The Greatest of These

Helen was born in 1921 and lived out her life in a house just a half mile from Open Door. She had no blood relatives. Jimmy Carter was just leaving the White House the last time she attended our fellowship. But over the past more than a few years, I have watched the church be the church. There were untold numbers of meals and check ins and hours of yard work and various home repairs, and at least one break in for a medical emergency. This pastor didn't do much for Helen. Didn't have to. Others were busy doing the work of the ministry, and Helen neither demanded much nor put up with too much fuss. Yesterday afternoon at Historic Elmwood Cemetery with the rain coming down, I stood under a tent by her graveside and spoke to a group of people--the funeral director, a handful of long-time neighbors, and a cluster of saints from a little Midtown church. We were surrounded by 80 acres of graves dating back to 1852 where reside the bodies of mayors and slaves and a slave trader and 2,500 victims of the Yellow Fever Epidemic and veterans of American wars all the way back to our Revolution. We were viewing life from God's timeline, a look we seldom take time to consider. And that moment was for Helen. Only a few things comprise what is truly important. And I caught a rare glimpse of it.

Grieving Together

Just when I've about decided that Facebook brings out the worst in almost all of us--encouraging knee-jerk, reactionary, agenda-driven tirades at every turn--there's this ray of hope. I've actually been (okay, mostly) encouraged as I've followed responses to the Orlando tragedy. To hurt for the people who are hurting and to grieve with those who grieve only demands that I see people as people--made in God's image, fellow sinners on this sometimes too brief pilgrimage called life. To stand with them doesn't require that I celebrate every sexual behavior or that every Muslim is my enemy or that I must use every tragedy to drive my preferred political agenda regarding guns, borders, and "my rights." Sometimes it can be as simple as taking chicken sandwiches to a line of people waiting to donate blood on my day off.

View from Mars Hill

When the Apostle Paul stopped by Areopagus Coffee in Athens, he was favorably impressed.  While the baristas there all sported the logo of Mars, the Roman god of war, these people were at least spiritually aware.  They had posters to all sorts of gods and goddesses, and they even had one reserved for “the unknown God.”  And there were special red cups for the dark elixir offered as oblations.  They were celebrating, but not sure just why.  And so Paul was able to tell them some very Good News.  In their sad and generic, spiritually bankrupt and shades-of-grey world that lacked all sense of wonder, Paul let them know the single most wondrous truth in the entire universe.  Some mocked; some believed; some said he should come back and tell them more about this God-Man they had unknowingly yet instinctively acknowledged.  “The god of the red cup” became an opportunity to speak of the one true God loving us so much that He chose to dwell among us, seeking and saving those who are lost.

A Time to Speak

Some of you may be tiring of my continuing references to the Planned Parenthood situation. I can only explain that about 26 years ago I was faced with a question: What would I tell my three children and their children when they grew up and asked me what I had done for the unborn during "those dark days" in U.S. history? I cannot apologize to you...without later needing to apologize to them.

You may choose to look away,

but you can never say again that you did not know.

William Wilberforce

Praying for Our Police Officers

We need to pray for the police officers who protect us every day. People working political agendas have placed them in new kinds of danger. A split second of hesitation can cost them their lives, but pulling the trigger may cost them their jobs, their reputations, and the opportunity to live quiet and peaceful lives. Their families, who always face that nagging thought that a loved one might not come home from work, now face even greater challenges.  Take a moment to ask the Lord to protect and encourage them.

Our Legacy

The Congressional Budget Office has calculated the Medicare cost we might incur if we prohibit abortion of the unborn who make it to 20 weeks. Who even thinks in such terms? If it's a baby (and this is incontrovertible--try telling a 5-months pregnant mom that "it" is something else), then it is a baby. We have lost our way. Thomas Jefferson's name can hardly be mentioned these days without someone saying: "Yes, maybe a great man...but he owned slaves." One day will people look back on us and say: "Yes, but they allowed abortion"?

WE BEHELD HIS GLORY

Some atheists have been putting up billboards around town, busily trying to bah humbug Christmas.  It's a curious thing, finding one's identity in a disbelief; thinking it important to dissuade others from faith.  If they are right, what possible difference would it make what anyone thought.  Or did, for that matter.

Nearly 40 years ago, Francis Schaeffer wrote these words: If man is not made in the image of God, nothing then stands in the way of inhumanity. There is no good reason why mankind should be perceived as special. Human life is cheapened. We can see this in many of the major issues being debated in our society today: abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, the increase of child abuse and violence of all kinds, pornography, the routine torture of political prisoners in many parts of the world, the crime explosion, and the random violence which surrounds us.

I'm happy that these folks are using their resources to start a conversation.  Other faiths reject the idea that we are image bearers of God, and they might take violent offense to such messages, but I am encouraged that they continue to be bothered by the very possibility of a holy and righteous God.  May we all revel in the deep truths of Christmas this year.  God loves us so much that Jesus came to live among us.  We beheld His glory.  And He suffered and died on the cross that we might have life by trusting in Him.  The answer to all of the upheaval around us (and in us!) lay in that manger long ago.  Have a blessed Christmas season!