Pastors' Blog

Winston Churchill is often misquoted with the admonition: Never give up, never, never, never give up. In fact what he actually stated in the early hours of World War 2 was, "Never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense" (www.quora.com/Why-did-Winston-Churchill-say-never-never-never-give-up). But the point is still well taken.

Back in 2000 NASA launched a new, high-tech satellite dubbed the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE). Its mission was to "create the first comprehensive images of atmospheric plasma"—which being interpreted means scientists wanted to learn how the magnetosphere (the magnetic shield around the Earth) creates "space weather" patterns that disturb cell phone and satellite communication systems as well as electrical distribution grids. The IMAGE satellite's elliptical orbit around Earth sent it straight through rivers and clouds of super-hot ionized gas from the Sun called plasma, a key to deciphering weather in space. The mission was declared a success when the satellite it delivered to scientists a treasure trove of images from inside that outer space sea of plasma.

IMAGE completed its mission in 2002, "but failed to make contact again on a routine pass by the Earth in 2005." Perhaps an eclipse in 2007 would enable the satellite to reboot and kickstart itself, scientists hoped. But nothing in 2007. In fact, nothing at all again, leading the researchers to subsequently declare IMAGE's mission over.

But as fate would have it, an amateur astronomer in January locked on to a mysterious object in space, reported it to NASA, which in turn reverse-engineered its hardware technology in an effort to communicate with an apparently out-dated computer system that, in fact, turned out to be the long-lost IMAGE satellite! "The team will now spend the coming weeks analyzing data from the satellite to learn more about the state of the spacecraft, and maybe a little more about what it's been up to all these years" (see www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1136795.stm and www.engadget.com/2018/01/31/nasa-makes-contact-with-satellite-lost-in-space-13-years-ago for more).

Moral of the story: "Never give up."

It's an admonition all of us can draw strength and encouragement from, can't we?

1.  Never give up saving a little of your hard-earned money each month.

• "The wise store up choice food and olive oil, but fools gulp theirs down" (Proverbs 21:20 NIV).

2. Never give up saying "I love you."

• "Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8 NLT).

3. Never give up believing God loves you and has fully provided for
your eternal salvation.

• "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16 NIV).

4.  Never give up praying for a friend, a family member, a lost child.

• "I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers" (Philemon 4 NKJV).

5.  Never give up dreaming that great dream for your life and for God's glory.

• "Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope" (Ephesians 3:20 NLT).

6.  Never give up hoping and living for the soon return of Jesus.

•  ". . . We wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13 NIV).

7.  Never give up sharing your faith in Him.

• "'Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you'" (Mark 5:19 NIV).

The list can be endless. But the point is singular. Never give up. After all, has God ever given up on you? Not if this promise of His is still true: "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future'" (Jeremiah 29:11).

With a promise like that from a God like Him, why would we ever give up?

Leave it to the Japanese! According to NHK, Japan’s national public broadcasting organization, the electronics giant Hitachi is testing a smartphone app "to promote workers’ health management." Given Japan’s legendary penchant for work productivity, such "health management" likely means a new company tool to keep much closer tabs on employees’ work output and efficiency as related to personal health and habits.

According to this report yesterday, all the app requires is a photograph of the employee. From it the app "can estimate blood circulation, pulse rate, and stress levels," key indicators of employee health. Furthermore "if users input their alcohol intake, and their experience of hangovers [Japan is the land of sake (rice whiskey)], the app will calculate a hangover threshold for each individual" (www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180102_18). All they need is a picture of your face.

"A Hitachi engineer says users can input data to smartphones easily and at any time. He says he hopes companies will use the app to better understand the health status of their employees" (ibid).

Ignoring for now the personal liberty/freedom implications of intrusive electronic monitoring (given Apple’s new face recognition technology, I suppose this is but a new normal for our "brave new world")—it makes you wonder, does God have an app to read our face? Or to put it another way, what if we had an app that through face recognition was able to read our hearts? What if this New Year we could snap a selfie, submit it to the app, and get a print out of our spiritual health, the conditions of our deep innermost soul?

"Then the LORD said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?’" (Genesis 4:7). Looks like God has had a face-recognition app from the very beginning! "And seeing the crowds [Jesus] was moved inwardly with compassion for them, because they were in distress and cast down, like sheep having no shepherd" (Matthew 9:36, David Bentley Hart, A Translation: The New Testament).

But what if it weren’t our faces that mattered as much as it is His face? It was that way for David: "Let the light of Your face shine on us" (Psalm 4:6); "My heart says of You, 'Seek His face!’" (Psalm 27:8); "Let Your face shine on your servant" (Psalm 31:16); "Look to the LORD and His strength—seek His face always" (Psalm 105:4).

It was that way for Moses, too: "Moses did not merely think of God; he saw Him." Face to face? Keeping reading: "God was the constant vision before him; he never lost sight of His face." Is this face to face or faith to faith? Keep reading: "He saw Jesus as his Saviour, and . . . [this] faith was to Moses no guesswork; it was a reality." And what Moses experienced by faith we can, too, this New Year. Keep reading: "This is the kind of faith we need, faith . . . [to] keep our eye upon Jesus!" Just like Moses, just like David, we can "see" His face: "My [friend], make Christ your daily, hourly companion, and you will not complain that you have no faith. Contemplate Christ. View His character. Talk of Him" (5T 562).

Gregory Boyd’s testimony still rings true: "My life is Christ—nothing else really matters" (Present Perfect 57).

Does Christ have an app to read our faces and our hearts, too? Of course He does. But the good news this New Year is that He’s inviting us to "seek His face," to "view His character," to know His love. Contemplate that picture in your heart every new morning, and chances are great people will begin to recognize His face in yours.

