March 2008

March 3

Many years ago a neighbor named Alfred died.  So Diane and I put the girls in the back seat and drove to the visitation.  I’m not sure how old the girls were then.  Elizabeth couldn’t have been more than ten-years-old, which would put Katie at about five.  There was plenty of talk at the visitation about Alfred being in heaven, Alfred being a good church member and faithful Christian gentleman.  Respects paid, we left the funeral home and headed back to Collinsville .

About ten minutes into that return trip, I heard the girls talking in very hushed tones in the back seat.  I turned around and asked what they were talking about.  Not to worry, Diane was driving!  She drives whenever she wants to get someplace fast!  Hesitant, Elizabeth said, “Katie’s wondering how Alfred can be in heaven and in the funereal home (that’s the way she said it, funereal home) at the same time.”  Enter super pastor!  I explained it to Katie the best I could and in the simplest way I knew how.  No answer from the back seat.  Finally Katie said, “I think I will ask my teacher.”

I tell the story because our denomination is observing “Lutheran Schools Week.”  Thank the heavenly Father for faithful teachers!  “Those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever and ever.” (Daniel 12:3)

March 4

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy worships regularly at a church in Alpharetta, Georgia.  In 2006 he and his daughter went on a mission trip to Kenya to work with AIDS patients.  “It was life changing for me and for her.  You have this feeling, totally incorrectly, that this is where God lives, in this box in Alpharetta.  Then you get over there in the middle of nowhere, and these people are singing for you.  You say, OK, God, You are everywhere. You think you’re going over there to bless somebody and you end up being the one who walks away blessed.”  ( Belleville News-Democrat, March 2; C1)

“Will God really dwell on earth?  The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you.  How much less this temple I have built!  Yet give attention to Your servant’s prayer and his plea for mercy.”  (Solomon on the dedication of the Temple , 1 Kings 8:27-28)

“God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness, made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”  (2 Corinthians 4:6) 

“I am with you always.”  (Matthew 28:20).

Here’s hoping you didn’t leave God in His “box” for this workweek! 

March 5

What do you do when you have had your heart set on something…and you don’t get it?  How do you react when you’ve worked hard and long for something…and you don’t get it?

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” (Proverbs 13:12)

Super Tuesday II is over, thankfully.  Democrat candidates Obama and Clinton will continue to slug it out but Mike Huckabee dropped out of the Republican race.  His hope to be President denied, or at least deferred for some years.  In smaller, less public ways we common people experience hope deferred or downright denied. 

When you’re not abiding in hope, where do you go?  The broken heart can do many things in those times.  It may cry, argue with itself, perhaps live in denial, perhaps enjoy the plunge into despair.  In the Bible the opposite of hope is despair.  When your earthly hope is deferred or denied, you are forced to reorder how you understand your life. 

The psalmist knew hope deferred.  He struggled to work out of his pity party by reordering his thoughts toward God. “Why are you downcast, O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.”  (Psalm 42:11)

“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)  

March 6

Forgiveness is the heart of the Christian message.  In Jesus Christ “we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:14 ).  We say that, but do we act as if God’s forgiveness truly is the final word?

Think about your own sins.  Think especially about what you did, that something that can keep you awake at night, that thing about which your conscience says, “Look what you did!  That can never be made right!”  You’d like to turn the clock back and do it right but you can’t.  So when you hear that God has forgiven you for Jesus’ sake, is that word final?  Or does your sin keep coming back?  It probably keeps coming back and so you need to hear God’s final word over and over again.

How about your husband, wife, child, a friend, someone who has done you wrong? How about someone in your church whose past sin is known but who comes and hears and believes the word of forgiveness week after week along with you?  Do you try to put that wrong out of your mind, or is it something you hang onto and sometimes talk about?  Is God’s word of forgiveness final or do you reserve the final word to yourself?

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  (Matthew 6:12; 14-15)  Final word?

March 7

“Spring forward; fall back.”  Here’s something about time that I find mind-boggling.

Romans 6:4 says, “All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death.  We were therefore buried with Him by baptism into death….”  It doesn’t say that being baptized is like being buried with Christ.  It literally says that when you were baptized you were baptized into His death and burial.  We’re not talking just a one-hour time change.  Baptism lifted you out of present time and united you with the death and burial of Jesus Christ in about the year 30.

Romans 6 goes on: “If we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection” (v. 5).  Lifted out of our time zone again!  This one isn’t “fall back” but rather “spring forward.”  This makes us look forward to the day when all the dead in Christ will be raised for an eternity in heaven. 

It’s mind boggling, but it’s the word from our sublime God.  Faith and baptism into Jesus Christ gives you a perspective beyond the present time.  “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18 ).

