offers his Grace to any who will receive. He our only hope , and the hope of the whole world.

Did it work for Jonah? Well, he had to report what happened himself. There is also a legend about Jonah that suggests a possible outcome. In Mosul, Iraq, there is a mosque on the east side of town, just across the Tigris from the old sight of Nineveh. The Mosque is called the Nabi Yunis, the prophet Jonah. Beside it is a large building which is called Jonah’s tomb. Of course like it is? If Jonah were buried there, it would suggest that Jonah spent the rest of his life among the Ninevites. That would mean that Jonah finally did obey the call of God, and devoted himself to the people he hated the most. Jesus died to save the Ninevites. He also died to save Jonah, too.

Jonah and the Big City

Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you."

Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city — a visit required three days. On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned." The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh:

"By the decree of the king and his nobles:

Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish."

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

Many stories have surfaced about modern Jonahs, but the best known is that of a sailor named James Bartley. Bartley was aboard the whaler Star of the East on February 1891, near the Falkland Islands when a lookout spotted a sperm whale. Two boats were launched: one succeeded in harpooning the whale, but the second was capsized by the whale's tail and its crew tossed into the water. One man drowned. Bartley could not be found. He was presumed dead.

The crew hauled he whale aboard ship and proceeded to butcher it. The next morning, they wer surprised to see signs of life inside the whale's stomach. Inside was Bartley. For two weeks he was a raving lunatic, but by the end of the third week he'd fully recovered.

Bartley recalled being swallowed by a great darkness, then slipping along a smooth passage until he came to a larger space. He could breathe, but eventually he passed out. The only lasting effect that the skin of his face, neck, and hands was bleached to the color of parchment by the whale's gastric juices. Some versions of the story report that all the hair on his body had dissolved.

The story of James Bartley may be just a legend of the sea, but what I find interesting is the description of what a man might look like who has been soaking in fish guts. It helps us imagine how Jonah might have looked after three days. He would scarcely look human. No doubt people would think that the arrival of such a person to be an evil portent.

This may help us understand the central miracle in the book—not the whale, but the redemption of Ninevah-- the greatest city of it's time, through a little man who did not want to be there.

This was not the first time Ninevah tangled with the true God. Senaccharib, king of Ninevah invaded Israel and Judah with an army of 185,000 and almost destroyed both countries. Only Jerusalem was left. King Hezekiah, and the prophet Isaiah prayed for God to deliver them. Then God miraculously destroyed Sennacharib's army. Suddenly overnight the army disappeared.

If Ninevah's army had not be obliterated by the power of God, they would not have received Jonah's message. If Jonah had not given his message, they would never have connected their defeat to the hand of God. IF Jonah had not been bleached by a whale's intestine, they never would have believed that this was a supernatural visitation. They would have gone on in their arrogance and been destroyed.

Jonah walked into Ninevah declared that in forty days the city would be destroyed. The soldiers by the gate, the merchants in the square, the beggars on the street, and everyone from beggar to king fell down in awe before this apparition. The king got down off his throne and repented in sackcloth and ashes. And disaster was avoided.

As we think about this story four questions come to mind:

• What is God doing?
• Why give Ninevah a chance?
• Why choose Jonah?
• And what does any of this have to do with us?

To answer these questions, let's look at the story from God's side.

God's purpose was to display his glory and power. God wanted the whole world to know He is God.. He wants the whole world to know His power.

God could do this by working uncontested miracles every few days.. But God created the earth to run without his constant interference. His interventions are usually subtle and unseen. But if we look far enough and hard enough we can find them.

His usual method of working is to start a series of circumstances in motion that will produce an expected end. Like a chess player, God plans several moves ahead, to bring His purposes. What could He do to cause Ninevah to glorify him? If God could bring Ninevah to its knees,, what would better glorify Him than that?

So how does He do it? First, he brings Ninevah's army to Jerusalem. Then he destroys their army. Finally, He sends Jonah to tell who did it.

Why Jonah? Because He resisted God at every turn. He hated Ninevah. If God wanted to get all the credit, who better to send than a man like Jonah? That's a challenge!

Kindness would not cause Ninevah to repent. They needed hellfire and damnation. So who better to deliver that kind of rough treatment that someone who wished to see them destroyed. What better way to prepare Jonah for the job than to bleach his flesh and give him an incredible story.

Every day, you are living out God's story for you. It is not God's purpose to make your story perfect, but to make it glorious. How glorious is a story that goes "once upon a time, they lived happily ever after?" A story involves failures and reversals. Only in the end does victory come.

