The tornados that swept through, to the south of us a few days ago, leaving vast swaths of devastation and death, also left behind a collection of stories for the ages. Like the one about Latonya Stevens who heard the thunder and lightning in the distance, ran for her four children, but mysteriously passed out—and when she came to, the roof was gone, and so were three of her children—who were found up to a hundred feet away, with only cuts and bruises and a story to tell for the rest of their lives! Not so fortunate another young mother, Stephanie Decker, who was at home with her two children when the deadly twister struck their three-story brick house in Marysville, Indiana. Her husband, a high school math teacher, had been texting her to get the children into the basement. She texted back that the whole house was shaking. And then no further messages. Turns out Stephanie had spotted the tornado moving across their acreage toward the house, had tied both children to her and each other with a blanket and then instinctively threw herself on top of the children as the tornado exploded into their home. When the mayhem passed, the house was collapsed. The young mother was pinned, her legs crushed by the fallen debris. Neighbors called for help, a deputy sheriff applied tourniquets, she was rushed to a local hospital, then airlifted to the University of Louisville hospital, where it was determined she had lost both legs, one above the knee and the other above the ankle. And the children? Unscathed. Saved by their mother’s sacrificial action. Said her husband, “‘I told her, “They’re here because of you.’” (South Bend Tribune 3-6-12) Which, as it turns out, is true of all of us, isn’t it? We’re here because of the sacrificial action of One who threw His body over us, “who loved [us] and gave Himself for [us]” (Galatians 2:20). We’re here because of Calvary, where Christ Jesus lost more than His legs in saving this world. But the tornado? The ancient narrative of Job describes how the adversary of the human race (ha satan) harnesses the fury of the wind to destroy human possessions, human life—“and suddenly a great wind came” (Job 1:18, 19). The great winds of a tornado offer precious little time for preparation—sometimes only split seconds. Moments earlier life was copasetic—and then suddenly the world is upside down. The point, like a tornado, is inescapable. Those who survive the fury of the wind are the ones who monitor the signs, who in a time of storm maintain heightened alert, who have in place emergency preparations for the eventuality. Through ancient Ezekiel God issues this fourth watch alert: “Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘A disaster, a singular disaster; behold, it has come! An end has come, the end has come; it has dawned for you; behold, it has come!’” (Ezekiel 7:5, 6). Like a tornado! Which, of course, is the other point. Because “like a tornado” means you never really know. If you live in Tornado Alley (as all of earth’s inhabitants now do), you must live in prepared expectancy. To live unprepared is to spurn the gift of the One who lost more than His legs to save us from the impending storm.
Pastors' Blog
By Pioneer Pastors
That’s what they bill the super-duper burger at Las Vegas’s Heart Attack Grill. No lie. The sandwich is a “massive, one-and-a-half pound burger with three beef patties, cheese, special sauce and up to 15 strips of bacon.” Total calories—6000. The menu touts it as having “a taste worth dying for.” A few days ago a diner walked into the restaurant, ordered the “triple-bypass burger,” and proceeded to wolf it down. During his consumption, the diner suffered a real live heart attack. Guests began photographing the incident, thinking it was a publicity stunt, even as the diner was being wheeled out by emergency rescue personnel. Restaurant owner Jon Basso said he felt terrible: “‘Even with our own morbid sense of humor we would never pull a stunt like that’” (THE WEEK, March 2, 2012). How human of us all! With warning signs lining the way to what we know is potentially life-threatening (physically or morally), we are driven on by an insatiable hunger inside of us that refuses to be reasoned with. “I must have it—and I’ll have it now, thank you.” And so we do. And a marriage crumbles or a body folds or a career collapses or a friendship is lost or a conscience is deadened. The anatomy of a “heart” or a “life” attack—it is too often initiated by our brazen walking past all the warning signs. Not unlike life on the planet these days. Warning signs of economic unraveling (in spite of heady Dow Jones numbers), social/moral/ecological meltdown, political confusion (read turmoil) ratcheted up at home and abroad, military oppression, nuclear threatenings—the list of cautionary signals goes on and on. And how many of our political leaders, our spiritual leaders—how many of us hurry on by with hardly a notice any more? “Triple-bypass burger, anyone?” “While they are saying, ‘Peace and safety!’ then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape” (I Thessalonians 5:3 NASB). Notice that the collapse comes “while they are saying.” I.e., the indicators could be dire and foreboding, but the naïve optimism of some compels them to announce “all’s well” on the home-front. “Triple by-pass burger” time! And suddenly—heart attack. And it’s over. That’s why Christ was so insistent that when the warning signs are configured, lined up the way they now are on this earth it is high time to “‘keep a constant watch. And pray that, if possible, you may escape these horrors and stand before the Son of Man'” (Luke 21:36 NLT). Jesus’ invitation to “watch and pray”—is it undue alarmism? Hardly. Because when you’ve been handed a “triple-bypass burger” menu like the one we’re now holding, it doesn’t take rocket or culinary science to read the signs: Heart Attack Grill.
