Easter Sermons: “Why The Cross Matters” and “Why the Resurrection Matters MORE”

I got a unique opportunity this Easter.  Most years, the choir does a cantata so I don’t get to preach.  This year, the choir had the day off.  So I got in TWO sermons just to make up for the others I’ll miss!  The sermons took place at two separate parts of the service.

Why the Cross Matters

 

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

 

A few weeks back, a new documentary came out called The Jesus Tomb.  It was put out by director James Cameron, who directed Titanic and lots of other very successful movies.  Turns out that in 1980, a group of archaeologists discovered a tomb with several ossuaries, boxes containing the bones of the deceased.  Names on those boxes include “Jesus, son of Joseph,” Mary, and even “Mariamene,” a name that was reportedly used to refer to Mary Magdalene.  The implications are serious, they claim:  Jesus was no more than a normal human being, who was married to Mary Magdalene, and who had children.  No cross and resurrection, no ascent into heaven.

 

And this documentary struck a chord in the media and the secular world.  It’s like they’re just grasping at anything that will come along these days to discredit Christianity.  And there’s a reason.  Paul nailed it on the head.  To them, any religion that’s founded on the fact that its great leader was killed has a problem.  It’s got to have a better foundation than that, doesn’t it?

 

Which just highlights the questions that secular historians – and even very liberal church scholars – have been asking for the past few decades: Can it really matter anymore that Jesus died?  There are some important events in history, and some very critical times even in Jesus’ life.  We can be friends with Jesus without having to buy into all that crucifixion stuff, can’t we?  It all just seems so violent and sad.

 

Does it still matter that Jesus died?  I mean, think of all the other people in the world who have died since then, and have had much longer and much worse ends.  Sure the cross was probably bad, but what about the people who have cancer that gets drawn way out?  What about the people with Parkinson’s or Lou Gherig’s Disease who watch their bodies slowly waste away over the course of years?  What about the Christians who were tortured by being burned at the stake, or drawn and quartered, or all those other terrible ways to die?  In the face of all that, can the cross really still matter?

 

Does it still matter that Jesus died?  Lots of people have died early deaths in history, people who have been more important in worldly terms.  Alexander the Great, Aristotle, Julius Caesar… JFK, Martin Luther King.  All these people had a bigger impact on the world than Jesus did… the only people that really knew him when he was alive were a handful of beggars, thieves, prostitutes and poor people.  Can it really matter anymore that this man died.

 

Does it still matter that Jesus died?  The cross is a powerful symbol, sure.  But there are symbols that are a lot more potent.  Think of symbols like the swastika, the sickle and hammer.  And there are good symbols, too.  Who doesn’t feel a spark of pride when they see the American flag?  Who doesn’t feel a little comforted when they see the Red Cross symbol?  Can the cross really still matter, with as many other symbols as there are out there today?  And besides, think of all the terrible things that have been done in the name of the cross of Christ. 

 

Does it still matter that Jesus died?  For a long time, Christianity seemed like the most sane religion in a world full of crazy religions – human sacrifices, unrealistic rules, foolish quests to please gods who may or may not have cared what was being done.  Jesus seemed like a breath of fresh air in a room full of stuffy and violent religions.  But now, there are lots more alternatives.  Buddhism preaches peace and well-being, kindness toward all human beings.  Hinduism teaches that we all have a second chance.  Islam teaches intense devotion to a God who has done everything for us.  There are so many other good alternatives to Christianity – does it really still matter anymore that Jesus died?

 

And besides, can it really matter that Jesus died?  We’ve all heard the rumors and we know that people are beginning to doubt that he really died, that he really rose from the dead.  If he was buried in the Jesus Tomb like the movie says, he probably died a normal death!  He was a good man, right?  That’s what they say.  And his message was powerful, and it’s done a lot of good.  Let’s put all this crucifixion stuff behind us and focus on the good things that Jesus did.  Surely it doesn’t matter anymore whether Jesus actually died.

 

—

 

Does it still matter that Jesus died?  Why don’t you ask a young man in prison, who’s there because he stole and he lied and he murdered someone… all because he was a slave to an addiction he couldn’t control.  For all anyone cared, he was dead to the world – he’d never get out of that place.  And you could tell it just by looking on his face.  He would fight other inmates at the drop of a hat, over things that most everyone else thought was silly.  He made enemies of all the guards, who constantly found excuses to put him in solitary or to have him punished in other ways.  If anyone exemplified sin, it was this man.