A smooth, uneventful story, where nothing happened would be easy to construct. But a story where there is chaos and confusion, rebellion and resistance, but eventually ends in victory, is considerabley more difficult to construct.

Years before Jonah put out to sea, God went down into the depths of the Atlantic. He made a sea monster, a unique creature, big enough to swallow a man, yet with an air compartment in its belly.

Years ago, God made Jonah. He made him stubborn and hateful, yet honest and powerful in speech. Only God could take that lump of flesh and fashion him into a mouthpiece for God.

Decades before, God made Ninevah for His own glory He made it strong and powerful so He could cut it down to size.

God made a whale. God made Jonah. God made Ninevah--all for His glory.

For the same reason he made you and I. It is not our strengths that bring glory to God; neither is it our weaknesses. It is our strengths and weaknesses together. God prepares us for the plan He His plan. God loves us for our strengths, He loves us for our weaknesses, too. If we were perfect, we would get the glory. But since we are not, God gets the glory whenever we do something right.

Think about the lowly termite. The termite is very weak. If it is out in the open, it will die quickly. It has more natural enemies than practically everything else. There is not a burd or a lizard anywhere that does not enjoy a tasty termite.

But God created the termite with the power to eat wood. This is a problem for us who live in wooden houses. But to the rest of nature, a termite is a blessing. It reduces trees to dirt so other plants can grow. Without him, the forest would not survive. He is the way God made him.

Think about Jesus. He was born with every disadvantage. He was born in a working class home in an out-of=the-way village in Galilee. Jewish leaders despised him. Romans were suspicious of him. The people were disappointed in Him when they started listening to the demands he placed on their lives. His career ended in his early thirties, with an unjust trial and a painful execution. No one should have remembered him. But Jesus became the cornerstone of all history after him. He had just the right strengths and just the right disadvantages to make him the most important person of all time. Because of God's great love, he became the redemption of the world.

Have you ever thought what a hand God has upon your life? Have you wondered why you had go what you have been through? It is a preparation. God has brought you into this world for a purpose. He has saved you for a purpose. God has ordered the world around you in such a way that it would bring glory to Him.

God is writing our story so others will read it. The end of the story is always the same—God gets the glory. Your problems are part of a plan. They are not random. God will finish that plan in His good time, and God will be glorified.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is more than just an act of love. Thanksgiving is love. It is the fabric of the communal experience that holds us together.

Think about a football game. When a quarterback makes a touchdown, one side stands up and cheers. They are giving thanks. True, they are led by girls in short skirts instead of ministers in robes, but the action is the same. Those who are fans of one side rejoice. Their affection for one side, expressed in gratitude for their successes, is the common experience that makes them one. This support of one side might be the only thing that holds them together, but that is enough.

Think about a family saying grace in a restaurant. What distinguishes them from the other diners? Simply that they gave public thanks for the meal. The act of giving thanks in sincerity is enough to make them all one.

Unity comes about through common experience experienced with the same emotions. We are held together by love, hate, lust, or desire, but in this we are one. Mostly, though it is what we are thankful for that makes us one.

I think we could make a case for saying that the act of giving thanks to each other brings us together. AS we express thanks for another, we are accepting them as one. Together we become one family, one circle of friends, or one people. The more thankful we are, the more we will express it. The more we express it, the more thankful we become.

Thankfulness to god is especially important. When we give thanks to God, we acknowledge the rightness of the world. We declare ourselves in harmony with the Creator. We cannot grumble or complain that the world is not to our liking when we thank God for what he is done.

So this next week, let's thank God for our blessing. But let's also give thanks to one another for the blessings we have received. This will strengthen our bonds with each other, and make us more truly a family, a nation, and a harmonious society.

Jonah, a Tale of the Sea

This is the story of Jonah the prophet.

Now, you might wonder, how does a person become a prophet? Did he go to prophet school? Did he get a degree in propheting? Did he just wake up one day and say "I think I'll a prophet for a while."

The truth is there was not one way to be a prophet. There were all kinds of prophets. There were prophets who lived in caves in the wilderness. There were prophets who lived in the palace of kings/ There were also ordinary people, going about their business, who suddenly hear God's voice, and—often reluctantly—become prophets.

A prophet can be me. A prophet can just as easily be you.

We cannot be sure what kind Jonah was. But from all we can read, Jonah was probably one of the "ordinary" kinds of prophets. He is not called a prophet. He is just a man who was given a word to deliver from God.

And Jonah hated it! He was bound and determined to do anything in his power to get out of going.

