Pastors' Blog

Television is huge on hospitals lately, have you noticed? “Three Rivers,” “House,” “Trauma,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” and of course the ubiquitous “ER” reruns—the entertainment industry is in the health care business, it seems. Why? Because everybody loves a healing. Third millennial life on the edge (the real thing) can get as messy as an emergency room, can’t it? So what’s not to like about a fifty-eight minute show that ends (more often than not) with a fractured life put back together, a broken body (or heart) healed just before the final credits roll? Do you suppose that’s why people go to church, too? Hoping against hope for a healing, a mending, a broken life reset, a heartsick spirit rejuvenated and cleansed? Having spent a few nights with my mother-in-law in an emergency room, I’ve learned—though I don’t have a medical bone in me—that ER’s can be messy places, sort of the soiled and stained “living room” of the hospital. It isn’t hard to figure out why. Because people who come to emergency rooms are in the grip of a crisis. That’s why you can experience the coagulating odors of vomit and urine and blood and Lysol-like antibacterial agents wafting in the frenetic air of that saving place. Gurneys and beds once wrapped in sterile white sheets are now splattered and contaminated. But that’s OK, because everybody that works and lives in a hospital knows: “This is why we exist—why we’re here—to get dirtied and stained and exposed, while we scramble to save another life.” Isn’t that true about the church, too? The well-worn yarn about it being a hospital for sinners more than a haven for saints still rings true, worn or not, doesn’t it? Because the community of faith is also a community of love. Radical believing is matched by a radical and sometimes countercultural kind of loving that doesn’t insist on political correctness, but rather embraces the broken life and the fractured soul for who he, for who she is—another earth child of the Father in desperate need of healing and wholeness. So of course we or they come to this community in the grip of crisis—that’s what an ER is for. Who defines crisis by esthetic beauty? The non-virtual reality of human life is defined by its urgent need for urgent care. Which was Jesus’ point: “‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12, 13). Heterosexual sinners, homosexual sinners, all of us in the grip of life’s survival crisis are the very ones for whom Christ raised up this healing community we call church. That we come as we are but do not stay as we are is simply a shining tribute to the transforming power of the Physician who drew us to him and to each other in the first place. Which still makes this the best place for the Doctor in the House to practice his healing work, doesn’t it?

Some people aren’t afraid of anything! Take 92-year-old Jane Bockstruck from Concord, New Hampshire, for example. A few days ago, with her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren all watching (no doubt in almost disbelief) this little lady leaped out of a plane at 13,000 feet and plummeted to the earth in a 120-mph free fall. Her jump instructor and tandem partner, Paul Peckham Jr, was so impressed that he cut out his thirty year old parachutist silver wings and presented them to her. I’m afraid it’d take more than some sewn silver wings to get me to jump from a plane! But then, some people aren’t afraid of anything. You can’t say that about the devil. For there is one human act that he fears above all others. Which explains the stupor that lulled the disciples to sleep in Gethsemane when they could have been, should have been on their faces with Christ in prayer. “There is nothing that Satan fears so much as that the people of God shall clear the way by removing every hindrance, so that the Lord can pour out His Spirit upon a languishing church” (1SM 124). Keep reading: “If Satan had his way, there would never be another awakening, great or small, to the end of time.” Afraid that we will pray and afraid that God will respond, he pours his dark energies into distracting us. What now? “A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs. To seek this should be our first work” (p 121, emphasis supplied). As we move deeper into the heart of this new series, “The Temple,” and come to grips with the realization that we are living in God’s final strategic chapter of salvation history—as we ponder the reality of the judgment that is transpiring in his throne room even as these words are written and read—I am sensing more deeply the urgent need I and we have to be immersed in earnest prayer before God as never before. Can our tepid business-as-usual praying possibly be sufficient for so critical a time in history? Can we assuage our consciences with hours before the television or a good book and a handful of minutes on our knees before the throne? Should the midweek hour of prayer be the most deserted time in churches across this land? Are we daring God to try to save his church, when his church is passionless and powerless in her prayings? Do we really believe that Christ will return for a generation that is too busy for him? And even if we “force” God to raise up another generation in order to complete his mission, do we really think that our own souls will be saved while prayerless and powerless? At some point the rubber must meet the road in “The Temple.” This is that point. And how you and I respond will tell the story one day. For that reason I need you to know that I am pleading with God to grant to you and me a heart burdened for him in prayer. I don’t know what else to do. “A revival need be expected only in answer to prayer” (ibid).

