Tomorrow – And the Easter Question

Tomorrow

Today was yesterday’s tomorrow and tomorrow will only come after today is done. Sometimes we can’t wait for tomorrow to come and then there are times we hope tomorrow will take its sweet time, but tomorrow will come at the steady pace it has always come, paying no mind to how we feel about it.

I suppose the way we feel about tomorrow depends a lot on how today goes and yesterday went; one thing is for sure though, it won’t be exactly like today or yesterday. It might look an awful lot like yesterday, or it might be worse, and hopefully, it will be better.

Few things impact our tomorrows more than what we do today, what we do with today. For Mary and Martha, the past week or more had been terrible. Their brother, the one they depended on got sick and died. The doctors couldn’t help, their prayers didn’t help, and Jesus the healer didn’t show up until today (a case of, “Where was God when we needed him?”), four long days too late. So, today was another day of grief, actually, worse grief, because Jesus showed up and it brought up bitter questions about last week. “Why didn’t you come sooner?” “If only you would have showed up this wouldn’t have happened!” were the first words out of Martha and Mary’s mouths. It’s bad when yesterday leaves you with gnawing questions and doubts, when yesterday buries today’s hope. Death just wreaks havoc with tomorrow; it is an enemy we cannot defeat.

To us, death seems and feels like the end of all tomorrows, but it isn’t. It can destroy the body but not the soul, only God has the power over both (Matthew 10:28). Jesus didn’t blame Martha and Mary for feeling the way they did, but he also pointed out that they still did not understand who he is. It is possible to have good theology (and certainly bad theology) without understanding, “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world” John 11:21-27 (NIV).

You didn’t enter today and you are not reading this today without believing something, and whatever your beliefs are will impact not only your immediate tomorrow but also your eternal tomorrows. It is neither our beliefs in themselves nor the sincerity with which we might hold them that can defeat our reality of death and empower us to cling to life. It is not just a matter what we believe but more importantly who we believe in. Only Jesus Christ is “the resurrection and the life,” and only those who “believe in him will never die.”

The objections to the truth of Christ have been many: Too narrow, too simplistic, too unreal, too difficult to believe for a rational mind, too … They always will be just that, objections, unable to change the truth of Christ any more than the truth that tomorrow will come. The only way to be truly prepared for tomorrow is to believe in and follow Jesus Christ because we do not know what tomorrow holds, “Look, now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation” 2 Corinthians 6:2 (HCSB). The Easter question is whether you will believe in and follow Jesus Christ, crucified, buried, and resurrected today and not put him off until tomorrow or too late? How I hope you will.

Have a glorious Easter. Love you, Pastor Hans

 

 

 

 

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Fine Lines

Fine Lines

When I expected good, then evil came; When I waited for light, then darkness came. Job 30:26 (NASB)

Isn’t calamity reserved for the wicked? Isn’t disaster supposed to strike those who do wrong? Job 31:3 (MSG)

We needed rain, which is nothing abnormal here in dry Don Pedro. So, the forecast of a wet week was a blessing, the snow piling up in the high country a huge relief for what had been an abysmal rainy season ushering us straight into another drought. The rains of the week before and of Tuesday and Wednesday were a delight to farmers, ranchers, residents, and water managers. Then came Thursday.

After a night of normal rain playing its rhythmic tune on our bedroom window the morning and early afternoon turned into a deluge, lighting up the radar map in red and purple. Water was everywhere, culverts turned into water-cannons, ditches filled and ran over everywhere, small ponds formed wherever there was a drain, creeks swelled into torrents, small bridges collapsed, roads gave way, low lying houses became victims, and blessing quickly turned into a catastrophe.

We live nearer to catastrophe than we think. Drought and deluge separated by just a few days. Not enough, enough, and too much separated by spaces smaller than the stones of Machu Picchu. Rejoicing, panic, and despair within arms lengths. Peace, unrest, and war separated by just a few decisions. Prosperity, barely paying the bills, and poverty living next to each other on the same street. Political stability, chaos, and tyranny determined by a handful. Health, sickness, and death mere microscopic distances apart.

It is frightening to have so little control, to be so exposed to the power of nature, so vulnerable to the unseen, so subject to the unplanned, so depended on good decisions of others, so unable to guard against it all. It also reveals how dependent we are on grace and mercy of God, without whom nature, mankind’s depravity, and our mortality would ultimately harm and destroy us all.