Now, you may wonder what was so loathsome about this calling that Jonah would go to such great lengths to get away. If we read Jonah casually we might think that it was just too hard to go, that it was the disruption of his life that caused him to run. But this wasn't the case..

Jonah just hated Ninevites.

And Jonah had good reason to do so.

Ninevah was the capitol of the Assyrian empire. The Assyrians were among the most brutal, sadistic, and loathsome people God ever put on earth. The Assyrians were the first empire to set their sights on conquering the world. In the year 721, an Assyrian king by the name of Sargon II captured the northern kingdom of Israel and deported 28,000 of their leaders—anybody who was anybody, out of Israel, effectively destroying the northern kingdom/ In 708 B. C., his son and successor, Sennacharib, almost destroyed the southern kingdom of Judah, being stopped at the very gates of Jerusalem. Before their armies, Israel was a green and beautiful land. Behind their armies, is was a smoking ruin. They destroyed everything in their path.

Jonah was probably an eyewitness to this. He saw what the Assyrians had done. He had friends and relatives who were slaughtered by the Assyrians. There is little doubt that Jonah wanted to burn the homes and gouge out the eyes of each and every Assyrian he saw. To him, the only good Assyrian was a dead Assyrian.

And now, God was telling him to go to Ninevah and preach to them.

At first, this sounds like a good idea. Who would not like to tell off that bully who bullied you in high school, or to give that straying husband who hurt you a severe tongue lashing. We think we'd like to do that sometimes, but we don't The truth is, when there is someone we hate, we don't yell at them. We avoid them. Their very presence is loathsome. It is an offense. Besides, we would rather keep all that anger inside us than to let it out. We can look so polite when it is bottled up inside, but inside we are angry cauldrons.

Jonah was like that. He didn't want to go to Ninevah and preach to them. He never wanted to see another Ninevite. So Jonah ran away. It must have cost him a fortune, but he ran to Tyre and booked passage on a Phonecian ship.

Why a Phonecian ship? Because of all the people in the ancient world, the Phonecians were the best sailors. They sailed to England and Africa. It is believed that some of them actually made it as far as America. If you wanted to to the utter end of the world, the Phonecians were the people to see. They had been there and back.

So, what was Jonah running from? God, certainly. But Jonah wasn't just running from God. He was running from the Word of God. If God had never spoken to him, Jonah would not have run.

So it is with us. We can come to church and sit in the pews or stand in the pulpit, and sing God's praises. We can say grace at meals and say our prayers at night, and feel perfectly comfortable and restful. That is because we do not hear th voice of God talking back to us. We only hear part of what God is saying. We hear Him when he whispers comfort in our ear. We hear him when He makes wonderful promises. But when God wants something back, something that we don't want to give, we run for the nearest exit.

That's the problem with God. Sooner or later, he asks for something. Some people he asks for money. Other people he asks them to sacrifice their time. God asked Jonah for something harder to give than either time or money.

God said to Jonah, "Give me your hate."

God whispered it to Jonah. Jonah ignored it. God spoke to Jonah Jonah ignored it. Then God shouted to Jonah, and Jonah could not shut our those cries, not even if he put cotton over his ears and hid his head under the pillow. He could not get away from the call of God 'Give me your hate."

So Jonah ran from God. He ran as far as he could from the presence of God.

Back in those days, people had a limited understanding of God. Many believed that God was just the God of the Jews. He was all powerful, but he was local. So Jonah reasoned that if he could run away from Israel he could run away from God, and God would stop shouting in his ear.

Many of us try the same. We try drowning out the voice of God. It doesn't work. We make fun of God and curse him, thinking that He will let us go. We lose ourselves in pleasure, in work, or in art. It doesn't work. The Hound of Heaven is on our trail, and he will not let us go.

Jonah disguised himself. He booked passage in a boat leaving Tyre. We do not know where the boat was headed—Spain or Carthage or even England. It does not matter, because Jonah never got there. Before they were many miles out to sea, a storm arose around him.

Whenever a person went to sea in those days, there was a good chance that they were not coming back. The idea of facing a gale in a little wooden box was as frightening a proposition as they could imagine.. That was why they never traveled in the times of the year when storms were most common. But sometimes, an unseasonable storm would grab them and toss them around like a bull rider in a rodeo. This was one of those storms.

The sailors pulled on the ropes, It did no good. They shortened their sails. It did no good. They threw their precious cargo overboard. It did no good. They cried out to their pagan gods. It did no good. They were a doomed ship in a perfect storm.