 

One day a chaplain started coming to his cell.  The prisoner said he wanted nothing to do with him, told him to go away.  Sometimes, he even threatened the chaplain… but he kept listening.  And he listened because he found something in that chaplain that he hadn’t seen anywhere else in a long time: FORGIVENESS.  But he didn’t believe it.  He held in all his anger and his hatred for days, just listening to see if he would hear anything different. 

 

Eventually, the dam burst… he erupted in rage at the startled chaplain.  Shouting for nearly an hour, he told that chaplain every awful thing he had ever done, and then dared the chaplain to show him a God who would forgive all THAT.  The chaplain simply stood and gave him a hug… and the walls came down.  That man’s still in prison, but now he’s leading other people to the cross.  That man found the cross, and he found forgiveness – just try and tell HIM it doesn’t matter that Jesus died.

 

—

 

Does it still matter that Jesus died?  Why don’t you ask a young woman who was known in her community for her “indiscretions.”  She was so lonely, she didn’t know what to do but to find young men who would keep her company, if only for a while.  Most everyone who knew her suspected she was sleeping around, but no one could ever prove it.  So for years, she walked the streets with her head and eyes down, fearing to look in anyone’s eyes because she knew what she’d find there – either hatred and scorn, or lust and desire.  She was little more than a prostitute.

 

One day, she was on the way to meet one of her new “friends,” a nice young man in town who’d been married for only a couple of years.  She met him at his house while his wife had gone to visit some family.  But she was so busy looking down as she walked that she didn’t notice she was being followed.  She entered the house, and no sooner had she gone to the young man’s bedroom than she heard shuffling feet and voices inside the house.  She looked up just in time to see several pairs of hands grab her in the dark and start dragging her outside.

 

As they dragged her through the street, they tore off her clothes and beat her repeatedly.  She cried with fright as they reached alongside the road for large rocks… that could only mean one thing.  They dragged her to the edge of town, but instead of taking her to the usual place they dragged her into the midst of a little crowd of people that seemed to be gathered and listening to someone.  The rough hands threw her sobbing on the ground at the feet of the man to whom everyone seemed to be listening.  She buried her face in the dirt, ready for the stones to fly.

 

But what she heard, after the men with rough hands shouted their accusations, was not the voice of anger… but a calm and gentle voice.  And though she was afraid to look up for fear of the hatred she’d find, she lifted her head to look into the eyes of a man… and instead of hatred, instead of the lust and dirty longing that she often saw, she saw… love.

 

This woman would follow Jesus for years, and was probably one of the few women who were brave enough to stand at the foot of the cross, to take his body to the tomb.  She had gone to the cross, and she found real, unconditional love – just try and tell HER it doesn’t matter that Jesus died.

 

—

 

Does it still matter that Jesus died?  Just ask the family of the young girl I knew and ministered to, who was killed in an automobile accident.  Flung from the car while her boyfriend drove.  She would have been sixteen in only a few months, and she was such a responsible and intelligent young lady that I know she would have accomplished great things in the world.  But her life was taken away, and all that her family and her church and her friends could do was to mourn.

 

Until we began to think through the life of Jesus, and there we found “a man of sorrows, who is acquainted with grief.”  We found a man who had to take time by himself to grieve when he lost his cousin John.  We found a man who wept aloud over the loss of his close friend, even though he knew Lazarus would be raised from the dead.  We found a man who knew the pain of being rejected by the people in his hometown… they’d even tried to stone him.  He had no home, but slept out in the open like a vagabond.  He was misunderstood by his own best friends, asked to leave by several towns, constantly tempted to do things he knew wasn’t right.

 

And then he was crucified.  There he hung on the cross – God himself, in a human body, nailed to a tree to suffer and to die.  We were used to looking to the example of others who had suffered,, but for some reason we saw in this time more than ever that if anyone could sit with us, like Job’s friends, and mourn for the loss and pain we felt – it was JESUS, God himself.  That family had gone to the cross, and found a God who knows what it’s like to suffer – just try and tell THEM it doesn’t matter that Jesus died.