As far as I know, the Lutheran Church in town boasts the only life-size nativity display in our county. At nighttime its scattered spotlights cast a surreal glimmering over the porcelain participants in the birth of the Christ Child. And the recent snowfall with its dollops of white lumped across the scene only adds to its mystique—shepherds, magi, donkey and camel as big as life clustered about the peasant family of man, woman and Infant. "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord" declared the Christmas angel (Luke 2:11).

Joseph Cahill reflects: "At its profoundest, our celebration of Christmas, which continues to maintain such an inexplicable hold on our whole culture, is not 'good news' about material acquisitions (as everything from department stores to television commercials proclaims to us): it is rather, a dramatization of the simple triumphs of common humanity, in which joy at a baby's birth can overcome the most grievous official oppressions, and even the pedestrian aggravations, of ordinary life" (Desire of Everlasting Hills 100).

That's certainly one way to summarize it. But even Cahill would agree that if the Bethlehem story is reduced to "a dramatization of the simple truths of common humanity,"  who could blame us for dashing past that crude manger, oblivious to the silver miracle embedded in its straw?

Nearly twenty centuries ago came this first carol of all: "By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness:

He who was revealed in the flesh,
Was vindicated in the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Proclaimed among the nations,
Believed on in the world,
Taken up in glory."
(1 Timothy 3:16 NASB)

Nearly fifteen centuries later Martin Luther composed a children's carol for this season:

Our little Lord, we give thee praise
That thou hast deigned to take our ways.
Born of a maid a man to be,
And all the angels sing to thee.

The eternal Father's Son he lay
Cradled in a crib of hay.
The everlasting God appears
In our frail flesh and blood and tears.

What the globe could not enwrap
Nestled lies in Mary's lap.
Just a baby, very wee,
Yet Lord of all the world is he.   

Nearly a century ago Ellen White crafted this un-carol depiction of Christmas: "The work of redemption is called a mystery, and it is indeed the mystery by which everlasting righteousness is brought to all who believe. . . . At an infinite cost, and by a process mysterious to angels as well as to men, Christ assumed humanity. Hiding His divinity, laying aside His glory, He was born a babe in Bethlehem" (7BC 915).

The mystery of incarnation, the miracle of "infleshment" summarized by Paul, celebrated by Luther, articulated by White.

For upon that mystery is balanced the only truth left to save humanity from itself. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

"Just a baby, very wee, yet Lord of all the world is he."

"O come, let us adore Him."

The list of the high and mighty who have been recently named in sexual harassment charges is stunning. From politicians to entertainers to media icons—it seems America now awakens each day with some new hitherto undisclosed revelation or charge of sexual abuse or harassment. Women victims, who have long been shamed or cowed into submission and silence by powerful male perpetrators, have found new voice and courage to speak out. And men, who once lived with wanton disregard for the women they mistreated with sexual abandon, now stand before the court of public opinion, their sexual libidos in full display. Even the secular press now touts sexual accountability, justice, and morality.

However, this sudden outbreak of sexual disclosure should hardly be unexpected, given the ancient prediction: "But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves... lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people" (2 Timothy 3:1-2, 4-5 NIV). Perhaps the operative word from Scripture for today's headlines should be: "'How the mighty have fallen!'" (2 Samuel 1:27).

But what would Jesus say to the girls and the women who have been wounded and shamed by workplace or campus sexual abuse or harassment? Remember Mary (the sister of Martha and Lazarus) at the feast of Simon, the healed leper? There she was, kneeling beside Jesus, sobbing as she splashed expensive perfume over both His head and feet. Here Desire of Ages draws the veil aside with a disclosure not unlike the headlines of late. As it turns out, "Simon had led into sin the woman he now despised. [Mary] had been deeply wronged by him" (566). He (who was her uncle, no less [Daughters of God 239]) had led her into the shame of his own sexual sin.

So when Jesus responds to the hisses of disapproval for Mary's outpouring (from the nearly all-male) dinner guests around that table, He speaks cryptic but forceful words still addressed to every male abuser: "'Leave her alone'" (John 12:7).

The church and this faith community stand beside all victims of unwanted sexual abuse—for there is no place in either Kingdom or church for this predatory immorality. If you are a victim of such abuse, then seize the new freedom that many victims are now sensing and speak up regarding your woundedness. Find a spiritual counselor you can trust, and share your story of pain. And if you're a student on this campus, go this website for instructions on how you may report the harassment (www.andrews.edu/life/health-safety/title-ix/universitypolicy). If you are in a workplace in this country, here is a website to assist you in reporting this illegal action to the authorities (www.aauw.org/what-we-do/legal-resources/know-your-rights-at-work/workplace-sexual-harassment).

Does Christ forgive sexual sin? Of course He does. Desire of Ages responds: "You may say, I am sinful, very sinful. You may be; but the worse you are, the more you need Jesus. He turns no weeping, contrite one away. He does not tell to any all that He might reveal, but He bids every trembling soul take courage. Freely will He pardon all who come to Him for forgiveness and restoration" (568).

But can Jesus heal the victims of sexual sin? The story of Mary offers a resounding Yes. Desire of Ages promises: "The plan of redemption has invested humanity with great possibilities, and in Mary these possibilities were to be realized. Through His grace she became a partaker of the divine nature.... The souls that turn to Him for refuge, Jesus lifts above the accusing and the strife of tongues. No man or evil angel can impeach these souls. Christ unites them to His own divine-human nature. They stand beside the great Sin Bearer, in the light proceeding from the throne of God" (ibid).

And where better to stand than beside the One who can both heal our wounds and forgive our guilt? No matter the headlines—abuser or victim—the light shining from Calvary offers hope to us all.