And all the while this was happening, Jonah lay curled up below, cowering before what he alone knew was the wrath of God. Finally, the captain went down below and sought Jonah out. "How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish." Everyone else called on their god, why not you, Jonah? Maybe your God can help where the others could not.

But Jonah was unmoved. He did not call on his God. He would not give up his hate.

The sailors were a superstitious crew. They thought there might be person on board who was under a curse. They cast lots to see who it was, and the lot fell upon Jonah.

Finally Jonah confessed. His God, the God who made heaven and earth, was responsible. He was running from his God. But God was not fooled, He knew exactly where Jonah was and what he was doing. Jonah told them that their only hope was to heave him over the side, like a piece of cargo.

The sailors were not cruel men. Besides, they knew that God had his hand on Jonah. The resolved to row back to shore and to let Jonah off. But Jonah did not want to go to shore. God did not want him to go to shore. Jonah asked that the throw him in the ocean.

Why was that? Because Jonah wanted to die. He would rather go to his grave than to give up his hate.

Jonah is not alone in this. Drunkards and drug addicts go to their grave with their addictions. Greedy people obsessed with sin, will die before they let go of money. People in lust will risk ruination just to sleep with someone they desire. And bigots will refuse to live in a world where the people they hate are equal to them.

The sailors prayed to God, and asked them to forgive them for what they had to do. They were not cruel men, they said. But they had no choice. Besides, Jonah would die anyway. Jonah was too much of a coward to jump over himself. So they took Jonah by the hands an the heels, gave him a swing or two, and sent Jonah flying over the bulwarks and into the water.

And as they watched him struggling in the water, they saw a great fish, as big as the boat, surface and take him in with a gulp, like a trout taking a fly.

That should have been the end of Jonah, but it was not. This was no ordinary fish. This was one whom God prepared. All that happened was part of God's plan. The running was part, the boat was part, the storm was part, and now even the fish was part of his plan. God was not going to let go of Jonah until he let go of his hatred of Assyrians.

That fish was not his end. It was his beginning. That fish was not the object of God's wrath, but of his love. The old Jonah, the hating Jonah had to die for a new Jonah to be born. Jesus would later say that as Jonah was three days and nights in the belly of the whale, so th Son of man will be three days and nights in the earth. Jonah is not about God's wrath on the sinner. It is about God's mercy on those who misuse what God gave them. God loves the Ninevites, in spite of the fact that they were cruel, murdering tyrants. But even more amazing, God loved Jonah.

You can't run away from God There's no point in trying. He always gets from you what he sets out to take. So give God your hatred. Give Him you unforgiveness and your pride. When you do, your life can at last begin again.

 