 

—-

 

Does it still matter that Jesus died?  Ask the people who have struggled with sin and pain all their lives, and in the cross have found hope that they can be made right again someday. 

 

Ask the people who have lost loved ones to hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, murders, diseases… and in the cross have found hope that because of Jesus’ blood the world will one day be purged and cleansed and there will be no more tears. 

 

Ask the people who are here sitting next to you in the pews, instead of laying on the sofa and watching TV this morning – because they’ve met a savior who has washed them clean to live new lives, who has promised them eternity.

 

Does it still matter that Jesus died?  You tell ME.

 

Why the Resurrection Matters MORE

 

1 Corinthians 15:12-26

 

“Do you remember playing the ‘my-dad’s-tougher-than-your-dad’ game?  Come on, we’ve all done it in some way – even if it wasn’t about our dad’s.  “My dad is bigger than your dad,” or “my dad can hit a softball farther than your dad,” or “my husband makes more money than yours,” or “my church has more members than yours.”  How about, “my country is bigger and better than yours.”  It’s a sad game.  But it’s a game we still play it in every area of life.

 

Believe it or not, church theologians play the game too.  Of all the doctrines in Christianity, of all the events that made a difference to the whole world, we have several that could take the trump.  And our various church groups are still calling out for their own to take the top spot.

 

To Catholics it’s the annunciation and birth of Christ.  To them, the fact that Jesus died is not so important as the fact that he lived – that he was here among us, that he suffered as one of us.  That’s why when you go to a Catholic church and you see a cross, what do you see on that cross?  Jesus hangs there in crucifix.  To Catholics, it’s more important to emphasize the fact that Jesus suffered as one of us than it is to emphasize that he died for us.

 

To most of us Protestants, if you asked around in our churches folks would probably tell you the cross is most important event.  When you see a cross in our church, it’s empty.  There’s no Jesus on that cross. What’s most important to us is that he died and was buried.  Because to us, in that death, he accomplished the work of salvation.  The atonement, the shed blood of Jesus – that’s surely the most important event of our faith.

 

But as often as it gets overlooked, I happen to think that the resurrection is the most important event and doctrine of all of them.  Paul has it right, I think (he usually does).  He says that there are a lot of things that might could come or go with our faith, but the resurrection MUST be true.  If not, we’ve only gotten half the story.  If not, we are “to be pitied of all people.”

 

What do I mean?  Let’s think about what we found – and DIDN’T find – at the cross.

 

—

 

We found forgiveness at the cross, that’s true.  But what good is a one-time pardon from sin?  So, we get forgiven for the things we’ve done here on earth… that’s nice.  Eternity is a LONG time, and our little lives are only a part of it.  We live, we die forgiven… I can see how it might be better to just pass on forgiveness and keep living it up while we have time!

 

But that’s not the end of the story.  Jesus died… but he also ROSE, so that we might rise too.  So suddenly that forgiveness that just lasts a few years is stretched out a LOT longer than just the number of our days here on earth.  The resurrection means we are forgiven – not just for the time being, but FOREVER.

 

On the cross we found forgiveness, but in the empty tomb we see just how long that forgiveness lasts.

 

—

 

We found salvation at the cross, it’s true.  And that’s nice for you and me… it’s like a “Get Out of Jail Free Card” that we just happened to find on the side of the road.  But you know, all on its own, that card is not all it’s cracked up to be.  Remember the movie, The Shawshank Redemption?  In that movie, a man who had been in prison for decades suddenly found himself out on the street, free at last! 

 

What did he do?  He tried to live a normal life, but he had no family or friends to go to, he had no skills to help him find meaningful work.  In short, this man found that he even though he had left prison, prison had never really left him.  He was free, but for what?  He could find no meaning in life, so this man – who was free at last, who’d gotten a “Get Out of Jail Free” card – ended up swinging from the rafters of his attic.

 

You and I are like that man in some ways.  The cross freed us from prison.  But what difference does that make if we have nowhere to go when we walk out of the prison gates?  That’s where the empty tomb comes in.  Remember the words Paul gave us, the ones that I use when we baptize someone?  “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

 

On the cross, we found an old way of life had ended.  But in the empty tomb, we found out a new way of life has begun!