It is astounding how quickly clouds unleashed can humble us, isn’t it? Our hubris, most of the time, is blind to the fine lines, to our frailty, our smallness, our need for God to pour out grace and mercy even more than we need for the sun to rise. Our hubris is also quick to indict God, to drag him into court for not doing more, for not holding everything and everyone in check from crossing the lines that divide blessing from disaster, the just from the unjust, good from evil, life from death. But he is not obligated, he does he deserve our scorn in distress any more than our ignoring him and ungratefulness when all is well. I suppose those are fine lines too, the line between godlessness, idolatry, and the fear and worship of God.

We won’t forget the deluge of March 22, 2018, especially those who suffered loss and harm, but we will not long live out of an awareness of the fine lines and how dependent we are on the goodness, mercy, and grace of God, not just now, but for all of life and eternity; but we should.

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

P.S. This is also a great opportunity for each one of us to help his/her neighbor, and be a tangible extension of the love, goodness, and grace of God.

 

 

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Mercy – Lessons from rodents, ….

Springtime, wake up time for rodents, ants, spiders, wasps, mosquitoes, flies and bugs. I know, spring doesn’t officially begin until March 20^th, 9:15 am to be exact. But the above-mentioned critters don’t give a hoot about official anything, nor do they respect boundaries, comfort, property rights, or someone else’s hard work. They do pretty much whatever they want, wherever they want, and whenever they want.  They come by stealth, mass invasion, through the air, underground, at high noon, twilight, and under the cover of night. Relentless I tell you, destructive, unapologetic, and even dangerous.

I want them gone, out of my yard, away from my home, gone. If you want them, if your heart has a soft-spot for them, you can have them, the whole lot. A spider on my bedroom ceiling is not going to get the chance to play cat burglar and lower its multi-eyed self down on my bed in the middle of the night; it is going to get “splat!” The ground squirrels, wood-rats, mice, gophers, moles, voles will not encounter kind mercy; they will be trapped, shot, and poisoned when possible. The wasp eying my steak in its shifty flight will be permanently uninvited. The ants trying to homestead around 10417 Blanchard Road will meet the full brunt of available extermination methods. Not a single mosquito, kissing bug, beg bug, or termite will be tolerated, be invited to take a little sip or take a small bite, nor be merely trapped and released. Flies will be met by swatters, fly-papers, scented traps, and available chemicals; they will never receive permission for fly or stopovers.

Striking, isn’t it, how the first paragraph above could easily describe wicked men and women, mankind in unrestrained sinfulness, and how the second paragraph could easily portray the harsh and merciless measures and attitudes mankind has used against each other.  Is it right to hate wickedness, to yearn for and work toward a world without it? Absolutely, but we have to be careful not to act wicked our own self. Keeping critters and pests out of my house is different from stomping on them when I go on a hike. I can put up screens and seal cracks before getting out the swatter or setting deadly traps.

Of course, there is also the matter of worth. There is no question that even the life of the ground squirrel living under our playhouse and undermining the old trees in my backyard is amazing, regardless of it shamelessly mocking me this morning. However, there is a difference between all men being created equal and in the image of God, and all life being created equal. The first is true the second is unsustainable. So who gets to assign worth? God does, and has, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:26 (NIV). I hope you notice that different worth does not mean God doesn’t care about all of his creation, in fact not a single sparrow falls from the sky apart from God or is forgotten by God (Matthew 20:29; Luke 12:6-7). Obviously, for God, there is no tension counting a person as more valuable than a bird. For us, however, there is great tension in managing God’s creation responsibly, daily living and survival, and our own sinfulness.

I imagine that God is vastly more disturbed about the wickedness of mankind, one person treating another, valuing another like a rodent, like a pest than you and I are about actual rodents and pests. God could have responded to our wickedness without mercy but instead, he both reaffirmed our value and his great love for every man and every woman in the cross of Christ. Because of his great mercy and love he “is not slow in keeping his promise (of final judgment and justice on all wickedness), as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” 2 Peter 3:9 (NIV, parenthesis mine). We, the church, followers of Christ, worshippers of the one living God should do no less, at home, in our communities, our countries, our politics, our policies, and our attitudes.

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

 

 

 

 

 

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