Three Minutes

Several years ago I was a volunteer hospice chaplain. One of the reasons I did so was curiosity. I wanted to know how if deathbed confessions--people who repent in their last moments—were common.
Deathbed confessions do not happen as often as we'd like to think. Most people who are running from God run to the last. Most people come in and out of conciousness at the end. Others die suddenly, without warning. Still others get only a small warning, and there is not enough time for sincere reflection.
So if you're one of those people who thinks he can get right with God at the end, after ignoring Him for a lifetime, think again! It is much more likely that you will run out of time.
Take, (for example) a drowning victim. Drowning is a process that takes about three minutes in normal temperatures. If a drowning victim falls into cold water, it triggers the "diving reflect" which slows the heart rate and allows a victim to survive up to ten minutes, but loss of consciousness results almost immediately. A drowning victim, before he passes out goes into a state of panic, desperately reaching for a path to the surface, all he can think about is getting air. It is doubtful that that moment affords us much time to think of repentance and believe.
This is the situation that faced the prophet Jonah. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach to the Assyrians. Jonah hated the Assyrians. He did not want them to be saved—he wanted them dead. Jonah resisted God literally to his last death. He jumped on a ship bound for Tarsish. When his ship started to go down, Jonah refused to call on his God, Jonah chose to die in disobedience. Jonah went over the side to die in the open sea.
Jonah had three minutes to live. The waters swirled around him, the wind howled. The waved rose like mountains over his head. He bobbed up and down, going under, hitting the surface, spitting salt water out of his lungs. He cried for help, but there was no one to hear. Only the howling wind answered him.
Then Jonah went down for the last time. His feet became entangled in seaweed. This was the end. There was no hope.
We don't know what kind of fish swallowed Jonah. The kind need not concern us. God made a big fish. That's all we need to know.
The means need not concern us. What is more important is the why. Why did God make a big fish to rescue Jonah. It would have been easier for God to make another prophet. Jonah was not the only man who could have gone to Ninevah.
But this is the mercy of God at work. He doesn't just throw people away. He uses people, even disobedient people, The point of the story is not to impress us with the anatomical particulars of sea monsters, but to show us that even at the end of live, in our last three minutes, God is still there, and we can still have hope.
As a pastor, I hear stories of near death experiences. I have heard of men dying on the battlefield being visited by angels, who told them that there was a purpose for their lives. One person told me of being in a car accident, and seeing angels in the back seat as their car flew into a ditch, and how they escaped unharmed. I have talked to people who died on an operating table, only to be brought back to earth.
This was a near-death experience. He was dead, but he was made alive.
God often does this, so often, in fact, that the one of the central rituals of our faith near death experience. Baptism is a symbol of the death and beginning. The only difference between Jonah's experience and the one who is baptized is the length of time he was under the water. He did not submit willingly, so it took him a while to fully let go of his stubbornness.
So God sometimes lets us die so that we can live. But here is the unusual part. Jonah was three days in the belly of the whale. Why? God could have just as easily removed him immediately from danger. But what was the purpose of the three days?
This is not an idle question. We face this question regularly. We have an operation, and are stuck in bed for weeks. We can't understand why we aren't getting up and doing wha we were before. We decide on the one we want to marry, but we have to wait anyway. We finally get a new job, but we have to wait for the first paycheck. It seems unfair that God would make us wait, when the solution is already at hand.
We live in a time of instant gratification. But the answers usually take longer and are harder than we ever thought. We lose one job and expect to go right into another. We lose one spouse and expect to find another right around the corner, when in reality it might take us months or years to find ourselves restored.
The book of Job is a good example. Job loses his family, his fortune, and his health then regains it all. But in between the losing and regaining are forty chapters of agony.
God left Jonah in the belly of a fish for three days and three nights for a reason. The whale's belly was a school. He was learning during this time.
First he was learning patience. Patience is the ability to wait in stillness.
Patience is not doing nothing. But what patience is is a belief that God is on the way. We do no panic in the face of a crisis. We do not decide to take matters into our own hands. If God has not given us the answer yet, he is still on our way. While we wait, we rejoice. We learn to appreciate God's presence in the stillness of the moment. Jonah sang in the belly of the whale as he waited for God's perfect time.
When a person is drowning, panic sets in. If you approach a drowning victim too early, he will drag you down with him, because he starts to strike out at anything around him, hopig to gain something to hold onto. Many potential lifesavers have been lost themselves by getting too close to a panicking victim. So we have to wait until the person drowning can no longer resist. Eventually, we get to the place where we can relax and let ourselves be saved.
He was also learning obedience. After chapter 2 Jonah never again refuses to do anything God commanded. He may complain and whine, but he learned it is foolish to resist God. First God works on his attitudes towards Him. Then he works on his attitudes towards others.
If you tell drunkard that he should not drink, he will not change. It is only when the alcoholic comes to a place where he realizes that he cannot drink. People do not change until their wills are broken. Only God in His mercy can bring us to the place of repentance.
He was also learning hope. Twice in this passage we hear Jonah talking about his hope for the future:

I said, 'I have been banished from your sight;
yet I will look again toward your holy temple. (vs. 4)

But I, with a song of thanksgiving,
will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
Salvation comes from the LORD." (vs 9)

It is strange to hear Jonah singing about the future when it is hard imagine him having a future. He was already fish food. What future could he possibly have?
Jonah should be dead already, but he is not. He has been granted life for a reason. There was a purpose God has for him. His hope for the future is based on God's work in the past.
In I Samuel 7. Israel came together to pray at a place called Mizpah. While they were there, the Philistines planned to massacre them. Before they could pounce, God send thunder, causing the Philistines to panic. He delivered them from certain defeat.
Samuel ordered that a stone be erected and called the stone "Ebenezer"—"this far has the Lord delivered us." From that time on, whenever Israel doubted God's ability to protect, they could look back and remember that at this spot, God's words rang true.
Thus far had the Lord delivered Jonah, too. In the last three minutes, he was saved from death. In three days, he was not digested. In spite of his failing and sins, God had not abandoned him. Why not believe that God has a higher calling for you, too?

A Religion of Peace?

The recent massacre at Ft. Hood should make us all concerned. This is the latest in a string of massacres perpetrated by Muslim-Americans in the name of their religion. We need to screen people of the Muslim faith in the military and at the workplace and we need to screen them now.