 

—

 

We found meaning in Jesus’ death, it’s true.  We know all the theology – Jesus had to die.  Someone had to die to pay the penalty for all the bad things I’ve done!  And so Jesus was the sacrificial lamb, who died so that I wouldn’t have to die.  We’re all going to die, it’s true.  But we don’t all have to die for our sins.  That’s what Jesus did.

 

But that’s kind of a morbid end to the story, isn’t it?  Jesus dies, and that’s the all-important answer, the final word?  NO – because Jesus rose from the dead, we see that death might have been the answer to our sin… but that in that death, Jesus defeated DEATH ITSELF forever.  Suddenly, this thing that is the all-consuming end of our existence, this thing that has a hold on us from the minute we die… suddenly, that thing called DEATH doesn’t have its sting anymore.  It’s not the end.  There’s more after that!

 

On the cross we found that death had to be the answer.  But in the empty tomb we find that death is not the final word!

 

—

 

We found a great event at the cross, to be sure.  It was a nice story, made the Old Testament all neat and tidy!  But you know, by itself, the death of Jesus wasn’t much to “write home about.”  So, somebody died.  Didn’t you know there’s a 100% mortality rate among human beings these days?  Everyone dies.  That’s just part of life, right?  What difference does Jesus’ death by itself make to the guy down the street?

 

Jesus died, and that’s important.  But the important thing happened AFTER Jesus died, when he rose from the dead and passed his mission of reconciliation on to us.  That’s one big torch to carry!  “How can they know if they have not heard?” Paul asks, and that’s the crux of the mission we’ve been given.  Jesus didn’t just die – that’s nothing.  Everyone dies.  But not everyone raises from the dead again.  That’s different.  That’s something we have to tell!

 

On the cross we learned we were saved.  But in the empty tomb, we find out that we were saved for a REASON – so that others could be saved too.

 

—

 

I guess I’m playing it again – “My Dad’s bigger and better.”  And he is.  Our Father is bigger – more powerful, more loving and more purposeful – than to let the final word in his story be the death of some man on a cross.  YES, that cross was important!  YES that cross accomplished the redemption of humanity!  YES, that cross was the revelation of a God who knows what it means to suffer alongside us!

 

But without the empty tomb on that Easter Sunday morning, that death on the cross accomplished no more than all the sacrifices that had been offered to God throughout history.  What made the difference was not just the death – none of those lambs who had been sacrificed before had ever gotten up and walked again! 

 

When Jesus rose from the dead, he turned death backwards and suddenly we found a God who was stronger than our greatest enemy! 

 

When Jesus rose from the dead, our “Get Out of Jail Free” card suddenly got its expiration date canceled! 

 

When Jesus rose from the dead, he walked out of those grave cloths – just like we are called to walk out of our sinful ways!

 

When Jesus rose from the dead, he gave us a reason to tell the world that God had done something bigger and better than anyone had ever imagined!

 

When Jesus rose from the dead, we found out that God could do that wonderful thing inside of US, too!

 

—

 

Does the cross still make a difference?  Does the empty tomb still matter?

 

Then, people of God, let’s LIVE LIKE IT!

“Taking Care of Yourself”

Note: The following sermon was preached on March 25,  and was the third in a series about identity – who we are as individuals in God’s kingdom.    It’s in semi-outline form, which means there are probably a few incomplete thoughts…

Introduction

Our last couple of sermons have built upon each other.  First, we learned that God loves us – loves YOU – infinitely more than we can imagine.  God created us in his image, made us unique and special, placed us where we are.  He knows the number of hairs on our heads and the number of our days.  God loves you – how can you not love yourself?

Next we saw that God’s love doesn’t stop at the good things about us.  God even loves the parts of us that are difficult to love.  And he loves us enough that he takes the bad parts of us – sins, weaknesses, failures and all – and uses those things to mold us and fashion us into a different kind of vessel: One that he can use in new and unimaginable ways.

So today’s message continues to build on those ideas.  If God loves you so deeply – even with all your faults – how can you not love yourself?  And if you are to love yourself as God loves you, how can you not care for yourself as God cares for you?