Poor God—He isn’t faring very well in American politics these days. The President recently mandated contraceptive insurance coverage, and the Roman Catholic Church rose up in arms, vociferously complaining that such an insurance policy would infringe on Catholic belief that contraception is contrary to divine will (never mind that a majority of American Catholics practice birth control). President Obama then offered a compromise for contraceptive coverage, but (as with most compromises) few are happy. So did God win or lose this skirmish? Last weekend Republican presidential candidate, Rick Santorum, decried the President’s “phony theology” of environmental policy as being contrary to Holy Scripture. This after Santorum (himself a Roman Catholic) had inveighed against the administration’s earlier contraceptive insurance proposal. So whose side is God’s theology on? Then this week Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, was pointedly asked whether he considered Obama a Christian or not. Graham skirted the question—“I have no idea what he really believes.” And what about Mormon presidential contender Mitt Romney? Graham was less equivocal in stating, “Most Christians would not recognize Mormons as part of the Christian faith,” though Graham assured his interviewers that he believed Romney would be a “good president.” So in God’s estimation what is a “good president?” Who knows for sure? But then, who’s surprised at the level of “God injection” into politics and the presidential campaign this year? Roman Catholics (68 million) and evangelical Christians (90-100 million) are a major voting block that politicians must court. This last week’s news cycle simply reveals candidates doing what they do best, openly playing to the constituencies they are wooing. But if the heart of God is courting all His earth children—evangelicals, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists (you know the menagerie that the world has become these days)—then how important is it that the press and the government (at least in this nation) not be swayed by the most religiously well-heeled or the most spiritually out-spoken? After all, history reveals that in a national crisis how quickly the lines between a free press and a dominant religion can be blurred—how quickly government can be harnessed by majoritarian faith to order its citizens to accept their decretals. And who wants to relive that history! So let us watch with deepening interest the unfolding presidential campaign. Keep a score card of how often God is invoked for political or party purposes. Avoid a cart blanche acceptance of any leader’s pronouncement (religious or political). And exercise the carefully reasoned thinking that God has given you. In the end Jesus’ counsel is unassailable, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). That way you’ll never mistake the voice of Caesar for God.
The tragic headline this week out of Honduras triggered a collective gasp from the world community. Authorities are not sure if the prison fire in Comayagua was sparked by an electrical short-circuit or whether inmate rioting might have been the cause. The grim reality is that fire broke out, and before prisoners could be unlocked from their cells at least 300 of them perished in the inferno. The nation of Honduras mourns. And we grieve their loss. The Scripture repeatedly likens our fallen civilization to a prison house. Thus Jesus himself described His own messianic mission, “To proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound” (Isaiah 61:1; cf Luke 4:18). Then surely it is the mission of Christ’s church—that community of liberated prisoners who have been set free in Him—to expend our greatest energies and our most valuable resources to join our Master in seeking to rescue every entrapped life we can for Him. Our “iPerceive: A Future You Can Count On” public lecture series in St. Joseph these past nine nights (concluding tonight) has had as its mission Jesus’ call to “proclaim liberty”—the freedom of the everlasting gospel—to men, women and young adults seeking that life-changing release. But nine nights are hardly the parameters for this university congregation’s “opening of the prison” mission for the Savior. Join me in earnestly praying that the Spirit of Jesus will open our eyes, collectively as well as individually, to those in our immediate worlds who still long for His release from the entrapment of guilt, from enchaining practices, from weary and lifeless, repetitive traditions. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor . . . to heal the brokenhearted” (Luke 4:18). May that same Spirit anoint us, too, for that same mission—before the prison house of this civilization goes up in flames and it is too late.
