Pastors' Blog

A dripping, blood-red X over the face of Osama bin Laden is the cover for the May 20, 2011, issue of TIME. Only four times in its publishing history has the magazine chosen to red-X the face of a notorious human being: Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi and now Osama bin Laden. The press is still abuzz over the stunning surprise and speed with which “the world’s #1 terrorist” was hunted and killed last week. When late on Sunday night President Obama announced bin Laden’s death to the nation and world, jubilant crowds quickly amassed outside the White House and in New York City to celebrate the death of the September 11 mastermind. Seal Team 6 celebrates its precision execution of the raid—Pakistan protests violation of its sovereignty—and earth marvels over the United State’s relentless and finally successful pursuit of its most-wanted nemesis. And how is it with earth’s Christians? As I watched the jubilation of the crowds, read the editorials and followed the unfolding story, the irony of it all occurred to me—we have found reason to rejoice in the death of another. We party because our enemy has been slain. And who would renounce the strong sense of relief family members of the September 11 victims experienced with the news that the perpetrator of that heinous crime had met his own untimely death? “Justice has been done,” was the President’s somber pronouncement. But does God rejoice in the death of Osama bin Laden? King David fled for his life, when his rebel son Absalom lead a coup d'état in Israel to overthrow his father. But days later when the army of the father overpowered the army of the rebel son and Absalom was slain by a commando team, there was no party back at headquarters. Instead the father king wept: “‘O my son Absalom—my son, my son Absalom—if only I had died in your place! O Absalom my son, my son!’” (II Samuel 18:33) On hearing the king’s loud lamenting, Joab—David’s commanding general—burst into the royal chamber with the angry charge that the king’s inconsolable weeping was a disgrace to the nation. But was it? Could it be that David’s weeping was a shadowy representation of another Father King? Will God and the universe party when rebel son and fallen angel Lucifer at last suffers eternal death for his ruthless and unrelenting crimes against the kingdom? Or like David, will the Father of us all bow his head in his hands and weep, “If only I could have died in your place?” Will divine love love its enemies, its nemesis enemy, to the very end? Calvary is answer enough, is it not? “‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do’” (Luke 23:34). And that is why there will be only one death the universe will ever truly rejoice over throughout eternity: “And they sang a new song . . . ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!’” (Revelation 5:9, 12). It is that death, the death of Christ our Savior, that compels us to love even our enemies. Which is why in the end the only dripping, blood-red X that will matter for any of us, for all of us, is the one atop Calvary. “And they sang a new song.”

“FEAR FACTOR OPENS NEW MARKET FOR SEEDS” That headline two days ago caught my eye. What in the world do seeds have to do with fear? I read on. “The news is unquestionably frightening: political turmoil at home and abroad; worries over oil, gas, and food prices; earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear meltdowns . . . And that’s just in the last few months. Marketers are on high alert. Doomsday is nigh! they shout online and on late-night TV as they hype ‘survivalist seed banks’ and ‘apocalypse gardens’ to the nervous and fearful. More than a dozen companies offer deals of up to 94,000 vegetable seeds, stored in tightly sealed buckets and ‘ammo boxes,’ that will feed a family of four for years or decades” (http://articles.philly.com/2011-04-18/news/29443489_1_vegetable-seeds-lettuce-plant-garden). Can you believe it? You can now order 94,000 vegetable seeds to pack away in your basement or bottom drawer in the event of an emergency! Just in case. Are people buying? “‘It’s going well, a little too well right now. We didn’t really anticipate that we’d get busier every time something happens,’ says Dustin Merritt, co-owner of Emergencyseedbank.com in American Fork, Utah.” In fact, Merritt claims that his company is doing as much business now per month as it did in three months last year. Not everybody’s a believer, of course. “If disaster struck, how would anyone be able to even start a garden, let alone keep one going for 10 or 20 years?” And besides, as one master-gardener quipped, “You don’t need to buy thousands of seeds unless you’re going to feed the whole country.” The point? Like the rest of the world, Americans are easily spooked. And the spate of bad news of late has jacked the profits of survivalist sales. But are 94,000 seeds really going to save us? But on this Passion weekend when Christendom relives the explosive story of Jesus’ resurrection 2000 years ago, the juxtaposed ideas of seed and fear may not be as farfetched as we think. For in that garden tomb outside Jerusalem’s walls the divine Seed was buried behind a stone door. Just one Seed. But in that Seed the survivalist hopes of an entire race were pinned. For if that buried Seed were to rise from the earth—alive and eternal—then the survival, the salvation of the human race would be assured, and fear—the endemic reality of life on this rebel planet—would be conquered. And so it was that in the angel’s cry, “He is not here—He is risen!”, the triumph of the Seed and the salvation of the world were pronounced. And so it is that we gather to celebrate the Risen Christ every time we worship! Then ponder the words of the poet, John M. C. Crum, in this paean of praise for our Savior Seed: Now the green blade rises from the buried grain Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain Love lives again, that with the dead has been Love is come again like wheat arising green. In the grave they laid Him, love by hatred slain Thinking that He would never wake again Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen Love is coming again like wheat arising green. Forth He came in triumph, like the risen grain He that for three days in the grave had lain Raised from the dead, my living Lord is seen Love is come again like wheat arising green. When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain Your touch can call us back to life again Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been Love is coming again like wheat arising green.