There are all kinds of cute images I could use to help you get this idea across, but the basic thing I want to say is this:  TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.  It’s not just a thoughtful suggestion.  It’s not just a good idea.  As we’ll see, it’s a scriptural mandate.

I probably don’t need to tell you WHY taking care of yourself is so important.  That’s common sense to most of us.  But here are three very good reasons:

First LIFE IS BETTER WHEN WE DO.

Second, GOD HAS GIVE US A RESOURCE, and we are to take care of it.

Third, GOD HAS WORK FOR US TO DO, and we must be ready to do it.

 

Life is Better

First, let’s talk about how taking care of ourselves can increase our enjoyment and satisfaction in life. 

Jesus tells us that he has come that we might have life, and might have it more abundantly.  He wasn’t talking about eternal life then – he meant life here and now.  Do we have abundant life?  Jesus took good care of himself – he rested often when he could, and took frequent time away to pray and be with God.  He didn’t have the junk food we have today, and he didn’t have much choice but to walk everywhere he went!

 But it’s the abundant life thing that gets me.  When we take care of ourselves, pace ourselves in life, we certainly enjoy it more.  Our lives are more abundant, more free.

 But this isn’t the only reason to take care of ourselves, and not the most important.

 

We Have Been Given Resources to Care For

 It’s kind of strange to think of our lives as resources.  We think of money, maybe, or of our talents.  But there are so many biblical reasons to look at life this way. 

 We’ve been told to number our days – to make good use of the time we have.

 We’ve been told that we are temples of the living God.  A temple is a place where God is worshiped, glorified, and put first.  A place where others can come to meet God face to face. 

 Our church building is like a temple.  The church itself is the people, but this building is definitely an asset we have to use.  So we care of it.  We just replaced two heating units that were due to stop working any time now.  We have someone clean the inside, replace light bulbs.  We paint when we need it, change things around to fit the need of what’s going on.

 And think about resources from a common sense point of view.

• A man has a car that is his livelihood – he’s going to take care of it!
• A computer that you need for work – you’re not going to let it get infested with viruses and crash the thing.
• Your house – when the roof leaks, we fix it.  When the siding starts coming down, we put up more.  When the paint is peeling, we scrape, prime and paint again.

 
So if all these things can be replaced, even if we were inclined to let them fall apart, how much more should we take care of ourselves – our body, spirit, mind and heart – that CAN’T be replaced?

 And it’s not just a matter of “if it isn’t broke…”

• It’s practical to take care of these things before they break down instead of waiting for them to fall apart.
  • We don’t wait for our car to start overheating before we change the oil and add water.
  • We don’t wait until our computer makes funny noises and refuses to start before we buy the virus checker.
  • We don’t wait for the entire floor to rot before we finally repair that hole in the roof.
• So why do we treat our bodies and souls this way?

 Once again, it comes down to how we love ourselves.  God loves us.  We know he loves us because he cares for us.  We love our children, or families, or friends.  We love them by caring for them.  Love means taking care.

 So, is it indicative of the love we have for ourselves when we don’t bother to take care of ourselves?!

 
We Have Work to Do – a Race to Run

Paul uses the image of a runner in a race.  This is an area I’m getting more comfortable with, since I’ve been running a good bit more lately.  Up until now, I played some sports in school and did some running.  But nothing serious – nothing like this.  And now that I’m 30, I can’t just go out and run long distances anymore without thinking ahead of time.  What am I going to eat this week to get ready?  What kind of clothes am I going to wear?  How should I schedule my activities this week so I can be ready?

I also have to think carefully when I’m running.  How am I breathing?  If I get out of a breathing rhythm, I’ll pay for it later… my body will begin to hurt and my lungs will burn.  What about my pace?  If I start out too fast, I’ll NEVER finish a long race.  I have to pace myself, make sure I’m running in a way that I can finish.

This is the kind of care we need to give to life.  God willing, most of us will live long and productive lives.  But we can’t just fizzle ourselves out by not taking care of ourselves.  If we stay plugged in, God can use us for eighty years, or for just a few.  Jesus knew he had something to accomplish.  And if he didn’t take care of himself, he might never have been able to do it.

A pastor or doctor, for instance.  There’s a LOT to be done, and we could spend all our waking and sleeping hours attending to that need.  But we’d kill ourselves.