Would you like to know who in America receives the most Valentine’s Day cards every single year? Sweethearts, lovers? Mothers, fathers? Children, classmates? Pastors? (Oops—pardon that Freudian slip.) Who gets more Valentine’s cards than anybody else? Give up? Answer: teachers. It’s true—our beloved school teachers receive more cards than any other category of recipients. So all of you elementary education majors—look what you have to look forward to! Actually retailers look forward to Valentine’s Day, too. According to the National Retail Federation, total spending for this “holiday” (celebrated not only in this country, but also in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Denmark, and Australia) will reach a whopping $15.7 billion (with men spending nearly twice the amount as women)! Let’s face it—love is never cheap. One billion cards will be sent worldwide, making Valentine’s Day second only to Christmas. $1.7 billion will be spent on flowers (200 million roses were produced for Valentine’s Day last year). $1.5 billion on candy ($1 billion of which is for chocolate alone). Anybody surprised? But here’s another love statistic to brood over: one. That’s right—one. Because that’s the number of people in the upper room that fateful night who had love on His mind—not love for a sweetheart or even for His closest friends, but a solitary love for this race of broken-down and broken-hearted. No flowers, no chocolates, no Cupid’s arrow through the heart for Him—just the form of a slave, stripped naked to the waist, stooped over twelve pairs of dusty feet with a basin of water and a towel. “Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1). “He loved them to the end.” Because that’s the truth about the heart of God—stopped—not with Cupid’s arrow—but with a Roman lance. Stopped—not by a lance—but by love. To the very end. So that the end wouldn’t have to be the end for the likes of you and me. So why wouldn’t we love Him back? With all our hearts. To the end. Or until they stopped. For the One.
The headline on page 1 of the sports section caught my eye. A piece written by Jim Litke, Associated Press columnist, tells the behind-the-scenes story of the firing of legendary Penn State Nittany Lions football coach Joe Paterno last November. With Paterno’s death from lung cancer this Sunday, the wounds the university has suffered since the child molestation charges against Jerry Sandusky, one of Paterno’s assistant coaches, and the subsequent Paterno firing have broken open all over again. According to Litke, on the night of Paterno’s firing an assistant athletic director knocked on the door of the Paterno home and “wordlessly” handed him a note with the name and phone number of John Surma, vice chairman for Penn State Board of Trustees. Paterno dialed the number, asked for Surma and in that ‘mercilessly brief call, [he] was told that after nearly a half-century as head coach of the Nittany Lions, he was being fired ‘effective immediately’” (South Bend Tribune 1-23-12). When Paterno hung up from the short phone call, his wife Sue picked up that slip of paper, dialed the same number, and told the voice on the other end, “‘After 61 years he deserved better,’” and hung up. And who would disagree? No matter the magnitude of the legal charges against his assistant, no matter how complicit Joe Paterno was or wasn’t in responding to the reported incident years earlier, wouldn’t he still deserve, at the least, a personal visit from somebody “higher up” with word of the Trustees’ decision? How swift their decision—but how sad that “they couldn’t muster enough courage or decency to fire Paterno in person” (ibid). “After 61 years he deserved better.” But while I brooded over this story, I began to wonder about my own modus operandi. Have there been times when I’ve chosen to summarily dismiss someone (in my mind, if not in person) as being “guilty as charged,” without ever extending the common decency of allowing that person to explain his or her stance or behavior or choice? Do I find it easier to avoid Jesus’ Matthew 18 interpersonal relations admonition: “‘If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you’” (Matthew 18:15 NIV)? Do I avoid personal confrontation by hiding behind a board or committee action? In short, I wonder, does the Golden Rule (“Do to others what you would have them do to you”) get shelved, when I don’t have (take, really) the time to put myself in that other person’s place? “After 61 years he deserved better.” Sue Paterno was right. And so is Jesus: “‘By this all will know that you are My disciples [people], if you have love for one another’” (John 13:35). Because never mind Penn State. What counts for the Kingdom are the friends of the King. And it is that headline that lasts long past page one.
