"I have seen the Lord!" St. John

Mary doesn't conjur Jesus up. He is not a self-generated memory. She doesn't see Jesus because she believes real hard. The only reason why Mary sees Jesus is because Jesus wants to be seen. Jesus has revealed himself to her. The gracious initiation of a conversation with Jesus, "Mary" begins with Jesus not Mary. Easter is a gift. And what a gift it is!!!

Christianity is a revealed religion. In other words, we couldn't make this story up even if we tried. The amazing thing we proclaim is that "God raised JESUS up." Jesus who lived a life that contrasts so much to ours. He forgave; we bear grudges. He loved everyone; we love folks that are like us. He didn't have a violent bone in his body, turning the cheek; we get even. Why would we want Jesus to be raised?

Easter is a strange gift indeed - a gift of this Jesus being raised. He troubled us enough when he was alive, now, because of Easter, he is going to trouble us forever! No, Easter proclaims that we couldn't make this up. This was something God did, something God revealed to us! So when Mary says "I have seen the Lord." She was making an astounding announcement - "I didn't make this up, how could I? Jesus revealed himself to me that he was alive, and you know what that means now no one is off the hook from his teachings of love!"Is that good news? It was good news to Mary. I hope it is good news to you.  
  
Pastor Dave

"Was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate." Nicene Creed

For Us! Jesus was crucified "for us." What does that mean? What do those two little words mean?

The Christian Church has answered that in a couple of ways. The first goes by the name of "substitutionary atonement." It says that we are sinners and we deserve punishment for offending God. God's justice has to be settled; somebody has to pay to settle the account. Jesus dies, accepts the penalty for the world's sin, the sentence of judgment is suspended. We are set free through our faith in Christ's work on the cross for us. For some this describes the meaning "for us" perfectly. Jesus is God's gift to the world to settle accounts. He takes our place. He is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  And becasue of Jesus and his cross God, instead of punishing, forgives. This view takes our sin seriously. 

Yet some have objected to this view of the cross. They point out that John 3:16says "God so loved the world he gave;" it doesn't say "in order for God to love the world he gave." "Does God need Jesus' sacrifice to love us? Does God hate us before Jesus came along?" they ask. Does God accept the sacrifice and then he loves us and pardons us? What kind of God is that? If we don't have faith in the work of the cross, does that mean we are lost forever? For them, "substitionary atonement" denies the heart of God which is love from the beginning. So they argue that "for us" has nothing to do with changing God's attitude towards us. It is love from the beginning. Jesus dies for us to prove God's love for us. "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us and that proves God's love for us," the Apostle Paul writes in Romans. God in Christ will go to the cross to show you and me the depth of God's loving reach for us. And once we see such love, such sacrifice for us, our hearts are changed, and we are moved to love God and neighbor anew. This is called the "moral influence" theology of the cross. This view takes the love of God seriously.

Both understandings of the cross are accepted and believed by many different Christians. Different hymns share the differing views. "When I Survey the wondrous Cross" sings of the moral influence of the cross. As you see the wondrous love of Christ on the cross, it moves you to give your all to God. The hymn that I wrote, "O Bleeding Love",sings of the moral influence of the cross. Yet there are other hymns. "Rock of Ages," that old hymn sings of hiding oneself in the cross; "Nothing But the Blood of Jesus," another old hymn sings that the only thing that saves is the blood of Christ. Both of those hymns sing of the substitutionary understanding of the cross.

It is interesting that the church has never settled on one view of the cross. The cross is too wondrous, too mysterious to fully comprehend it.  Thus, the church sees a multifaceted understanding of the cross. And maybe that is a good thing. Can any of us fully fathom the gift of the cross?             


Pastor Dave

Have you ever wondered why such a nice and loving Jesus died in such a horrible way? You would think someone so loving and kind like Jesus, who took children on his knee and talked about the lilies of the field and the sparrows of the air, would be loved and respected, not nailed to a cross. Why did someone like Jesus, who did such good and wonderful things like raising Lazarus from the dead, wind up butchered between two thieves? 

According to John's gospel, the reason why the authorities want to get rid of Jesus is because he had raised Lazarus from the dead. Evidently, Jesus' power was a threat to their power. Andrew O'Brien pictures that in his painting for the Fifth Sunday of Lent. The tomb of Lazarus leads to the cross of Christ.

Jesus, according to John's gospel, was a threat to the powers and authorities that wanted to maintain their control and power. Jesus worked on the fringes of society, loving and caring for people his culture had overlooked and discounted. He loved the wrong people, acted on their behalf, claimed that love is its own authority, and cared no matter what. Such effusive love is always a threat to those that want to limit love. And it is usually those who love power that want to do so. Jesus believed in the power of love and not in the love of power. And because of that he was a threat to those that loved power. 

We will hear those threats, once again, as we make our way through Holy Week.The powerful love of Jesus is always a threat to those who love power.

Pastor Dave

"I was blind, now I see." St. John

"Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found; Twas blind but now I see." 

John Newton wrote "Amazing Grace" in celebration of his conversion to Christ. For many years he had been a slave trader. But one day, as he was on his way to America with his human cargo, he read a sermon by John Wesley. Wesley convicted his heart, and Newton saw the error of his ways. He turned the ship around, unloaded the slaves, and conmitted his life to Christ. He was blind but now he could see.

It is amazing how God can speak to the human heart through the Word proclaimed and how that Word changes the human heart. It is amazing when someone finally sees that they have been traveling on the wrong path and they need to change. It is amazng when the eyes of the heart are opened and we see the world in a whole new way. We call it salvation.

Church is a place that trains us to see rightly. Church is a place where we have our vision corrected and we see what is important. Church is a place where we learn to have open hearts, open minds, and open doors.

Come and see!!

All the best through Christ, 


Pastor Dave

"....where you go to worship will not matter. It's who you are and the way you live that will count before God....That's the kind of people the Father is looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before God in their worship." St. John inThe Message. (The Message is a paraphrased translation of scripture by Eugene Peterson.)

"One of the most segregated times in America," my Black Church History professor said at Duke years ago, "is 11a.m. on Sunday morning." He was right. What divides Christians, perhaps more than race these days, is the "style" of worship. "That's a rock and roll church," or "that's a liturgical church," "or "that's a contemporary church," I have heard said along the way. Even local churches sometimes will get into "church wars" when it comes to differing, so called, "styles" of worship. But I have always thought - "Should worship have only one style?" And is "style" the right word to use when it comes to worship. "Style" is a word I associate with fashion, and Madison Avenue. It's typically an American idea that everything should have a fashion, a style. Yet I wonder what happens to unity, community, if we place "style" as the chief distnquishing characteristic of worship? What I have seen in churches that offer differing "styles" of worship is that the divide between older and younger grows wider. For me, striving to be one community in love and witness expressed in liturgy takes precedence over "style." And yet I still believe in diversity but diversity within unity.

Worship is one of the central acts of the church to unify the church into one community and witness. Worship is an expression of belief not style. Worship forms us into Christians. I have always believed that a worship service should be ecumenical in its witness, unifying in its structure, and diverse in its "style." In other words, worship should unite us and root us in historic belief handed down through scripture and church tradition, while at the same time encorporating differing "styles" within a unifying liturgy. As your pastor, I believe Word and Table is the central distinguishing mark of a Christian church. We listen to God's word, and we share in the body and blood of Christ's death and resurrection. Yet, Word and Table can be celebrated in diversity. As your worship leader, I strive to keep Word and Table, the celebration of God's self giving love central, yet I am open to diversity in its presentation to the world. I have often wondered if you appreciate our worship here?

As I studied at Catholic University, I saw the strength and value of the Catholic tradition of the "Mass." The Mass unifies Catholics throughout the world; it is a liturgical expression of their belief. Yet, I discovered the rich diversity of their church that, world-wide, every country and diverse people expressed the Mass through their own cultural traditions. The Mass was a celebration of unity within diversity and diversity within unity. Furthermore, I have often gone to Jewish Sabbath services, and there, too, I have found a rich unifying tradition yet celebrated, often, in diversity.

I think the heart of true worship is finding unity without neglecting diversity, and yet diversity without neglecting unity. True liturgy celebrates the wideness of God's love.