March 10

Collinsville , Illinois , is the town we call home.  Collinsville ’s Mayor Stan Schaeffer died Friday night.  Mayor Schaeffer was an engaging person, respectful to all, and worked tirelessly and constantly for the citizens of the city he loved.  His legacy will be long lasting.

Most of us are civic “users.”  We maintain our homes, support our schools and churches, pay our taxes, and the like…good citizens.  Every town, though, has – and needs – families who do more, who get involved in community efforts.  These people volunteer their time for social services, beautification projects, cultural offerings, historic awareness, homecoming events, service in city government, and so on. 

Some do it only to promote themselves.  Self-serving community activity is as old as Genesis chapter 11 where community builders raised the Tower of Babel only to get a name for themselves.  But selfless community service does flourish in America .  Selfless, not sinless, to be sure.  The Bible explains that followers of Christ do it to share the selfless love Jesus has shown us.  “Love seeks not its own” (1 Corinthians 13:5).  Their sacrifice benefits us, “that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Timothy 2:2). 

Let’s follow national politics but let’s not be deceived.  As Tip O’Neill said, “All politics is local.”  Our sympathies to the family of dear Mayor Schaeffer.

March 11 

Hi, Christian here!  I was at day care.  It was time for Daddy to pick me up.  My Daddy forgot me!  Does Daddy not care about me?

Aunt Katie comforted me.  “Christian, it happens,” she said.  When Aunt Katie was a little girl in grade school, her daddy forgot to pick her up.  All the other parents picked up their loved-ones.  Aunt Katie was left standing alone holding her little school bag.  Aunt Katie told me that her daddy is my Opa.  Katie calls Opa “Old Forgetful.”

Opa says we all have the same Father.  “That’s right, Christian.  ‘Have we not all one Father?  Did not one God create us?’” (Malachi 2:10) 

Opa says this Father is not like my Daddy or like Opa.  “That’s right, Christian.  He is a heavenly Father.  ‘Our Father in heaven’” (Matthew 6:9). 

Do you big people ever think that the heavenly Father is “Old Forgetful?”  Opa says just wait, whenever you think the heavenly Father has forgotten you.  “Right again, Christian.  ‘Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me’” (Psalm 27:10).

March 12

St. Paul wrote about people, “In the last days…having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:1, 5).  I thought of that passage when I read an article by David Shapiro, a Washington University student studying at Oxford .  Mr. Shapiro wrote about ancient traditions that are still observed at that old institution.  One such tradition is wearing black gowns to the dining hall.  Another interesting dining hall tradition: “Prior to dinner, grace is read.  In Latin.  Each college at Oxford has a different grace.  These would, of course, cause great uproar if they were read in an American institution of higher learning.  ‘Oh my God!  They’re talking about Jesus!’  No one cares here.  Most students are atheists, but everyone stands and remains silent for grace. It’s just part of tradition.”  (“Student Life,” March 5; p. 7)

I hope that old tradition won’t be abandoned. It may make some student curious to know more about the faith that started it.  “The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached.  And because of this I rejoice” (Philippians 1:18 ).  Closer to home, there is a challenge.  How many Americans keep the form of godliness but don’t understand the power of faith that is behind our traditions?  Like Lent?  Like Easter?

March 13

You have two feet, and if you’re a religious person those two feet take you to church. Church is a place we think about “whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable,…anything…excellent or praiseworthy.” (Philippians 2:8)  If there’s anything that should be pure and lovely, it’s the love of husband and wife.  “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.” (Ephesians 5:25)

I know nothing about Eliot Spitzer’s religious practices, but his two feet sure jumped into the wrong bed. The shame he has brought upon himself and his poor family reminds us not to shame ourselves with impure love before others and before God.  “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” (Hebrews 13:4)

Unfortunately, wrong sheets happen…even for church people.  The prodigal son “squandered (his father’s) property with prostitutes” but the father welcomed home his repentant son (Luke 15).  The sexual immorality shocked the older brother and the Father’s forgiveness offended him.  The older brother had a balance problem.  He did not understand that on this side of eternity one foot in “what ought to be” should be balanced by the other foot in “what is” in this sinful world.  Many Christians suffer faith-shattering experiences because they don’t keep a foot in each.

March 14  

On Wednesday I attended a one-day meeting called the “Higher Education Investing Seminar.”  I felt almost completely humbled. 

One power point slide said this: “The sub prime and liquidity problems in the U.S. have spread globally as it appears much of the risk laid off in ABS securitization process wound up in portfolios of foreign and international banks.  Additionally, when risk returned, there was global unwinding of Yen carry trade…which forced traders to cover yen shorts and caused all other currencies to fall.”  Huh?  “Cover yen shorts?”

“Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.  For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body….  For the body does not consist of one member but of many.”  (1 Corinthians 12:12-13)  God has given His Church many different people with many different skills, and they are all to be used for His good purposes.  “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” (1 Peter 4:10)

The seminar made me appreciate anew the gifts of others.  When was the last time you complimented someone for developing the unique gift God has given them?  

March 17

March 18

March 19

Colors probably settled down on Wednesday of Holy Week.  The green palm branches of Sunday gave way to wondering.  “Is this Jesus going to do something or not?”

In some corners of Christianity, today is known as “Spy Wednesday.”  People have long wondered why Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus.  Was his deal to betray Jesus just a move to force revolutionary action?  Or was it just greed, trade in a friend for thirty pieces of silver?  Whatever, with normal color Judas struck the deal.  A spy can’t let color reveal his heart.  Neither can a career climber.

If the religious authorities who paid Judas showed red on Tuesday, when Jesus slammed down their efforts to entrap Him, they probably were back to normal face color today.  Still happens.  Your face flushes red with anger but you settle down…and you stuff the anger deep in your being and it turns to bitterness.  Normal face but a bitter heart.

I’m guessing that Jesus had normal color today, but not because he had stuffed His feelings or was concealing career calculations.  We surmise Jesus spent this day in contemplation of what was to come.  The weight of the world’s sins on Him.  No flush of emotion, green or red, just sober thought.  Dark days are coming.  Count to ten.  Compose yourself.  Pray.  You know?  

March 20

“When in the hour of deepest need  We know not where to look for aid;

When days and nights of anxious thought  No help or counsel yet have brought.”

The need grew deeper, the colors darker this Maundy Thursday for Jesus, but He was different than we are in our dark hours.  “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth.  When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats.” (1 Peter 2:22-23)  He washed the disciples’ feet to show that we should serve others.  He instituted Holy Communion that our faith should grow by partaking of His body and blood.  “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.”

An example we should follow?  Yes.  Is that all?  No.  Jesus is not providing only an example but is saving your skin and mine, saving your soul and mine.  Bottom line: That you and I be safe and at home with God for all time.  This is about your, religious word, “salvation.”

“O from our sins, Lord, turn your face; absolve us through Your boundless grace. 

Be with us in our anguish still; Free us at last from every ill.”

Attitude adjustment: Our mood needs to get darker this Maundy Thursday.  Daily bravado aside, we are in the hour of deepest need.  

March 21

“O darkest woe!  Ye tears, forth flow!  Has earth so sad a wonder?  God the Father’s only Son now is buried yonder.”

You know how it is in the deep dark.  Darkness smothers all the colors of life.  “From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.”  (Matthew 27:45)

Back in my TV days, I interviewed a woman whose teenage daughter had been brutally murdered.  When I piously said that God had lost his Son to an unjust death, the bitter mother shot back, “That was wrong; God shouldn’t have done that.”

Does this strike you as strange?  In the enormous universe the people on one little planet are told that God sent His Son to them?  And that God used His Son’s unjust death to punish all their sins?  As I get older I wrestle more and more with the message of Good Friday.  Like the death of a dear one, today is no time for the routine same ol’ same ol’.

J.S. Bach was born on this date in 1685.  He often put the letters “ I. I. ” at the top of his musical works.  They stand for the Latin words, “Jesus, help.”  That’s our only hope in the dark.  “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24 )

March 24

It was chilly yesterday, snow flurries falling as we drove to Easter church.  When the sun broke through the clouds, I thought, “Appropriate,” but my thought was purely subjective.

Not all first century Jews believed in a life after death but many did expect it, sometime down the road, sometime in the distant future.  My colleague and professor of New Testament Jeff Gibbs says, “No one expected the messiah to die, and they certainly didn’t expect him to rise by himself.  It was like the future had broken into the present.”  ( St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 23; A13)

Do the liturgical refrain, “Christ is risen; He is risen indeed!” as loudly as you want, we still can’t experience the astonishment of the first disciples.  For us Easter Sundays are predictable; you can find the date for years to come.  And so we specially need Christ’s glorious future breaking into our Sundays and into our daily humdrum.   All the colors of life, the flourishing greens, the reds of anger, the paleness of fear, all need rays from the future.  “Christ Jesus…has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.” (2 Timothy 1:10)

No sun, only clouds when we drove home from church.  No matter; a glorious word from the future had broken into the chilly present.

March 25

Easter egg count: On Sunday morning we had 18 colored Easter eggs.  Today there are only 4 left.

Easter emotion check: Easter hymns choke me up.  Today the tears are dry and I’m back to the regular emotions, fear, anger, you name it.

Easter goodies check: On Easter the fridge was full of new food for special holiday meals.  Today only leftovers.