Major Hasan's family has said that he was a loyal American, and that he was not a radical Muslim. I know. This is what should concern us. Here was a man acting alone according to the dictates of his faith. He screamed "Allah Ackbar" "God is great" the Jihad call that has echoed down through the ages as the battle call of the "religion of peace."

Look at the religious wars fought across the world today. With the exception of the now settled conflict in Northern Ireland, where are the religious wars that do not involve Muslim. We see Muslim-Hindu violence, Muslim-Jewish violence, Muslim-Buddhist violence, and Muslim-Muslim violence. Where are the Christian-Hindu wars or the Buddhist-Jewish wars? They are so minor as to be non-existent. Yet Islam is involved in violence on every side.

I believe there are two reasons for this.

The first is the Muslim belief in unity. It is a matter of pride to Muslims that they see themselves as a single brotherhood, looking out for each other. This seems to be the case with Major Hasan. His writings indicate that we should not be fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq because a war against one Muslim is an war against all. That is not unity. This is paranoia.

The second reason is found in the nature of the Muslim idea of God. The Muslims say they have an all powerful God. Yet for some reason, these same Muslims are convinced that their God needs military assistance to accomplish His ends. Jeremiah mocked the idols of the nations by pointing out that they had to be carried from place to place. How different is it from the Muslims, who think that the honor of God must be defended by military means?

Contrary to popular thought, Jesus was not a pacifist. He said nothing against the military or the police, neither did he ever suggest that executions should not be carried. Jesus just believed that neither God nor His people needed defending by military means. He does not need us fighting for him. He fights for us. He does not need us conquering a world of which He is already Lord. That is why he told his followers to turn the other cheek. It is not because he thought that our enemies should not be punished, but that we should pity them, because it is God who does the punishing. When Major Hasan went on his rampage, somewhere in his mind he must have thought he was punishing our country for what they were doing to him and to other Muslims. He was taking upon himself a role that the Bible reserves for God alone.

All Muslims are not killers, neither are they dangerous. There are good Muslims, generous Muslims, and charitable Muslims. However I it is my opinion that they are good in spite of their religion, and not because of it.

We ought not worry about profiling. We should be careful about putting Muslims who embrace the paranoid, fortress mentality aspect of Islam in places where they care in contact with the armed forces.

I'm sure there are many Muslims who disagree with my assessment of Islam. They are more than welcome to disagree. In fact, I hope that I am wrong. But the evidence suggests that Islam is not a religion of peace with others, but of war against the world. The more Christian a person becomes, the more peaceful he becomes. The more Muslim a person becomes, the more prone to violence he seems to become.

Peaceful Muslims will disagree. Good. I hope they speak out loudly, not only to we infidels, but to their fellow Muslims and say that they really are a religion of peace, and not of violence. With every suicidal maniac who suicidally throws his life away killing others, it becomes harder to believe.

How Edward R. Murrow ruined the News

The media has been full of this feud between conservative commentators and the White House. The President claims that Fox News is not real news. Fox News, and the vast majority of the other media outlets claim that it is. From an historical perspective, the whole argument is rather silly. There is not now nor has their ever been objective new. If one looks at the history of news in America, it seems obvious that it is far more objective now than it was in, say, the Nineteenth Century, during the age of yellow press. One has only to look at the portrayals of the news in the life of Samuel Clemens or the play The Front Page to see how slanted it once was. In Mark Twain's day, reporters regularly made up quotations and whole news items when new was slow or they were bored. But in recent years, news has been clear about its reason for existence--to report the news. That is, until Edward R. Murrow. Edward R. Murrow was a television reporter in the Fifties, who began the first magazine type "news" program See It Now. Murrow is credited with bringing down the reign of Joe McCarthy with his expose of him. His special report Harvest of Shame first focused attention on the plight of migrant workers. Murrow was by any standards an excellent reporter. So how could he have ruined the news? Because Edward R. Murrow is held up as an example in every journalism class in this country. Young, idealistic reporters want to be him. They see news as a means to affect social change, as he did. But they forget the first objective of journalism--to report the news fairly. They are not in the least interested in this. They all want to be Murrow, or Woodward and Bernstein, not Cronkite or Huntley and Brinkley. These men were journalists with strong personal opinions, but they understood that the news segment at least should be objective, and that they should keep their opinions to themselves. The media seems to have forgotten that today. News has been called the fourth branch of government. Investigative journalism informs us, challenges us, and most importantly makes politicians afraid to be bad. When the media becomes the lapdog of the powerful and elite, it is no longer news, but propaganda. On the other hand, when it sees itself as the revolutionary resistance, it is also propaganda. There must be room for all opinions. The press was a great help to democracy in its early days, not because it was objectives, but because it was free of government interference. There were Republican papers, to be sure, but there were also Democratic ones. People were free to buy what they wished. Today, that basic right is being threatened by an administration who does not seem to mind interfering with the free flow of ideas to achieve its purposes. That is truly scary. Unfortunately, the media is all too complicit in its own destruction. Fueled by dreams of being Edward R. Murrow, and duped by a powerful elitist group of politicians and professors masquerading as crusaders for the poor, they continue to focus their guns on traditional America and ignore those who are really in charge. The keep looking for another Joe McCarthy to revile, while those who trample the rights of individual Americans almost literally get away with murder. We do not need crusaders in the news room. We need, strong, sensible and courageous journalists who will not accept the status quo, but who will also respect the right of all Americans to be heard. We need people who love the news more than they love their reputations, there careers, or their political affiliation. Only then can we be sure that democracy will continue to flourish.

