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The Price of Being a Christ-Follower

March 28, 2016

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                           March 28, 2016

 

In Pakistan seventy people were killed and three hundred injured by a suicide bombing that was aimed at a gathering of Christians in a public park to celebrate Easter. A Taliban faction claimed responsibility for the bomb, it’s fifth bombing since December.

The casualties and injured were mostly men and children: 29 children and 34 men.

Pakistan has several Islamic militant factions that are seeking to create unrest and overthrow the existing governmental leaders.

It is another example of Christ-followers in various places around the world experiencing the price of their faith. In 2013 eighty people were killed in a Pakistani church that was attacked by a suicide bomber. On Good Friday an Indian Catholic priest in Yemen was crucified by ISIS militants.

Although the simplicity of accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior is evident, following Christ often has serious consequences. In Pakistan Islamic militants are trying to establish a government that has a strict interpretation of Islamic law.

In essence, they desire that the government be guided, even ruled, by their religious beliefs. In Pakistan being a Christian is not a glamorous experience.

What does it mean to be a Christ-follower, regardless of where you are in the world? Are there common core elements that can bind believers in our nation with the believers in Pakistan?

Coming through Holy Week brings a couple of things to my mind.

Suffering and sacrifice. The cross tells of the sacrifice of Jesus to atone for the sins of his followers. It is punctuated with suffering. We can empathize with the grieving Pakistani people because our faith journey may travel through hardships and trials.

We are familiar with the scriptural “Roman Road”, but there was also a road leading into Rome in the first century that was lined with Christ-followers nailed to crosses. Nero used to light his Roman gardens at night by making human torches out of Christians.

In essence, suffering and sacrifice are elements that have past history and present happenings for those who follow Jesus. We identify and come alongside the suffering, the poor and neglected, oppressed and powerless.

The second identifying element that we have with Christ-followers around the world is “hope!” Just as the cross tells us of suffering and sacrifice, the empty tomb tells us of the hope that we have in our resurrected Lord.

It’s Monday and he is still alive!

It is easy in our culture to get caught up in the Final Four, spring break vacations, the presidential campaign, fashion trends, and the beginning of Major League baseball, but take a pause once in a while to ponder the situations that Christ-followers around the world are dealing with. Some of those are tragic and others are incredibly hope-filled.

And Jesus is Lord of all!

 

 

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Freedom, Jesus, love, Nation, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Drawing Close to Death

March 18, 2016

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                              March 18, 2016

                                      

The Passion Week of Jesus is about to begin. In many ways it’s an unsettling time. One day Jesus gets paraded through town with cheers and singing, and a few days later he gets paraded towards a hill of death with jeers and mocking. It is a lonely week, a week of being deserted, betrayed, and tortured.

Maundy Thursday and Good Friday experiences are solemn and reflective…and avoided! Many of us are ready to get to the celebration of Easter Sunday, the day when Jesus’ tomb was open and the body was no longer there, and by-pass the days of suffering and death.We often even see this in our funeral services. The tendency is to rush by the grieving and embrace the rejoicing. If the departed had a close walk with God people sometimes feel guilty about being sad, about mourning the loss of a loved one. “Well, he’s with the Lord now, so we shouldn’t be sad!”

Yes, he is with the Lord, but he is no longer with us in the same way he has always been with us, and for that I’m grieving. Ben Dickerson, a good friend and ministry colleague of mine, passed away suddenly a few years ago. Ben was man of prayer and depth, a mentor and confidant. His death set me back. I struggled with the nonsensical nature of it.

I could not get to the celebration! Hear me on that! I could not get to the celebration. I was still dealing with the Good Friday grief! Just as cancer patients deal with the loss of health, and anxiety about the future moves into the room that has been occupied by future hopes and aspirations, I must deal with the closeness of death in my life.

Perhaps it seems silly, but I’ve grieved the loss of every one of our five cats: Tickles, Prince Charming Kisses, Duke, Katie Katie CoCo Puffs, and Princess Mailbu. Don’t mock me! My daughters named them all. Even as I write this I’m getting a little teary-eyed thinking about them.

Death is hard, and important to draw close to. When Moses died Deuteronomy 34:8 says “The people of Israel wept for Moses in the Plains of Moab for thirty days. then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end.”

Thirty days! In our culture it is more likely that the memorial service can’t be scheduled for thirty days due to schedule complications.

There is a time for celebration, but there is also a time for grieving and remembrance. Death precedes eternal life…profoundly!

Good Friday needed to occur for a rolled away stone to signal that something significant had just happened.

Our culture has a hard time dealing with death. The pull is to just move past it and get on with life.

And so Good Friday services that bring us to scenes of Golgotha will be slightly attended, unless the pilgrim comes from a traditional that mandates attendance; and Resurrection Sunday will see pancake breakfasts, and balloons, and chocolate crosses…and crowded sanctuaries.