Easter love check: We saw or called family on Sunday.  “Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.”  Today we’re back to normal.  (Call you Saturday, Mom, if I don’t forget).

After Jesus rose from the dead and spent some days showing Himself alive to His disciples, Matthew 28:17 says, “When they saw Him they worshipped Him; but some doubted.”  What a difference some days can make!

Commentators are still talking about the judgmental statements of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s pastor, and Rev. John Hagee, who endorsed John McCain.  Still talking about what those ministers said!  How many of us are keeping Sunday’s Resurrection message uppermost these few days later?  (Mom, I’ll call before Saturday!)

March 26

Looking through yesterday’s newspapers, one theme ran through several articles in the front section. 

Detroit mayor Kwame “Kilpatrick apologized on television in January after the Detroit Free Press revealed steamy text messages that contradicted his sworn statements that he had no romantic relationship with Christine Beatty….” 

“The Navy fired Vice Admiral John Stufflebeem after a Pentagon investigation concluded he’d lied during questioning….”

“On Monday (Senator Hillary) Clinton admitted that she had ‘misspoke’ about the episode…of having to run across a tarmac to avoid sniper fire after landing in Bosnia as first lady in 1996.”

And in a St. Louis area story, a well-known basketball coach Floyd Irons “falsified loan application documents to secure…money” for real estate.  ( St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 25, A1, 3, 4)

Did you catch the thread, lying?  Or will lies catch you in a web of deceit?

Proverbs 19:5 – “A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who pours out lies will not go free.”

Ephesians 4:25 – “Each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.”

If we continue to slip into a society where no one trusts another’s word, how can you trust the word from God that He forgives you?

March 27

Tuesday Senator Clinton joined the debate about Senator Obama’s controversial membership in Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church.  She said, “While we don’t have a choice when it comes to our relatives, we do have a choice when it comes to our pastors or our church.”

That’s a true American understanding, you choose your church.  Had you been born in Europe not that long ago, you would have been born and baptized into an official state church.  In fact, most American colonies had state churches, Massachusetts was the last to give up its official state church in 1833.  Old attitudes gave way, the First Amendment codified the new thinking, and Senator Clinton is right.

Depend on the Bible for a different view.  “You did not choose me but I chose you,” Jesus says in John 15:16.  The example of the early church is that His choosing draws us into a congregation.  “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”  (Acts 2:42 )  Which of the over 300,000 congregations in America should get your participation?  Jesus says, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really My disciples.  Then you will know the truth.”  (John 8:31).

To go where you want is American.  To be drawn by the pure Word of Christ is biblical.

March 28  

How is it where you live?  At home in southern Illinois I'm now waking up to hear the birds singing.  I no longer have to bundle up to go out and get the newspapers.  Forsythias and daffodils are in full bloom with the lilacs and tulips promising to open.  Bare branches of trees are taking on a green hue, showing hints of what's to come.  Lawnmowers are being readied.  People are working in their yards.  Exercise amateurs have come out of winter hibernation and are trying to walk off, jog off, or bicycle off the pounds of winter.  Good luck!

Genesis chapter one tells how God created this wondrous world of nature that is now springing into bloom.  Then Genesis 2:2 says, "On the seventh day God rested from all His work."  What did God do on that day of rest?  He enjoyed His creation.  It was very good.

I hope you can take some time these days to enjoy His handiwork.  If He did, we should!

All creatures that have breath and motion,

That throng the earth, the sea, and sky,

Now join me in my heart’s devotion,

Help me raise God’s praises high.

My utmost powers can na’er aright

Declare the wonders of His might.

March 31

Where were the “C and Es” yesterday, the first Sunday after Easter, those people who only come on Christmas and Easter?  Instead of complaining, our pastor had a better idea.  Why not encourage those C and Es by our lively faith in the risen Christ?

A story from the American Bible Society:  “Ms. Shen Xiaoping…loves to read books of all kinds.  One day her Christian neighbor gave her a copy of the Bible, saying, ‘This is the best book in the world.  Choosing to ignore it would be the greatest loss of your life.’  It was years before Shen read the Bible.  She remembered it only when she was due to go for an extended stay and medical checkup at the hospital.  She took the ‘best book’ with her and began to read.  She read through every page of it in four days, unable to put it down.”  That Bible was one of 50 million Bibles printed in mainland China since 1987.  Today Shen is a Christian.  (“Record,” Spring/Summer, 2008; 7-8)

On the first Sunday after the first Easter, doubting Thomas discovered that the resurrected Christ is real.  The discovery of a living faith took time for Shen in China and may take some time for C and Es today.  Are you encouraging them…by yourself spending time with “the best book in the world?”