Look at money resources.  There’s a LOT of need in the world, but if we gave away literally every penny, would that really help?  In today’s world, greater good can be done when we are good stewards.  Bill Gates has given billions of dollars to several worthy causes.  If he’d given up every penny he had when he was 30, he would never be where he is today.

 

Getting Down to Specifics

 So here’s the bottom line:  If you’re waiting for someone to take care of you, you’ll be the guy who shows up at the mechanic’s shop for an oil change after his engine’s already burned up.  God will watch out for you, will provide for your needs.  But that doesn’t mean you can run yourself into the ground in the meantime. 

 Self-care is an important part of life.  It’s not that we should spend all our lives focused on ourselves.  But I think that we cannot reach our full potential unless we do something to take care of ourselves.

 So let’s get to some specifics.  How do we need to take better care of ourselves?  Some of these ways are just common sense.  In fact, I bet I haven’t said and won’t say anything in this sermon that you didn’t already know.  But if you put the REASONS together with the WAYS, maybe God can stir us to make a change for the positive.

 Jesus says we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength – our emotions, our spirits, our brains, and our bodies.  Let’s look at the four basic areas of health and see what we can do.

BODY – This is probably the area we think of most.  Do you take good care of your body?

• Now some people go overboard with this – plastic surgery and all that.  I’m not talking about cosmetic.  A few wrinkles aren’t going to kill you.
• But there ARE some things that will kill you:
  • What are you eating?  Are you eating things that are good for you… at least some of the time?
  • Are you exercising?
  • Are you getting enough rest and giving your body time to heal itself?  SABBATH.
  • What kinds of habits do you need to stop?

 
SPIRIT – Our spirits are frail and fragile things, and our spirits spend most of our lives battling against our human nature.  There are so many ways we can boost our spirits.  But most of us, I’m afraid, allow our spirits to get into such awful shape that we can’t even think of the last time we did one of these things.  We have been entrusted with their care.  What kinds of things are we doing to care for our spirits?

• Bible study
• Frequent prayer – Speaking and…
• Listening – Silence and stillness
• Godly friendships and relationships
• “Mission” work – helping those in need, sharing our relationship with God to others.

 
MIND – This seems like such a silly thing, to take care of our minds.  But our minds are so susceptible to all kinds of things in our world that too often we find them full of things that don’t matter.  We may not always be able to control our minds, but we can GUARD them:

• What are you watching on TV and in movies?  What kind of books are you reading?  Are these things REALLY doing you any good?
• Do you allow yourself to dwell on things that aren’t healthy?  That aren’t important?

 
All these things are signs that you need to start guarding and exercising your mind.  Learn something new.  Try something different for a change.  Take a vacation and see if you can’t get a new perspective on things. 

 HEART – Finally, an area that we need to really think about seriously.  Our hearts – our emotions – are the last uncharted and difficult area of the human being.  Science has probed lots of these other areas, but the emotions are probably the most difficult for us to get a grip on.

 And they’re they part that has the most grip on us.  Our emotions can affect all the other parts of us. When you’re up and happy, you can FEEL it in your body.  When you’re down and having a bad day, it drags your mind and spirit in directions they wouldn’t normally go.

 And here’s the misconception that many people have:  Emotions are a bad thing.  And this simply isn’t true.  If any of you ever watched Star Trek, you may remember that the character Spock was supposedly of a race that had no emotions, and that was a result of the time the show was created – when emotions were sometimes seen as bad things.

 But emotions, in themselves, are NOT bad things.  Emotions are God-given parts of who we are, and we should embrace our emotions as gifts from God – both the positive ones AND the negative ones.

 There’s a popular concept among Christians that we should be happy all the time – we should never be worried, or angry, or sad or depressed, that we shouldn’t grieve.  This simply isn’t true.  I have not found a single idea in scripture that supports it, even though people will misread passages to make them say that.

 And this idea has been one of the most damaging in our Christian age. Because when a Christian says we shouldn’t have these emotions, the only thing we can do is to ignore them… and THAT causes serious problems.

 Grief, anger, worry, depression, frustration, jealousy… these are a part of our human condition.  And to pretend we shouldn’t have them is like pretending we don’t have an arm.  It cripples us, because we stop dealing with them and they take control of us.

 If the Bible models anything about emotions, it’s being honest and open with them – before other human beings and before God.  Look at the Psalms – an outpouring of every human emotion, both positive and negative.  And they’re poured out to other people and to God.  Job poured out his emotions to God, as did Moses (“I don’t want to go back to Egypt…”), Abraham (“Why haven’t I had a son yet?”), David (“My soul is downcast…”), Jesus (“Let this cup pass from me…”). 

 In other words:  Every biblical character that had a proper relationship to God expresses his or her joy, sorrow, grief, frustration, separation, and anger.  It’s a part of life, and no part of our life is invisible from God.

 Instead, Paul points out in Ephesians 4:26: “Be angry, but do not sin.  Do not let the sun go down on your anger.”

 
What does this mean?  It means BE ANGRY.  Let yourself experience the emotions.  But don’t let the emotions make you do something you shouldn’t (like beat someone up).  Deal with it, express it and get it out of your heart, so that the “sun doesn’t go down on it.”

 It’s so easy to preach and so hard to do.  But we HAVE to learn to be open with our feelings.  We have to learn to express them to God and to others.

 How can we deal with emotions?  First, try honesty.  Tell what you feel, don’t hide it.

 Second, seek help.  There is such a stigma around counseling and medications these days, but I believe that these are God-given helps to our human condition – the condition that gets more complex and more dangerous with every passing year.  500 years ago, they didn’t have Tylenol and Advil and other pain medications, but there weren’t as many needs for them.  Today’s world – with food additives and all kinds of new ways to hurt ourselves – is a place where pain is much more frequent.

 In the same way, our complex world is a place where emotions are much more difficult to unravel than they used to be…

 
Conclusion

 Finally, remember this:  No one is going to make you take care of yourself.  Don’t tell yourself you don’t have time.  You have to MAKE the time.

 What are you waiting for?  The abundant life Jesus promised is at stake.  God’s kingdom work is at stake.  Start taking care of yourself, and let’s become the people God has intended us to be.

Virginia Tech; Where Was God?

Common questions arise whenever human beings encounter suffering – we heard them over and over after 9-11, and we’re hearing them now. You might think we should ask “why,” and we’ll get there eventually. But for right now, trying to find a way to think and to respond when something like this happens, atheists and believers alike will come to one question:

Where is God? How could he let something like this happen? How could this young man, no matter how disturbed, bring himself to commit such a horrible act? How could God allow these young people – in the budding stage of life, their whole futures before them – how could God let this happen to them? And where is he now? Where are the justice and vindication? Where are the consolation and the joy?

It’s a question as old as the oldest book in the Hebrew Scriptures – Job. How fitting it seems in times like this that the oldest of writings about God are not songs of praise or accounts of his greatness… but questions about good, evil, justice and God’s seeming absence in the midst of suffering.

And if we learn anything from Job, it’s this: Now is not the time for answers, for trying to figure out eternal “why’s.” Even after watching those videos, after hearing of his troubled past, even after hearing psychological analyses… even then we will not be able to give a decent answer to that question. Now is not the time for answers. Now is the time for mourning and for reaching out.

Where was God last Monday? Most of us weren’t there, so we can’t say. But we’re starting to hear stories. Professors and students willing to lay down their lives for others. Unexplainable escapes and near-misses. The outpouring of compassion that touched so many lives at a crucial time.

Where is he now? He’s working, through his Spirit, to bring unity to a world that’s usually divided by class, color, religion, and yes… even team loyalty. He’s speaking through the voices of churches and Christians who, instead of calling for heads, are calling for FORGIVENESS – for Cho Seung-Hui and for the school administration and staff. After all, did we learn anything from the incident in an Amish school a year ago?

We can ask where God is, and where he might have been, and that’s appropriate. But what we cannot do is allow that question (or the answers) to let ourselves off the hook. No matter where we perceive God to have been last Monday, we know the task WE have been given: to comfort those in mourning, to offer prayers for those who have been hurt, to stand up for love instead of revenge, to offer forgiveness instead of lawsuits. These are not the jobs of a select few – they are the jobs of every believer, whether in the wake of a massacre or simply in our day-to-day lives.

Where is God? He’s right here where he’s supposed to be. Question is… where are we?