Professor Emeritus

The first time I ever heard the title professor emeritus I was quite impressed. It was at a graduation service and I thought it meant the prof was super good. Little did I know it had more to do with being OLD than with the quality of past lectures. When I opened my mail today a card fell out of an envelope containing, you guessed it, an “Emeritus Commissioned Ministry of Teaching Credential.” To reinforce the situation, in order to read the card I had to get out a magnifying glass.

Since it did not reflect the quality of decades of classroom performance I spent the afternoon wondering about what I do do that is good. I have come to the conclusion I am a very good sinner. I realize that is an oxymoron but I am very good at sinning and then skilled at trying to cover it up. I should receive a credential recognizing that skill.

Paul must have felt that way when he wrote, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst.” I Timothy 1:15. He also wrote the following about himself. “Though I am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” Ephesians 3:8. He said he was less than the least. With Paul it wasn’t about Paul. It was all about Jesus. In Mark 2:17 we read this wonderful verse, “On hearing this, Jesus told them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’”

Therefore if you also belong to the “good sinners club” rejoice and be exceedingly happy because Jesus loves you very much.

An Eternity of Choices

When I was very small my parents gave me thirty-five cents a week.  Twenty-five cents was for the mission offering at church and ten cents was for me.  We had a treasure land for a neighborhood store run by a man with no legs.  He slid around the well worn wooden floor on a large piece of leather that was somehow strapped to his waist.  When you walked in immediately to the right was a glass case filled with penny candy.  There were Mary Janes, gummy bears, marshmallow peanuts, wax lips and other wonders.  Best of all there was a comic book rack and they were only ten cents each.  If I wanted a comic book I had to forgo the candy.  It was my choice.  Most of the time I opted for a Donald Duck comic, but sometimes I got a Superman. 
 
I remember one week in church they showed us a picture of a small child in Africa that needed food.  That week I did not get a comic book or candy.  It was not a difficult decision.  Often for supper we had dark cornpone and milk.  I thought we were rich.  And we were when compared to the child in Africa.  So much of life is relative.  Little could I have imagined that decades later I would spend six years in Africa and would have many occasions to be reminded of that little boy in the picture.
 
Life is the sum of our choices; here and forever.  The most important of all is our commitment to Jesus and the acceptance of His gift and grace.  Then comes eternal life with an infinite amount of choices.  What we become, where we will go, what we will learn will be our choice.

The Words of My Keyboard

I am sitting here staring at my keyboard. (Not music – I don’t know what to do with one of those.  This one has letters not black and white keys.)  It is a marvelous thing.  It talks.  It says anything I want it to say.  With it I can spread hope or despair.  With it I can build good or with it I can destroy. It is an outlet for my mind.  It is amazing.  When we think about it we can transfer thoughts from one mind to another and if we print what we key in, those thoughts can be transferred to other minds years and decades after our minds are thoughtlessly dead.
Thousands of years before my keyboard was the Psalmist wrote, “May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.”  Psalm 19:14.  How did he write that?  Did he have a stenographer?

The 21st century equivalent of that verse would be, “Let the words of my keyboard and these thoughts of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, and may they spread the good news of Jesus love to all the world via the wonder of the Internet.”

I realize that rendition isn’t nearly as poetic and beautiful but it certainly is my prayer as I assure you that Jesus loves you, forgives you from ALL your transgressions and has reserved a place just for you.  Your name is already engraved on the door of your heavenly home.  I also pray that the words of your keyboard posted on Facebook or wherever will always be positive and filled with the joy of salvation.

A Moment No Should Ever See

There are some things so very important and so weighty they should not be witnessed by others.  Matthew 27:45 records such a moment in time. “From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land.”  Jesus has been on the cross for three hours and with the end coming, the agony of separation from His Father, the mental anguish had superseded the horror of the unthinkable physical abuse.  It was time for Jesus to pay the price for our sins.  He who knew no sin had vicariously assumed our guilt.  It was time for Him to die our deserved death that we can live His deserved life.
 