Anybody for a cruise in the Mediterranean? The capsizing of the massive luxury liner, the Costa Concordia (twice the size of the ill-fated Titanic), has galvanized the attention of the gaping world. According to some reports a mere 300 feet from shore, this luxurious $450 million floating city of 4200 passengers and crew struck a rocky outcropping in the reef off the island of Giglio, gashed a fatal hole in its hull, rolled to one side and began to sink. Only the snagged reef kept the vessel from sinking to the seabed 160 feet below. As a missionary child in Japan I sailed with my family around the world twice in ocean liners. And Karen and I have enjoyed a couple cruises along the way. But I can only imagine the panic of that sea-faring vessel tipping to its side at night, the power out, all its occupants and furniture slammed into heaps against leaning walls precariously becoming floors! It’s the stuff of nightmares, I’m sure. And to listen to the survivors’ harrowing accounts of those dreadful hours trying to get to life-boats or at least to one of the decks in order to leap into the black waters—all the while the captain of the sinking vessel had already abandoned ship with some of his officers—you can hardly blame those who have pledged not to “cruise” again . . . or at least not for a long time! But for the rest of us land-lubbers, what’s the point in this morality tale? It is Titanic redux. The Costa Concordia boasted state-of-the-art technology and opulent comforts second to none. What on earth could possibly harm this gaily-lit, sea-faring, horn-blasting ocean vessel of revelers, partiers and vacationers? It is the tale of our own civilization in the “fourth watch” of earth’s night, isn’t it? Not unlike the besotted revelry that possessed Belshazzar’s palace that last night on earth—where in the night watches the vessel of that ill-fated empire suddenly lurched, gashed open by the bloodless hand writing on the wall: “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN—you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting” (Daniel 4:25-28). Time’s up, the party’s over, here comes the Judge. What will save our own civilization in this fourth watch of the night? Not the hubris of the captains and titans of industry, government and finances, that is certain. Earth’s only hope lies in the One who walks upon our stormy night waters. “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid” (Matthew 14:27). Christ still cries out into the night His offer of salvation, and we who know Him best must tell the rest. To not share our Savior with those on this sinking ship would be tantamount to scrambling into the life boat ourselves, but ignoring the countless others who, unless we reach out to pull them on board, will likely perish in the night.
On this weekend when the nation recalls the life and mission of Martin Luther King, Jr.—frail like every life, but focused like a laser on a mission towards the equality of all—it is appropriate for this community of faith to ponder that mission in the light of our own. Were Dr. King to join us around our communal table, what would be the conversation? In fact, let’s pull up another chair to the table and invite President Barack Obama to join in this table talk. Would the conversation change that much? If our chatting drifted toward the judicatory organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America, and these two African-American leaders (one deceased, the other very much alive) began to question us as to why we are organized the way we are, how would we respond? What would be the line of reasoning we would put forth to defend regions of this nation divided racially (essentially) into “separate but equal” conferences or ecclesiastical units of administration? How would we justify the organization of separate (but equal) black and white congregations in the same city based upon the prevailing racially distinct conferences? Would recounting the history of our faith movement in this nation and our own accommodation to the prevailing social norms a few generations ago be helpful in defending our present course? Would the suggestion that our ecclesiastical division is a provision so that “all” might enjoy the prerogatives of administrative leadership be persuasive? Would Dr. King and President Obama find our logic strong and our rationale convincing? But never mind those two leaders—let’s ask it another way. Would society today—does society today, the American public at large, lend much credence to “the way we’ve always done it” defense in matters of racial equality? The truth is—history may be our mother, but it doesn’t have to be our master. We yield allegiance to another Master, which was precisely Paul’s stunning point to the church in Galatia two millennia ago: “For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26-28 NRSV). Paul’s declaration did not minimize the massive challenge that preexisting walls were to the church of Christ. But his assertion means that the community founded upon Calvary can never peacefully coexist with such dividing walls—no matter how difficult their disassembling may turn out to be. Besides, if “revival and reformation” are the watchwords of our third millennial community of faith, then would it not follow that as a prerequisite to such a revival we would join together in tearing down any walls, all the walls that divide us, whether on paper or in the heart? For how can the Holy Spirit possibly be poured out, when a wall blocks the way? And so I am praying that God will raise up a new generation, passionate for the unity of Christ and willing to do the hard work to rewrite a future without walls. Not for the sake of Martin Luther King, Jr.—but for the sake of Christ Jesus our Lord, who upon the eve of His own death, prayed for us all: “Holy Father, that they may be one as We are” (John 17:11).
Look, I’m not suggesting that the just concluded Iowa caucuses and the upcoming New Hampshire primary are strategic pieces in some sort of apocalyptic end game. But I would invite you to ponder the power of the press and/or paid political ads. Even the talking heads within the beltway of the nation’s capital this past week have been chattering in amazement over the swift collapse of one candidate’s heretofore anticipated victory in Iowa’s caucuses. Riding high in the pre-caucus polls, the candidate’s sudden tumble from prominence has been attributed by most news media commentators to the power of negative political advertising, financed by political action committees (so called “super PACs”). The $2.8+ million that these technically “independent” super PACs invested in Iowa alone are evidence enough of the power of negative advertising. I.e., it works! What’s that have to do with the rest of us who will never touch $2.8 million in our life time? Stepping away from political allegiances or nuances, it does make you wonder, doesn’t it, how fickle we the public are, if three-weeks of non-stop television and radio ads can actually change our minds? Never mind those who justify this gushing of advertising dollars into a relatively, politically inconsequential rural state. It still makes me wonder how easily swayable we Americans are to the power of the media, the press, the advertising agencies. Which being interpreted means, I wonder if, in a time of crisis or critical decision-making, a relatively small cabal of individuals—with the financial horsepower to back themselves—could sway an entire nation to pursue a particular course or come to a particular decision. I wonder if the American public (perhaps even the global public) could be as easily persuaded as the Iowans were. Include some momentous catastrophe (financial, natural, political) and it wouldn’t take much to “guide” the public to a desired outcome, would it? For all our crowing about the independent American spirit, the truth is that a stadium full of screaming fans can pretty much set the agenda for an entire city, can’t they? Apparently the Apocalypse thinks so. In no uncertain terms Revelation 13 describes “all the world” (v 3) being led down the primrose path of disaster. Which is why I love the corollary narrative in Daniel—the compelling story about three young politicos who refused to yield to the full-court press of the press and the government. The entire nation (as it were) bowed down to the king’s golden image—but not Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego: “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up” (Daniel 3:17, 18). I.e., we will not be bought or persuaded away from our allegiance to the Creator. God give us that threesome generation when we will need it! But in the meantime, the next time the press or the super PACs attempt to persuade you in 60 seconds what to think or do, do the Shadrach thing and simply refuse. Your allegiance to God in the New Year isn’t for sale, no matter when the world ends.
The world in the West awakened on Monday to the news that while we slept the 69 year old recluse and quixotic leader of North Korea had succumbed to a heart attack. Kim Jong II was dead. The North Korean press dutifully reported that the “dear leader” died of “overwork” and “great mental and physical pain” accumulated from “dedicating his life to the people.” And I could not help but wonder how it will be with the North Korean people Kim Jong II left behind. Their publicized expressions of grief and dismay over their “great leader’s” demise notwithstanding, how shall they survive? The notorious lack of food production in that hermit (and hermetically sealed) nation reportedly has produced a half-starved citizenry, eking out an impoverished existence. The nation’s ruling philosophy—that there is no God—has meant that there is no divine Responder to the human plight, no Creator to whom the struggling might appeal. And, God forbid, no Christmas story to offer even a glimmer of hope for a downtrodden people. So what Christmas shall the North Koreans enjoy? Oh, you say, if only we could tell them the truth about the first Christmas long, long ago—if only they could taste the elixir of hope embedded in that manger box of feed—if only they might come to know the Christ Child grown up and crucified and buried and risen—then surely, like their dominantly Christian cousins to the south, they too could be resurrected into western prosperity and Christian faith (perhaps not in that order). And yet I look at the American experiment in “believing” the now ancient Christmas story. Where has it gotten us? Last month the Associated Press reported: “The ranks of America’s poorest poor have climbed to a record high—1 in 15 people—spread widely across metropolitan areas as the housing bust pushed many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and shriveled jobs and income. New census data paint a stark portrait of the nation’s haves and have-nots at a time when unemployment remains persistently high. It comes a week before the government releases first-ever economic data that will show more Hispanics, elderly and working-age poor have fallen into poverty. In all, the numbers underscore the breadth and scope by which the downturn has reached further into mainstream America” (SBTribune 11-3-11). It is a baleful harvest when you embrace only one of the two Advents Scripture has promised. For what good is all the singing about once-upon-a-time, when the here-and-now is left woefully unaffected, pitifully unchanged? The Apostle Paul correctly protested: “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied” (I Corinthians 15:9). Unless we radically embrace both the First and Second Advents, all the societal commotion over the First Advent is meaningless, hopeless—is it not? Are those Americans, who are as unmindful of the Advent yet to come as the North Koreans, any better off in terms of eternity? This Christmas what if we who call ourselves “Advent-ists” (we who are passionate about both Comings of Jesus) pushed our passion to action? What if we discovered a “North Korean” closer to home—someone, some family eking out an impoverished existence in this land of plenty? Not to assuage our guilt, but rather to manifest our hope, by helping another not of our tribe. What if we celebrated a North Korean Christmas here at home? Don’t you suppose someone’s New Year might yet bring reason to believe, to hope—if we really cared?
- ‹ previous
- 40 of 61
- next ›