The Way, the Truth, and the Life

As a boy growing up, my family moved a total of thirteen times. We moved to seven different cities in four different states The first few moves made little impression on me. My father would called the family together and announce that we were going to move to Knoxville, or Nashville or Memphis, and It sounded rather cool to me. Memphis was where Elvis was, after all. We had moved before, and we always made new friends. The longest we lived anywhere growing up was in Memphis. We lived here seven years. We lived there through the Kennedy assassinations, the king assassinations, and moved just before we landed on the moon. In Memphis, I made some of the closest friends I ever had. I was involved in school council. I dated and kissed my first girl. I started getting there a sense of belonging. Then one day, my father came home and announced “We are going back to Knoxville,” This time it was much, much harder. I went back to my room and cried. It was a separation from a life I loved and from people I loved. Unlike when I was younger, I knew what separation was. That’s why I identify with the disciples’ feelings when Jesus told his disciples that night in Jerusalem that He was going away. For three years, these disciple had lived together, traveled together, laughed together, and argued together. They had been their own separate world, and the center of that world was Jesus. They had left their families, homes, and jobs to be part of that world. Now it was all about to end, and they would go their separate ways. Jesus had told his disciples before that he was going away, but it didn’t register in their brains--any more than it does in the mind of a child when he is told that everyone will die someday, including Mom and Dad. In the child’s mind, life goes on forever in the same way it is today. The thought that one day, life and death will separate us from those we love does not seem real until we actually experience it. Jesus had often left them before to go pray in secret, but he always came back. But they were encamped near Jerusalem, under the noses of their enemies who wanted Jesus dead. They knew that Jesus was in immediate danger the whole time he was there. Now, when Jesus said he was going away, they could see it in their minds the how and why of it. They all knew what it meant and they were sad. What would happen to them after they died? What would their world look like when He was gone? So after Jesus announced his leaving, he gave them another message He said: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going." When we move on, what is left? Memories and hopes. We can remember the good times that are past. We can hope in good times to come when we are reunited. But all this is temporary. Memories fade over time. People we think we will remember forever are forgotten in the passage of the years. We forget so we can move on. In England there is a statue to a little terrier dog—Greyfriar’s Bobby. The dog belonged to a town watchman named Grey. Bobby was his inseparable for two years. Then Grey died, and was buried in the local cemetery. For fourteen years that dog stood sentinel over his grave. When the local dogcatcher wanted to take him to the pound, the mayor of the city and the town council bought him a license. The dog became the symbol of the city. When the dog died, a statue was erected to him in he local cemetery. The inscription read “May he always be an example to us of unswerving devotion.” It sounds touching, but we have to wonder if this really was what was best for the dog. Would it not have been better if someone had adopted that dog as a pet? Would that dog not have been happier getting on with his life? Some people hang on too long to memories. Nor does hope always warm us, either. When we move, we always promise to write. But things happen. People forget, and what the reunion we crave often does not come. When my family left Memphis, I called my friends whenever possible. I visited in the summers. My entire class once came to visit me in my new home. But they left. But these reunions did not last forever. I struggled to adjust to my new life, The hoped for visits and contacts became fewer and fewer. Jesus did not simply say to his disciples “Remember me.” (Though he did elsewhere, and gave us communion to remember him.) He did not just say “I’ll write.” (Though He gave us His words to study and remember.) His message was simpler than that. He said “I’m coming back for you. You’ll live with me again, Believe it.” Actually, he goes beyond a mere promise of return. He also promises that He will stay with us through the spirit. “You believe in God, believe me, too.” Believe not just in the future reunion but in his present guidance. It was not just a promise of a mansion in heaven, but a friend on this earth. He wanted them to keep living together, and He would still be with them. On hearing of Jesus’ departure, he disciples must have had many fears. But their greatest fear was this. They had been called out their lives and their world, and had been immersed in a new world—the