7-31-2018

Good Morning All,

         Genesis 3: 17-18; “And to Adam he (God) said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field.”

   Thorns; it always gets back to thorns.  While Adam listened to God tell him part of the price that his sin was going to cost, he heard things that most people don’t want to hear.  He heard “cursed” “in pain” “thorns and thistles”.  Talk about a list that you don’t want to have; that list probably is just about as bad as it gets.  Adam was told that the ground, and his life, was not going to be fun.

   I grew up on a farm.  I spent a lot of my years farming.  Most of the members of my churches are farmers.  Most of the people I went to school with are farmers.  Most of the people I know are farmers.  I know what it feels like and what it looks like when you think the ground is cursed.  I know what it is like to have the ground refuse to yield its bounty, even in a meager fashion.  I know what it looks like when thorns and thistles rob the land of moisture and nutrients and leave nothing to harvest.  Even in the direst of years, when a single sprout of grain refused to grow; thistles and thorns grow with a voracious and destructive ire.  They will take what little is there and, with a mocking smile, look to the farmer and laugh.  The emptiness and the meagerness hollow the farmer out leaving a pit in your soul larger than life.  Thorns and thistles cause pain beyond the simple prick of the finger or the scrape of an arm; thorns and thistles suck the marrow from your spirit.

   If you have never farmed, you have probably felt the same way at other times of your life.  A loving relationship that dries up and blows away is just as painful.  False accusations and false stories that harmed your reputation or your standing with your family and friends gone.  Drugs or alcohol can hollow you out just as easily.  Sin looks at us and mocks us leaving us feeling cursed, in pain, dealing with thorns and thistles that never go away.

   That is how we look at a time when Jesus, God’s own Son, was “cursed” “in pain” covered with “thorns”.  He took it all; all the cursedness, pain and thorns that God’s wrath, for you but directed at Jesus, so that you and I would be blessed, be healed, and live without thorns.  It started with thorns so it is probably poetic that it ends with thorns.  Yet it is not some poetic justice that we read; it is God’s incredible love poured out upon you and upon me.  We have God’s blessing, not his curse upon us now.  We have a life filled with love and hope and no thorns waiting for us because Jesus took our cursedness, pain and thorns and gives to us love, hope, peace and salvation.

Father, we deserve all the pain and cursedness yet in your amazing grace and mercy, you poured it out upon Jesus in order to give us life.  Move us to live our life in total thanksgiving to you.  Keep us in your loving arms and lead us to reach out in love to those who are stuck in the cursed, pain and thorns to hear your words of life and hope.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret       

7-30-2018

Good Morning All,

          Luke 23: 42-43; “And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

     How do we view these verses?  This is part of the exchange between Jesus and one of the men who were crucified with Jesus.  We have both men, suffering incredibly, and yet there is dialogue, there is interaction.  It begins with those who are watching the crucifixion hurling taunts and insults at Jesus.  Soon one of those who were also being crucified joined in.  The other man rebuked the first and then said to Jesus “remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  Jesus answered with the familiar, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”  How do you view these verses?

    For some, these are troubling verses.  We know little of this man other than “the thief on the cross”’ we don’t know his name or anything about him.  He doesn’t seem to be a follower of Jesus or that he even particularly believed in Jesus.  He made a request for Jesus to ‘remember me.’  There was no apparent confession of sins; there was no apparent repentance; there was no apparent confession of faith in Jesus as Lord over all; there certainly appears that there is no baptism, at least at this time.  Some have suggested that the thief had experienced the baptism by John the Baptist.  It is possible but nothing in Scriptures suggests this.  We only have this short exchange and in it, we hear Jesus making the statement that today you will be with me in paradise.

    Many struggle because the thief didn’t ‘do anything’.  He should have had to do something to show that he had received Jesus.  He should have had to do something.  Many think that they give up something to be a Christian.  I remember one young man saying he was going to wait to be a Christian because he wanted to have ‘fun first’.  It is strange what we think is fun.  We abuse our bodies, we abuse other people with shallow or non-existent relationships; we scheme, connive, contrive and make all sorts of foolish ventures.  Through it all, we try to avoid God, his grace and peace, and think we are having fun.  So if I have to give up my ‘fun’ why didn’t he?  It is as if he got in for nothing and that is exactly the point.

   The man was given paradise by a merciful Jesus; that is the same way we get paradise.  It is given to us by a merciful Jesus.  These verses should give us a lot of comfort and hope.  It wasn’t what the man did or didn’t do; it was that Jesus showed him mercy; the same mercy that he has promised to show you.  The only possible way for the thief to enter Paradise was for Jesus to allow him to enter, for Jesus to have mercy on this thief and to bring him into paradise solely and completely out of love; the same way you and I get in.  “Jesus, remember me in your kingdom.”

Lord Jesus, remember me in your kingdom.  I only have your grace to save me.  I am only a worthless beggar before you and so I beg for your mercy and you give it to me without reservation, without demands, without restrictions but with total love.  Keep me safe in your arms.  In your precious and loving name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret   

7-29-2018

Good Morning All,

               John 20:19; “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

     The hardest part is the waiting.  I have sat with families while they wait for a loved one who is surgery.  Even the most routine, commonplace surgery is still surgery.  It is the intrusion into the human body with foreign objects and chemicals.  It is controlled, planned, and in a clean environment but it is still placing the human body in an undesired condition.  Even with the most common, it seems that all anyone remembers is those words from the surgeon, “there is always a chance that something can go wrong.” 

   When our youngest son was only about six months old, he had a same day surgery procedure.  It was routine surgery; yet, as we handed our new son to the sweet and kind nurse; she morphed into Nurse Ratched (in my mind) and the wait was on and it was one of the longest waits that I have ever experienced. 

    One of the more difficult events during the wait is the telephone call.  Often, during the procedure, a nurse from the operating room will call to the waiting room to inform the family what is going on during the procedure.  Many families struggle with “the phone call”; it is not uncommon for the family to ask me to do the phone call; they are not comfortable with it.  When there are more than one family waiting, you can see a fidgety jump when the phone rings and the nurse at the station calls out a name to be spoken to.  Cognitively, you know they would never call and tell you something went horribly wrong yet emotionally; it is hard to suppress that thought.

    If you have ever experienced that kind of wait; a wait that involved a period of uncertainty about a loved one; you have had a taste of what the disciples went through on Saturday between Good Friday and Easter.  The one whom they loved with all they had, their teacher, spiritual leader, friend, confidante, the one whom they thought was the Messiah, was lying in a tomb, killed in the most horrific and humiliating fashion.  Everything had gone completely wrong and they knew not what to do.  They were lost, like those sheep that Jesus often spoke of.  You can imagine that, if they would have had clocks, each second would have ticked off slowly and loudly.

    So, when Jesus appeared to them, the first thing he offered them was peace.  He was offering a quiet and confident heart and a content spirit.  His appearance, though not fully grasped yet, meant that everything, from that point forward, was going to be different.  It was different for them, for the people they taught and it is different for you and me as well.  It was certainly worth the wait!

Lord Jesus, your rest in the tomb has sanctified the tombs of those faithfully departed.  As we wait for your promised return, we celebrate the newness of life that you give us.  We celebrate the peace that we have and the certainty of life everlasting with you.  In your blessed name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret