Friday, February 23, 2007

Life is Fragile

"My life is but a breath" Job once said in the Bible. Man, did that ever come clear to me this week. On Monday, President's Day, I had the pleasure of stepping outside on the first day that seemed to finally be breaking us out of our artic freeze down here in Dayton. I saw Chris and Katherine playing out in the snow and ice, playing in the trees and having a good time. That evening, I received word that Pastor Phil was not going to be at a meeting we had scheduled because he had to make an emergency visit at the hospital. Long story short, in a neighborhood just a few blocks from me, another boy, nine year old Joey Sharpe had been playing out and climbing around trees in his yard too. Apparently he slipped and the hood of his sweatshirt caught on a branch above him, and his mother found him hanging in the tree dead. His neighbor, a good friend of ours and member at our church ran out to try to give CPR, but it was too late.

It has never been more clear to me that we spend so much time in life assuming that those whom we love, those who are closest to us are always going to be there. But life is but a breath. Why don't we keep this in mind? Why don't we live, and love, and forgive, knowing that each day is a gift from God? This is one dad who is committed to giving more grace, more love, more forgiveness and time to each kid. My kids were playing in a tree and lived. What if it had been them? I shudder at the thought. I had been irritable with them on Monday, wishing they'd leave me alone and go outside and play for a while.

Today is Friday. My kids are buzzing around here excited about our trip tomorrow to the COSI museum in Columbus. I just got home from the funeral for Joey, which we did at Emmanuel. Joey's body is in the ground. I can't imagine.

Don't get bogged down in the small details. Wake up, live, love, and above all forgive. Tragedy may serve many purposes in God's eyes, but one of them is the call to wake up and keep an eternal perspective in the every day mundane aspects of life.

God bless.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

The Final Sacrifice

In less than one week, we will enter the season of Lent. Over the years, the season of Lent has grown to be a meaningful time for me as I contemplate the meaning and purpose of Jesus' life and ministry and intentionally seek to reorder my life and ministry around his. This year, I have the pleasure of preaching during Lent, both here at Emmanuel on Sundays and also at Concordia in Oakwood, our founding church, on Wednesday evenings. My series of messages is based on several themes of the Christian faith that for some of us may have become so familiar that we have lost the impact of what they meant to the first Christians, and thus we have lost the ability to reorder our lives, thoughts, and actions around them in a meaningful way.

Take the example of sacrifice. The New Testament book of Hebrews says this about Jesus, "so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people". But what is a sacrifice? The book of Hebrews talks about it a lot, so much so, that it almost seems to be in bad taste. It refers a bunch to the Old Testament book of Leviticus which goes on and on ad nauseum about how to sacrifice animals. I would venture to say that most of us reading this, myself included, have never seen a sacrifice of an animal, or have ever even seen an animal being slaughtered for any purpose. So this image of the sacrifice is somewhat lost on us. In addition to that, sacrifice in our culture today has become a sort of churchy word that we use to talk about how we should give money, or how our young people going off to war should live, our we use the term to justify the ridiculously low wages we pay church workers, because they are sacrificing to do the work of the Lord. So on the one hand, we have lost the image of what a sacrifice meant in Biblical times, and on the other hand, we may even have a picture of sacrifice as a tool used to manipulate people.

Anthropologists will tell us, however, that the notion of sacrifice is deeply rooted in the human existance. At the deepest levels, human beings feel the need to sacrifice. There are two ways this works. The first is the sacrifice of firstfruits, in recognition of a Creator who made and sustains all things. Taking part of the creation and offering it back to the Creator is a way of acknowledging God's claim on all things and our role: that is that I have no claim, no right, to act on or use Creation apart from the way that the Creator intended it be used. I am not free to go my own way in matters of finance, environment, family, relationships, etc, but rather I steward them all on behalf of the creator who gave them to me and with an eye and ear toward how He would have me steward them. I can't give anything to God. I can only recognize that all that I am and have is His and He has given it to me to steward for His glory in this generation.

The second, is that deep in the human psyche is the notion that when something is wrong, it must be made right. When someone is wronged by another, it must be set right. This standard behavior is found in every culture and society from modern civilization, to the most remote people groups in South America, Africa, and the Pacific Islands, and all throughout history. People everywhere know that a sacrifice for wrong must be made. And when it comes to being right with the creator, it involves giving of the whole self, mind, body, and soul. And we can't do it. So people all over the world, even in our own neighborhoods, even in our own homes - maybe even you - live with this burning need to be made right with God, and every time you try to do it, you find that it's like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, which I know is a cliche term, but if you've ever fallen and tried to use that method to get yourself up, you'll find it is impossible.

The Old Testament people of God were given the animal sacrifice as a picture of what it would take to be restored to God. It would take giving of the entire life to God. And every time a sacrifice was made, the people could watch and hear the animal scream as its life was taken away from it, and it fought and its blood splattered the ground and the priests and the stench of blood filled the nostrils and if they seriously examined themselves and their hearts they would have to say, "That should have been me." Every time I act in a manner that is in rebellion to my Creator, that should have been me.

Because it was God's will that humanity would give itself fully to the will of the creator. It was God's will that the human race would be like a priest for all creation, offering a life of worship and praise on behalf of all creation. Adam and Eve lost that chance when they chose to take creation into their own hands to become like God. So God sought to restore this life to humanity by choosing a nation for himself to be a nation of priests, the nation of Israel (see Exodus 19). But the nation sinned and built an idol with its hands. So God chose a tribe from within that people to be the priests of the nation. But the Levites failed in their duty, so God sent his son, Jesus, to be both priest and sacrifice for the whole world.

And in the final sacrifice of Jesus, all of humanity - reduced to one in the person of Jesus Christ - finally gave itself fully to its creator. Hebrews 10:11-12 says, "Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God."

And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, the true life that God intended for humanity is available freely to all. This priest and sacrifice calls us to follow him and know what it means to truly live both NOW and for eternity. May we grow to understand that even more this Lent season.

To God be the Glory! Amen.

(Photo: Stefan Wagner, trumpkin.de)

Friday, February 09, 2007

What's Next?

We returned from Chicago today. Following our week of meetings, paperwork, and family time with Lutheran Bible Translators, we have decided to accept the title of missionary candidates from them. What that means is that we will be moving forward with training for missionary service at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (GIAL) in Dallas. We have submitted to a significant battery of tests, psychological profiles, interviews, etc etc ad nauseum. The review now following these meetings along with Rich's work toward earning the Certificate of Applied Linguistics from GIAL will result in us being recommended to the LBT board in January 08 for acceptance as missionaries with LBT. At that point, we will be on staff at LBT, drawing a salary, having insurance etc. Rich will then continue advanced training in Bible Translation, graduating with a MS in Applied Linguistics in the summer of 08. Additionally, the family will participate in other training experiences in the next couple of years. Rich will travel around doing partnership development for our project following graduation in 2008. In all likelihood, we would deploy for our first term in the mission field in spring or summer of 2009.

From this far out, it appears we could be serving in either a village situation in Nigeria, West Africa, or a village setting in Botswana, in Southern Africa. The Botswana situation is more developed serving speakers of Kgalahadi near the village of Kang in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana. The Nigeria situation is at an earlier stage, so it is difficult to tell what might be needed there. But we're a ways away from that yet, so we'll keep praying for the Lord's guidance and it will become more clear.

That's all for now, but check in and we'll keep up to date.
Thanks!