The ignorant evil crowd being unprepared for total darkness at noon stumbled about in an effort to retreat from site of their evil deed.  They did not deserve to see the cross and the naked broken body of the creator of the universe.  Angels sobbed in shock.  While they knew what was coming the reality was so much worse than  their anticipation of the moment. No one was to watch.  Alone He suffered.  Alone He fended off the taunts of Lucifer, His old friend.  Lucifer was so sure he could make this moment so bad Jesus would give up.  But Jesus would pay the price at any cost for you and me.
 
I had a friend once tell me when in heaven he wants to watch the video.  I have sincere doubts that once he catches a glimpse of the torn flesh and gaping wounds from the nails he will bury his head in his hands.  No one can or should ever watch.     A thousand years from now our love for Him will have so grown, more than ever we will not be able to watch.

Sheeple

English is not a proud language.  It has no shame in adding new words to its ever growing inventory of available units of communication.  Each year the publishers of dictionaries include new words taken from current usage.  One of this year’s additions is sheeple, a portmanteau of sheep and people.  Once we say it, the meaning speaks for itself.  We sheepishly follow the crowd.  What’s trending on Facebook is an example of something catching the fancy of a few and then having millions follow.  Fashions regularly produce the “emperor’s clothes” because thought leaders start something and the rest of us fear to be different.
 
1000 years before Jesus came to us David wrote Psalm 23.  800 years before Jesus, Isaiah noted in chapter 53, “All we like sheep have gone astray.”  Handel even included it in his famous oratorio The Messiah.  In Matthew 9 we read, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”  Our sheepish behavior is nothing new.  But how wonderful it is that Jesus not only understands, He has compassion on sheeple.  One of His most familiar parables is about the one lost sheep and the shepherd going out to search for it.
 
Just as long as Jesus keeps loving sheeple I don’t mind being one.  I could think of many worse things to be.  Jesus said, “Follow me.”  My response is gladly, because we know where He leads.  Heaven will be full of sheeple. The challenge is to know who to follow. That is the main task of the Holy Spirit.  He woos us, nudges us and sometimes shoves us in the right direction.  Jesus said, “I am the way.”   So come and join me.  I’m a sheeple and you’re a sheeple and together we will be led home.

Heaven is Never Full

There is a fascinating concept at the close of Hebrews 1.  Angels are described as ministering spirits to care for the heirs of salvation.  That’s us.  According to Romans 8 and Galatians 4 we are adopted into God’s family and are heirs of salvation. 
 
Several years ago I was in Tokyo and needed to get on a subway during rush hour.  The train stopped at our platform and when the doors opened it was full.  I assumed I would have to wait for the next one.  I could not have been more wrong.  There were attendants on the platform that started pushing us onto the train.  I think the assumption was, it is never full.  Forget the idea of personal space.  I have never been so close to so many people at one time.  Sardines in a can have more space.  In an attempt to breathe I had a mouthful of long black hair from some unnamed lady.  
 
Thinking back on it I think angels are like those attendants.  Heaven will never be full.  There will always be room for one more.  Angels dog our paths each day waiting to give us a shove into the Kingdom.  They are ministering spirits who are so very happy and so very unselfish they, like Jesus, long for everyone to be saved.  There assignment is simple and straightforward; save people. I think they are pretty good at what they do because there is a wonderful verse in Revelation describing the redeemed assembled around God’s throne.  It reads, “I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.”    That’s us.  How grand!

Real Power is Real Knowing

Recently I was fascinated by the intellectual content of the person with whom I was speaking or should I say lack of content.  He was a professor at a college where he had obtained his BA, MA and doctorate. He made mention of his comfort there because many of his colleagues were also alum from that school.  And so the cycle of information and ideas was repeated over and over.  The same ideas he had heard during his undergraduate years were regurgitated during his graduate education.  They were preaching and teaching to themselves. This person was teaching from the same texts he had been assigned as a student.  Granted there are some classics that should be shared by each generation.  These are not of which I speak.
 
The freshness of intellectual growth is the fruit of exposure to new ideas and new prospectives.  Without this the content of our lives becomes we and them.  We, of course, are correct, orthodox and holy and they are just plain wrong.  But we try to be kind and use words like misguided or uninformed, when we are the uninformed ones.  Ignorance is a frightening thing.
 