The woman at the well speaks to Jesus about the division she has felt as a Samaritan: "We worship on this mountain, and you worship in Jerusalem. Where are we suppose to worship?"  But Jesus moves her to see that it is not the style or the geography that is important when it comes to worship, it is the unity one finds in the celebration of God's spirit and truth, his nature, his love for the whole world, that is important. "Does that "mountain" open your eyes to see your brothers and sisters, as I am seeing you, Samaritan woman, as I ask you for a drink?"

The "style," or "the mountain" of worship doesn't matter, the more important thing is to ask: "does it adquately celebrate the truth of God's spirit of love for the whole world and move you to love like that?" This is question I keep in the forfront of my heart as I develop worship each week. God's love unifies us, liturgy, Word and Table, at its best celebrates that unifying truth, but, at the same time, it can be expressed, within one liturgy, in differing ways. And yet the point of all our worship, ultimately is to ask this question -  does it shape you, form you into disciples of Jesus Christ whose mission is to love the whole world? 
                            

All the best through Christ, 


Pastor Dave

Martin Luther called John 3:16, "The Gospel in Brief." Everything you need to know of what God did in Jesus is found in that one verse. Notice that the text does not say "in order for God to love the world, he sent Jesus." Jesus is not given so that God will love us, but as a sign and witness of the love that is at the very heart of God from the very beginning. Usha's painting gets it right. She uses the figure of Jesus as the "L" in the word "love." We cannot think of God's love without thinking of Jesus. And we cannot think of Jesus without thinking of God's love. The power of God's action in Jesus is love. God loves the whole world, and out of that love God sent his beloved Son to bring us eternal, abundant life. Salvation is a gift. We do not earn it; we do not deserve it; we do not bring it about by human work. This is a hard lesson for any of us to learn in a do-it-yourself culture.

But how often salvation is presented as something "you" can do. Billy Graham wrote a book, years ago, entitled "How to be Born Again." But there is no "how to" to salvation. There is no formula, or technique, or method to salvation.  Once it becomes a "how to," it becomes a work, something you decide to do. And so you can boast: "I found it." But the true message of the Christian faith is this - "God found me!" Therefore, no one can boast, except boast of God!

Salvation is like the wind, Jesus says, which is beyond your control and power; it just happens to you, like a cool breeze on a summer evening, by the gracious power of God's love and goodness. It's like birth, Jesus says. You had nothing to do to bring about your first birth, so it is with being born from above, your second birth into the Kingdom.  Jesus seems to say that our relationship with God is primarily something God does, rather than what we do. This is why we sing "Amazing Grace." It is amazing because salvation is all so unexpected, unearned, and undeserved. So we come to church not to earn any merit with God; we do not do a Lenten discipline to earn points with God, we come and we do to testify to the heart of the Christian life: "Praise God from whom all blessings flow!"  

All the best through Christ, 

 Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,Christ in my mouth to everyone I speak,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me. Amen.

A Prayer of St. Patrick
Happy St. Patrick's Day
 

Pastor Dave

"If you are the Son of God turn these stones into bread....." St. Matthew

What are you giving up for Lent? This is often the question asked this time of the year. If you have been in church recently, you know I have given up shaving for Lent! Oh, I know it is something that you enjoy that you are suppose to give up. What is sacrifical about shaving? You are not suppose to give up something you hate. And I do hate shaving. I know I am being funny here, but I think the question is still a good one - "what are you giving up?" I do not think it is a silly question. It is an interesting counter cultural question to ask in a culture that has as its primary moto: "go ahead, do it, you deserve it." In a culture that has an omnivorous appetite, isn't it strange to read a story about Jesus denying himself a bite to eat. What's wrong with thinking about yourself, Jesus, you deserve it, after all you are the Son of God. It is as if Jesus knows that if he caves into a little thing like a snack, it lets in the possibility of greater threats to forget God. There was a recent study on will power. And the researchers discovered that if you exercise your will power over little things, it strenthens your resistance to forgo greater temptations. Evidently will power, like muscles, needs exercises to keep it strong. So maybe the little question of Lent, has huge implications. Maybe the Lenten discipline of denying yourself something that the culture says "yes" to too quickly, just might enable you to say "no" to greater things, maybe it helps you to say "NO" to your all consuming ego that always thinks about itself first.             


All the best through Christ,
Pastor Dave