My belief…you don’t have to accept it if you don’t want to…my belief is that we can not fully appreciate and understand the incredible news of the resurrection unless we draw close to the death of Jesus’ crucifixion.

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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Bringing The Cross Back Inside

April 10, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                              April 10, 2014

 

                                 

 

Our church has a great sense of humor…usually! Actually, most churches have a great sense of humor…you just may have to dig a little deeper to find it!

Years ago we had a couple of people from our congregation construct a wooden cross and a stand that it could be propped up in. It was heavy…and, forgive the term, a bit on the ugly side. Of course, it is difficult to make a cross look good, I don;t care how many Easter lilies you place around it!

The wood of this cross was rough and rigid. It was the kind of wood that takes the pounding of nails easily without stumbling. In the past few years we’ve moved it up the aisle and back to the rear of the sanctuary. Back and forth it has gone like a person without a home.

At Christmas it has crouched in the back corner so that the attention can be more focused on the fifteen foot Christmas tree in the front and a homemade livestock stall with a rustic wooden crib in the midst of it.

At Thanksgiving it disappears to make room for turkeys and canned goods.

But on Good Friday it trudges back to the front in order to have a dark piece of fabric draped over it and a handful of nails driven deep into its strength. Its meaning and significance has never waned, and yet we’ve never felt totally comfortable with its look of abandonment and sorrow either.

This past September we moved it outside. It has stood behind a fenced area behind out sanctuary, kind of like an oversized first-grader hovering over his classmates in the school picture. It’s been standing there through storms and excessive windblown snow.

Come Saturday, however, it is being moved back inside. We jest about it with statements like “It’s time to bring the cross back in” and “I think the cross has been grounded long enough. Let’s unground it!”

We say it with the lean towards humor, but, on the other hand, the cross makes us antsy and uncertain. Give us a manger scene with a dressed-up plastic baby doll laying in it and we’re fine, but a cross of wood is a remembrance for us of all the bad things God endured because of his love for us. It’s a reminder of our tendency to be wayward people of faith who sometimes are brought back to the reality of our fallible decisions.

This year, however, a number of people in our congregation are asking for the cross. It’s been the forgotten symbol long enough. On Palm Sunday it will be back at the front of the sanctuary. To temper the celebration of the palms it will silently stand at a distance in the foreground…alone…bare…reminding!

I think it will be a good thing to have it there without fabric or flowers to partially cover its frame. I hope we can even keep it inside for a while.

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Christmas, Community, Death, Faith, Humor, Jesus, love, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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Churched Practical Atheists

June 18, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                  June 18, 2013

In the clergy group that I’m a part of it was recently stated that there’s a growing population of “practical atheists.” Let me define what a practical atheist is.

There is the atheist who does not believe in a higher power. I know, I know…that is not really new news for most of us.

A “practical atheist” is someone who believes in Christ but lives as if he doesn’t exist.

How is that possible, you might ask?

Easy! Unless a person has been crucified with Christ he thinks it’s still all about him. He is the center of his universe. There may be verbal buy-in to Paul’s words “For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21), but not belief buy-in. Belief buy-in is being so committed to a belief that I am willing to order my life around that belief. It becomes my life priority.

I’m afraid that I seem to be hearing more and more horror stories from pastors across denominations and across the country that minister in churches where people can’t get over themselves. They say they believe and yet the message their lives convey communicates a lack of belief.

It’s not just absence from worship. People can be as regular in worship on Sunday as “left-overs” night was a Tuesday dinner ritual for us when we were growing up. (Friday was Chef Boyardee Pizza! Domino’s didn’t deliver…because Domino’s didn’t exist!)

It isn’t the absence of good intentions. Good intentions abound. There are multitudes of people who have good intentions about praying for a person they know, but they just don’t get around to it.

It isn’t that practical atheists aren’t nice either. Most of them are super people who you’d feel comfortable eating pasta bowls at Noodles with.

It isn’t for a lack of Bible knowledge either. There are throngs of practical atheists who can turn right to the passage that the pastor is about to preach about. They know the Word. Give them a subject and many of them can immediately share a passage of scripture that speaks to it.

It’s just that…they don’t believe in a way that changes everything…that changes their view. It hasn’t gripped their lives, it’s just become another subject in their curriculum.

Practical atheists are like people who haven’t shown a bit of interest in their college basketball team  until it reaches the Final Four, and then they buy tickets and buy school jerseys to wear to the game. These practical atheists believe in a Gospel that their lives are not rooted in.

There isn’t a detection machine that identifies them, like the metal detectors at the airport. Only God knows who these people are, even though we know they exist!

The difficulty is that the corporate church is hampered by practical atheists. We become comfortable in systems that don’t change much, and associate God tugging on their hearts as acid reflux from that morning’s free cup of coffee before worship. They believe that this too shall pass!

As I said at the beginning, however, the number of people who believe in Christ but live like he doesn’t exist is growing. And, this, untimately affects the effectiveness of the church.

 

Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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