On March 22, bbc.com released a story that has set the blogosphere abuzz. The headline reads: “Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study says” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197). Before examining that list of nine countries, here’s the logic behind that conclusion. The American Physical Society (APS), meeting in Dallas recently, released research based on non-linear dynamics, a mathematical model used to analyze data. Examining religious affiliation census data extending back a century for numerous countries, and then correlating that data with known social motives behind being religious or not, the APS concluded that for these nine nations the trends indicate that eventually social motivation for joining a religion will diminish until (mathematically speaking) no one in the country will be religious. “‘The idea is pretty simple,’ said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona. ‘It posits that social groups that have more members are going to be more attractive to join . . . For example in languages, there can be greater utility or status in speaking Spanish instead of [the dying language] Quechuan in Peru, and similarly there's some kind of status or utility in being a member of a religion or not.’” The reality that more and more people in these particular nations “are identifying themselves as non-affiliated with religion,” Wiener pointed out, led to this study’s conclusion. In what nine countries is religion predicted to become extinct? Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Switzerland. In the Netherlands 40% of those surveyed declare themselves non-affiliated with religion—in the Czech Republic that figure climbs to 60%. And what about the United States? Commenting on the BBC report, theblaze.com indicates that nationwide 15% of Americans now claim no religion, making them the only religious group “growing in all 50 states.” Obviously, no mathematical formula or theory exists that can accurately predict the spiritual realities of the collective human heart. And yet two millennia ago Jesus himself wondered about the spiritual state of humanity just before he returned to earth: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). Will he? Though Dylan Thomas was not decrying the loss of faith on the earth, his fiery admonition might serve the friends of Christ well, we who must yet move into the gathering darkness to share the promise of light:

Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

“Rage” is hardly an irenic term—but it can depict the fiery passion of the Spirit against the gathering nightfall of faith, can’t it? Yes, the numbers of the non-affiliated are on the rise in nations once considered Christian. But No, the friends of the Son of Man need not “go gentle” into the approaching night. Rather, let the Radicals, this new generation of missionaries, rise up with the fervor of Christ himself and move into these nine nations (and many more) with the faith of the Savior bright in our own hearts and fresh on our own lips. Rather than simply raging “against the dying of the light,” is it not better to light a candle in the dark instead? After all the night belongs to Christ. And it may yet be that with our candles high the Son of Man will find faith on the earth when he comes.

"O God, Japan!" The 9.0 magnitude earthquake and thirty-foot tsunami that decimated northeastern Japan’s coastal cities (just as spring break began here on campus) is not only the sixth strongest quake on global record, but is also the most costly natural disaster in earth’s history. However, it is the human toll that has broken our collective heart. Born to missionary parents in Tokyo and having spent the first 14 years of my life in the Land of the Rising Sun, I have felt the anguish of displaced Japanese who from afar have wept over the numbing television and computer screen images streaming out of the devastation. Haven’t you cried, too? How can we not, when this land of stalwart, industrious, orderly, polite and gracious almost to a fault people collectively cry out to their gods—to anyone who will listen, really—their unabashed pain and sorrow? In California last week with my mother, I stared at the black and white front page newspaper photograph of a Japanese woman sobbing over the lifeless hand of her mother, protruding from the tsunami wreckage of what was once their home. Doesn’t God weep with those who do? What can we do, we who returned rested from our break to face the glory and joys of a new springtime across this campus? We must do something, mustn’t we—if we would not fall victim to what psychologists describe as “frozen emotions,” deep feelings prompted by television images, but never acted upon? You may give on two fronts. ADRA International (the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, now headed by our own Rudi Maier) has mobilized its disaster response team in Japan to the crisis centers. ADRA Japan is coordinating its relief efforts in evacuation centers with the Japanese Department of Social Services. You can make your gift, as I did, at www.adra.org. Just click onto the “Japan Quake” banner when it appears and follow the simple directions. If you prefer to talk with an ADRA representative, you may call 1-800-424-ADRA. A second front of this disaster is the damage sustained by our church in Japan. If you would like to contribute to the church’s rebuilding efforts, you may send your gift to the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists electronically at https://appeal.nadadventist.org/Japan, or you may make your check payable to: North American Division, Attn: 2011 Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami Fund, 12501 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, MD 20904. But there is a third way we must all respond. It is the simple prayer, “O God, Japan!” One hundred-sixteen million people—who celebrate births and marriages with a Shinto priest (the unique Japanese religion of animism, praying to the spirits of the deceased) and who are buried by a Buddhist priest, but who are otherwise secular and without religion or faith—surely the Savior of this world longs to breakthrough to this people where only one half of 1% are Christians. “O God, Japan!” Won’t you join me in claiming this promise for the Land of the Rising Sun? “But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings” (Malachi 4:2). Isn’t that incredible? Could it become a prophecy that one day the Land of the Rising Sun will truly become that—the land upon which the Sun of Righteousness will shine down his healing grace and saving power? “O God, Japan!” We must pray. And we must go.