Witnesses

Each week as I create the bulletin for my church, I review the texts and think about them so I can create a front cover that will reflect the focus of that week's lessons.  Sometimes, a single word jumps out at me, while other times, it is a turn of phrase that catches my attention.  (I am not sure it is always the theme that the pastor or the rest of the congregation thinks it should be, but I try!)

This has been an arduous month for me, for a variety of reasons, and this week a phrase really hit home.  In Hebrews 12:1-2 we read:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  (NIV)

Choices

Faith?  Works?  It is the age old question, built into Christianity from the earliest moments, when followers of Jesus questioned the gift of salvation delivered by the crucifixion because it was, quite simply, too easy.  We want to work for our salvation (or perhaps, if we are being devastatingly honest, we want others to have to work for theirs.)  We want to be in control of it, to earn it, and to know others have worked as diligently as we have so it's all nice and tidy and, well, you know... fair.  We want choices - to choose whether or not grace is available, based on our own system of right and wrong.  We want to be judge and jury where salvation is concerned, because it is much more difficult to reconcile the grace bestowed at the cross upon someone we see as unworthy than it is to accept it for ourselves.  But God had other plans.

Redemption and reconciliation....

During Yom Kippur, people of the Jewish faith are supposed to contemplate whom they have wronged in their lives, then go to that person to ask for forgiveness.  There is a desire for reconciliation in the heart, and an actual action to make whole a relationship which has been put asunder.  It is a worthy goal, and one which we could all follow, especially in these days of easy social media estrangement and general hypersensitivity.

I have been thinking about this idea during the current Lenten season as I have pondered the difference between redemption and reconciliation.  On the surface, they seem very similar.  But as I consider them, although superficially the same, I have decided they are very different.

Words...

"Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

A silly child's rhyme, but so very wrong.  Time and again, we see how words do dig their way deep into a person's psyche, doing damage as they become entrenched in the mind.  Physical injuries heal, but the mental and emotional distress caused by thoughtless, or worse yet, intentionally hurtful words lasts forever.

I learned this painful lesson very young, at my father's funeral.  One of the hardest days of my life, from which my mind has mercifully blocked most of the details, yet I remember as vividly as if it were yesterday some of the most careless words people have ever uttered to me.  It changed my relationship with those people for all time.  I was never able to see them the same way again, because of the additional pain they thoughtlessly inflicted on me.  It wasn't intentional - I realize that now, as an adult, although I didn't then.  They simply didn't know what to say, and they cast around for something, instead of simply remaining quiet and giving me a hug or telling me they cared.  Instead of comfort, they had to fill the quiet space, thereby inflicting further injury, and those words, much as I wish I could remove them from my head, will not go away.  Words hurt.  And the damage is forever.

On Humility....

Martin Luther said,

"Humility is the decision to let God be God.”

In this statement, Luther was touching on the very nature of human existence.  Humility is fragile, tenuous, constantly struggling against the pridefulness that comes the moment we recognize our own insignificance.  Pride and humility walk hand in hand, opposite yet inextricably interwoven, separate but together.

In his famous treatise, “The Screwtape Letters,” C.S. Lewis writes of humility as self-forgetfulness.  Rest in that powerful message for a moment.  What does that mean?

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Matthew 5:43-45 (NIV)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 

Love your enemies.

Pray for those who persecute you.

Justice is not to be found in this world but grace is found in the promise of the resurrection.

Simple but powerful words for troubled times, whether 33 A.D or 2019.

Move towards the joy....

Change.

What emotions does that word evoke for you?  Is it opportunity?  Or is it dread?  Does it open up vistas in your mind, a sense of hopefulness?  Or does it overwhelm you with fear and a sense of instability?

By definition, change is the act of making or becoming something different.  To change, then, one must give something up in order to become something else.  We must admit that we are not a completed work of humanity, but merely a project, partially finished.