Not only swine flu, but research shows happiness is also contagious! Given all the bad news of late, this report from the British Medical Journal seems timely. “A 20-year study found that happy people increase the happiness of those around them—including a spouse, a friend, or even a next-door neighbor.” According to the report I read, “Happiness, it appears, spreads through social networks like an emotional infection.” No kidding! Researchers say that having a happy neighbor (wouldn’t this be true in a dormitory, too?) increases your chances of being happy yourself by 34%. A happy friend who lives within a mile from you ups the likelihood that you’ll be happy by 25%. In fact they concluded that you are 99% more likely to be happy when you have at least one friend who’s happy. What’s not to like about that! How did the researchers define happiness? Agreeing with these statements: “I felt hopeful about the future,” “I was happy,” I enjoyed life,” and “I felt that I was just as good as other people.” And what’s the secret to boosting your happiness. Here are their seven suggestions: “Surround yourself with people you love; spend time doing things you enjoy; pursue personal growth opportunities; don’t compare yourself to others; focus on the positive; be grateful for what you have; forgive.” (WellNotes March 2009) Did you catch #7? “Forgive.” Surprised? Why if #7 is true, then God has to be the happiest Being in the universe, wouldn’t you say? After all, think of the astronomical debts he has forgiven you and me. And given all that forgiveness that we’ve freely received from him, don’t you suppose we have very good reason to be contagiously joyful ourselves? Which means we can compound his gift of happiness by turning around and practicing #7 with those who owe us big time, who by word or action have wounded us painfully. It’s the Calvary way to abiding joy, isn’t it? “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). But new research suggests we can know what we’re doing when we choose to forgive our debtors as God has forgiven us. Forgive and be happy. What’s not to like about that?

How about a non-Labor-Day story for this Labor Day weekend? Several years ago I received a letter from one of our television viewers who is a Pentecostal pastor ministering in a city near us. He informed me that from his Bible study he had come to the conclusion that the Scriptures plainly and clearly teach that the seventh day of the week is the divine Sabbath for humanity, that it has been so from the creation of earth and remains so today. Needless to say he got my attention! “Moreover, I have written a book defending the seventh-day Sabbath,” his letter went on, “and am enclosing a disk with my manuscript.” As I read his manuscript, I was astounded at how articulately he built a strong biblical case for God’s Sabbath. The reason he had written was because he had discovered our telecast and wanted to be in communication with another pastor who shared his convictions. A few weeks later we met together in my office, along with one of his congregation members. The pastor had been teaching the Sabbath to his people, and several had joined him in beginning to honor the Lord of the Sabbath on the seventh-day. That was the first of many visits, the rest of which took place in his church in his city. In fact just this week we met again, this time with one of my members. But we met at a new church setting. And it was then I learned that recently one of his elders had led an effort to remove him as their pastor because of his decision to honor the Bible Sabbath. With a heavy heart he left his congregation. And after much prayer over the summer, he began a new pastorate in a for-sale church building across town. He told me last evening that his courage was strong, his confidence in God’s Word unshaken and his determination unchanged to teach and preach Christ as Lord of the Sabbath. As it so happened, this last Sabbath here at the Pioneer Memorial Church I met a Baptist pastor after our second celebration, who himself has been studying the Bible teaching of the Sabbath, all because he met another one of our members, who has begun studying the Bible with him. Two pastors from the same city making the same discovery—an affirmation, I believe, of the promise: “The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day” (Proverbs 4:18). The secret for them, for you, for me is that we continue to step into the light that God graciously shines upon our pathways. As we do so, he promises that the light will grow brighter and brighter, as with every step our discovery of his will and truth deepens. It’s that way with God’s restful non-labor-day Sabbath. It’s that way with all his truth. Keep stepping into Christ’s light and you will never walk in darkness.