Knowledge is power.  God is omnipotent not because He is some gigantic muscle man in the sky.  He is omnipotent because He is omniscient.  He creates not because He is a magician waving a magic wand.  He creates because He knows how.  Thus it is that He longs to save us that we might join with Him in creative ideas.  To be like Him is to grow.  Yes.  He grows.  He is love and love grows.  Love is not a stagnate state.  It is an envelopment of life and others and reaching beyond ourselves to enhance those about us.  

I Love Free Stuff

I love getting free stuff, which attracts me to a furniture commercial which promises if the Boston Red Sox win the first four games of the World Series all the furniture I buy between now and then will be free.  I will get a check in the mail, so the more I buy the more will be free.  I find myself sitting in front of the TV trying to think of something to buy, which is totally ridiculous.  Instead I should be thinking about how to get rid of the furniture we already have. 
 
Car commercials are a bit deceptive.  They promise $10,000 cash back if I buy their vehicle.  It sounds like I would be getting something free until I read the word “back.”  That means I paid them my $10,000 up front and they are returning what was already mine.  That’s not free.  I am just getting the real price of the vehicle.
 
Paul had this issue with the church in Galatians.  It seems that after he presented the Gospel, which is free, others would come and tell them, “Well, yes, but, you have to do such and such.”  Paul wrote, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel which is really no gospel at all.”  Galatians 1:6.   Beware of the word “but”; what usually follows is heresy.  “Yes, salvation is free.  But …” 
 
When I was little I loved parades because toward the end of the parade clowns would throw pieces of candy to the crowds.  That was free.  Perhaps there will be parades in heaven and the angels will shower us with wonderful things that are truly free.

To Know Pure Love

One of the most wonderful sounds I ever heard was coming home and hearing someone shout, “Daddy’s home” and to hear the thunder of small feet running to me.  The sheer joy of loving and being loved surpasses all other human emotions.  How very empty it would have been had I insisted or commanded such behavior. Love is only love when it pours spontaneously from a willing heart.

Revelation 4:11 is the reason why we are.  “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”  God being God could have created a world without free will or the possibility to choose evil.  He could have programmed us to daily give Him praise.  We would never have known there was any other option.  But He would know.  The praise would be empty and joyless. Love would not truly exist.  When He made us and our world He made the best of all possibilities.

The heartbreak and horror of hatred and disloyalty that arose could not be allowed to eternally ruin what can be so good, so pure and so excellent.  And so John 3:16.  Jesus was the full expression of the Father. We needed to know the ideal.  We needed to know what was intended and what will be again someday.  Love needed a way for us to be a part of that future.  And so Hebrews 1:2 “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.”

The Benefits of Being Nice

Anyone who has ever spent time as a patient in a hospital knows the medical profession is anti-sleep.  Maybe it’s because the staff that covers the night shift are resentful of anyone who gets to rest.  Last week I was consistently awakened at midnight to take my vitals.  Really?!  And then at 5 A.M., I was awakened to draw blood.  Now I try to be a nice guy.  I try to be polite and thoughtful of other’s feelings but when the phlebotomist came in at 5 and turned on all the overhead lights suddenly blinding me and producing visions of the apocalypse, well, let’s just say; I wasn’t overly Christ-like.  And then it occurred to me.  I had an epiphany. We all know you should always be nice to anyone who is handling your food.  I realized how stupid I was not being nice to a woman who was about to pierce me with a ten foot long needle!  And yes, just in case you wondered, she did make me pay for my rudeness.
 
Often times I excuse my bouts of rudeness by remembering Matthew 23 where Jesus isn’t “gentle Jesus meek and mild.”  Then I have to remember His wrath was produced by those with power abusing those without power.  My displays are because I feel disrespected.  There is a huge difference.  Jesus never lashed out when it was personal.
 
His message to us in the Sermon on the Mount is consistent regarding our going the second mile and turning the other cheek.  If we really want to witness we do so by our behaviors and responses and not by handing out pamphlets.  He did say, “Hereby will men know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:35