Pastors' Blog

“Not even J. R. R. Tolkien could dream up rings as precious as these.” So began the story of the Salvation Army red kettle outside Boston’s North Station a couple weeks ago. The  ringer hadn’t noticed that one of the passers-by had dropped into the kettle a letter with two objects tucked inside. When the charity emptied the kettle late that night, they found the letter, from a widow. Recalling her late husband as an especially giving soul (particularly during the holidays), the anonymous widow donated both her diamond engagement ring and wedding band. The note asked that the two rings be sold and the proceeds used to buy toys for poor children. “‘I’m hoping there’s someone out there who made lots of money this year and will buy the ring for 10 times its worth. After all, there’s no price on love or the sentimental value of this ring. But money will help the kids,” her note read. Massachusetts Salvation Army Major David Davis later reported that the diamond ring itself was valued at $1,850. In keeping with the widow’s wishes, the Salvation Army spread the word about the widow’s gift and her desire. Soon multiple offers were made for the rings. But the highest offer actually came from a former Salvation Army ringer. In fact she offered $21,000 for the two rings, more than ten times their worth! But as the Associated Press reported: “This heartwarming Christmas story gets even better: The anonymous woman redeeming the rings is also a widow, and she wants to return them to the woman who originally donated them” (South Bend Tribune 12-16-14). Why so generous an offer from the second widow? “I want to be involved in this because it’s about the spirit of Christmas, the spirit of giving. My wish is that the rings can be returned to this woman who gave them up in memory of her husband for the sake of the children at Christmas.” As church official Davis put it, “One expression of love has inspired another grand gesture to help those in need during the holiday season. Because of these two amazing individuals, our Salvation Army officers, staff and individuals will be able to extend our outreach to the many families and children in need. We are dedicated to fulfilling the sentiment behind these two heartfelt donations.” Talk about a feel-good story for Christmas! Two widows, two sacrificial gifts, all because of one Child long ago who made the greatest sacrifice of all. Somewhere it is written, “Freely you have received—freely give.”  They are the words of the Child grown up to be Savior and Lord of the rings and every other gift that shall be given in His name.

The national conversation has been boisterous and divided in the aftermath of the grand jury findings announced in Ferguson, Missouri, last week. Ever since the shooting death of black teenager Michael Brown by  white police officer Darren Wilson last August, the reaction of Americans has generally split along racial lines. So it was over the death of Trayvon Martin nearly three years ago, as well as over the verdict in the O. J. Simpson trial two decades ago. The racial divide in this country is undeniable, and the election of the first Black American as President of the United States has not diminished our division. So what position is the church of Christ to embrace in the midst of so polarized a society? Where should the disciples of Jesus stand? If Christ’s Sermon on the Mount is a template for discipleship, then His words are clear: The followers of Jesus will be identified by their poverty of spirit, their mourning with those who suffer, their radical humility, their hunger and thirst for justice and righteousness, their mercy, and their purity of heart (see Matthew 5:5-12). That seems clear enough. But perhaps most compelling of all is the beatitude, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (v 9). In some very tangible and realizable sense, the follower of Christ is to move through society—according to this admonition of the Master—as one who continually seeks to make peace, to broker it, to cling to the fragile hope that it may even yet take root and blossom in the raw earth of our enmities. “Blessed are the peacemakers” is not the abolition of justice or the absolution of injustice. But it is the studied effort to resist the polarization of side-taking; it is a bold meekness that chooses instead to conciliate two hostile camps. In a sense it is the effort to be like Jesus. Of that effort John Howard Yoder observes in his seminal study The Politics of Jesus: “There is thus one realm in which the concept of imitation holds—but there it holds in every strand in the New Testament literature and all the more strikingly by virtue of the absence of parallels in other realms: this is at the point of the concrete social meaning of the cross in its relation to enmity and power. Servanthood replaces dominion, forgiveness absorbs hostility. Thus—and only thus—are we bound by New Testament thought to ‘be like Jesus’” (134). “Blessed are the peacemakers,” who like their Master, speak truth to power and forgiveness to enmity. “. . . for they shall be called the children of God.” The very children desperately needed in that town in Missouri and this village in Michigan this Christmas. What else will heal the fractured divide we know all too well there and here—if not the One at whose midnight coming the angels once sang, “. . . and on earth, peace, good will, to all”?