Kingdom of God. Jesus had become their home. Once he left, they lost their home. When he was gone, would life go back to what it was before—would they again be only a band of fishermen and tax collectors, broadened a bit in the mind but still living lives of pettiness and insignificance? Jesus says no. He will always be with us. “Whereever two or three are gathered, there I am.” One day, that spiritual presence will be translated into a physical presence. “In my father’s house are mansions,” the King James says--but it this is a mistranslation. What Jesus actually says is “In my Father’s mansion are many rooms.” We will live together with Him in His Father’s house. What is it that comforts us about home? It is being with those we love. There is something about us that craves the tenderness of a body beside us, the sound of other people’s breathing, heartbeats beating in unison. We are social creatures created to society. He society we now have is a pale example of the society we have in heaven. That’s where he was going—to prepare the mansion. Then he said something curious. ‘And where you go, you know. And the way you know.” Most of them said nothing. They were used to Jesus saying things that they did not understand. Half the time, they did not understand what Jesus was saying to them They would just pretend that they knew what he was talking about, like students do in school, or people listening to a sermon But Thomas (who is unfairly called doubting Thomas) spoke up. "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" A fair question. Suppose your wife goes to visit a friend. She asks if you would like to join them later for lunch. Maybe you want to, or maybe you don’t, or maybe you are not sure. She says “you know where she lives.” But you don’t know. How would she know if really wanted to be there? If you didn’t ask for directions, then you didn’t want to come. If the world really wanted to go to heaven, they would be asking for directions, too. Btu most of the world doesn’t know Jesus, doesn’t know where He lives, and isn’t sure they want to. One hour of walking with Him is enough to bring a lifetime of devotion, but the have never had that hour. So why should they want to join Him in heaven? So if we say we are going to meet Jesus, and that anyone can come along, we shouldn’t be surprised if people don’t flock to join us. But those who are really interested in knowing God will ask, and will know. But if a person wants to know God and to experience God, they will want directions. Recently, I heard a radio interview with an artist who had created an illustrated book of Genesis. The interviewer asked if he believed in God. He called himself a “Gnostic” not an “agnostic.” An agnostic he said was someone who did not know whether there is a god, and doesn’t much care. He really genuinely wanted to know. My heart went out to him. He would ask directions. Most people don’t. So, how do you get to heaven? Jesus answered: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” So simple and so profound. If you want to get to heaven, Jesus will show you. People wonder what religion has the path that leads to heaven. The answer is surprising. No religion, not even Christianity, has the path that leads to heaven. Jesus is the path. We do not go looking for God. God came looking for us. W do not follow a set of instructions to heaven. We must b escorted to the gate by Jesus Himself. Go to church, Read your Bible, Pray daily. Don’t drink. Don’t curse. Be nice to your mother. We do all this because we think it makes us good people, and that good people go to heaven. Bad people go to hell. That’s not what Jesus says. Anyone, good or bad, can go to heaven, if they will just trust Him, and have a continuing relationship with Him. Jesus is the way to heaven. We love Jesus, hope in Jesus, and follow Jesus. We look for his guidance ever day. In ever situation we ask “what would Jesus do.” (Yes, I know it’s a cliché, but it still works.) Our lives are long roads that lead to heaven and to our reuniting with Jesus. As long as we keep our eyes on the Lord, we will get there. Jesus is the Truth for us. We recognize him as not just God’s son, but as God, he Son. He is God’s incarnation on earth, the living proof of his love. Jesus and God are one and the same, and when we trust in one, we also trust in the other. God cared so much for us, that he gave Himself in human form as a sacrifice for sin, that we can stand proudly before Him in heaven Jesus is Life for us. Day by day we live in he light, illuminated by the presence of our Lord and Savior from the moment our heads rise from the pillow in the morning to the moment we fall asleep at night. Everything in between we live in the love of Jesus. Throughout the changes of this world, one thing remains the same—Jesus. We can lose our homes, lose our jobs, lose our families, even lose our freedom, but we cannot lose Jesus. That’s why we can in all things be content. Life is not about owning or experiencing, losing or keeping, but holding to what can never be lost, The rest does not matter, because Jesus is ours.