Eighty years ago two wealthy friends, New York banker Henry Graves Jr and Ohio automaker James Packard, both watch collectors, were in a friendly race to see who could come up with the world’s most complicated watch. But Graves clearly won the bet when he commissioned Swiss watchmaker Patek Phillipe to design what became known as the Supercomplication—a 1.5 inch thick gold pocket watch that took eight years to craft. Complicated? Are you kidding! “Among the watch’s features are a double face, perpetual calendar, phases of the moon, a chronograph that can time two simultaneous events, Westminster chimes, and indications for the time of sunset and sunrise and the night sky over New York’s Central Park as seen from Graves’ home on Fifth Avenue” (http://nypost.com/2014/11/11/pocket-watch-clocks-in-at-nearly-24m-at-auction/). Cost to Graves—$13,000 (no small sum in 1933). This Tuesday the Supercomplication went on the auction block at Sotheby’s in Geneva. For fifteen dramatic minutes five bidders competed to possess it. When the dust settled, the Supercomplication became the most expensive time piece in history, sold to an anonymous bidder for $23,983,140. At that price you can be safe in predicting the new owner won’t be carrying it around in his pocket for show and tell! Supercomplication. Not an inappropriate name for a time-keeping device. After all, what is more complicated than our human attempt to “keep time?” Nobody has yet been able to keep very much of it, have they? Supercomplicated time is how some regard an ancient prophecy in Daniel 8:14. “Two-thousand three-hundred evenings and mornings,” the Hebrew reads. A slice of prophetic time that scholars calculate to span from ancient Babylon to our own age of history. And when the timepiece of divine prophecy struck the prophesied hour, these scholars are certain the human race was ushered into the divine endgame strategy of “cleansing the sanctuary,” a celestial judgment (see Daniel 7:10) in which the dark records of the Rebel’s long war against the Kingdom will be eventually purged. Thus Daniel’s cryptic prophecy lends compelling to Revelation’s declaration that the hour of God’s judgment has come (Revelation 14:7). Which means there is nothing complicated about the urgent intent of Holy Scripture to remind its third millennial readers we live in the predicted endtime of moral cleansing. Business as usual long ago vanished. “Now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).  It is cleansing time. But is that so complicated a thought? Didn’t the death of Christ on the cross open a fountain of spiritual cleansing for all who seek His purifying grace (Zechariah 12:10/13:1)? Hasn’t the moral cleansing of His children ever been God’s passionate vision and promise? And for a generation living at a time when more and more believe the sudden demise of earth as we know it is a credible possibility, is it so complicated to believe it is imperative we take seriously Christ’s offer of “a special work of purification, of putting away of sin” NOW? “Galaxy Three.” Watch the final three episodes (archived at this website). The King, the Rebel, the loyalists, the war. And you and me. Because it is no longer “long ago and far away.” The endgame has arrived. It really is cleansing time.

The story won’t go away, will it? Because this killer virus doesn’t seem to go away. Now Dallas is jittery all over again with the announcement that a second nurse who treated the deceased Liberian Ebola-infected patient is herself infected with Ebola. And now a whole new network of family, neighbors, associates must be staked out to determine if this infected nurse accidently infected one of them as well. Add to these concerns the World Health Organization’s announcement this week that the infection rate of Ebola in West Africa will accelerate in two months to as many as 10,000 new cases a week. How does the global community build a fire-wall around that number? It doesn’t take an epidemiologist to recognize that just a handful of breaches in quarantine efforts—just a few infected humans slipping across a border or two into a previously uncontaminated region or country—could conceivably turn this regional plague into a trans-African crisis of unimagined proportions. And then how long would the rest of the world remain untouched? Just the typical media hype? I’m not so sure anymore. I read a report this week from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (part of the Academic Health Center at the University of Minnesota) stating: “We believe there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients”—the implication being that “healthcare workers should be wearing respirators, not facemasks” (http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/09/commentary-health-workers-need-optimal-respiratory-protection-ebola). I.e., the virus may be transmitted in the air surrounding an infected victim. If those CIDRAP concerns are valid, then obviously the spread of Ebola virus is no longer limited to contact with bodily fluids. But doesn’t God promise, “No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling” (Psalm 91:10)? The Adventist Review reported this week that Ebola has killed 16 Adventists in West Africa. The truth is, divine protection was never intended to be a permanent immune shield for the ills and evils of this planet. Then should we be worried? No. We should be concerned, deeply concerned both for the plight of the inhabitants of West Africa and for a world where “pestilences” will abound until Christ returns (Matthew 24:7). And where we can, let us act on our compassion in humanitarian ways that can help alleviate human suffering. We must respond like Jesus. (Go to Adventist Frontier Missions—www.afmonline.org—for ways you can respond.) In the meantime let us not dismiss too quickly the disequilibrium Ebola has already injected into global consciousness. Should this epidemic jump the firewall, life on this planet will be radically altered. And the difficulty of communicating God’s last appeal “to every nation, tribe, tongue and people” will be significantly ramped up. Jesus’ description of the global psyche when He returns may not be so far off—“men’s hearts failing them from fear” (Luke 21:26). So with hope and an urgency borne of compassion let us go to our neighbors and nations with the announcement that the Healer of the human family is coming soon. “Turn to Me and be saved, all you ends of the earth” (Isaiah 45:22).