Lenten Walk - Part 14

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Tuesday, March 6, 2018

For Christ did not enter into a holy place made with human hands, which was only a copy of the true one in heaven.  He entered into heaven itself to appear now before God on our behalf.  Hebrews 9:24^(NLT)

When I was six or seven my younger cousin Gary stayed with us for part of the summer.  I’m certain the dog days of August, and the patience of both sets of parents wearing-thin had something to do with this plan! 

Gary brought with him several armies of little plastic toy soldiers.  Our backyard provided plenty of sandy “wilderness”.  For two kids being raised in Post WWII America, playing “battle” was a pretty common experience.  We spent hours outside in the sands of my childhood home devising all kinds of scenarios where our troops would be in imminent peril from the enemy’s superior numbers.  Somehow, through some magical turn of events (which we always put off until Mom called us the first time for dinner) there would be a heroic stand against the forces of evil, and our boys were victorious; we always won!

Fast-forward a dozen years and it wasn’t the August sands of our backyard, but the heat and dust of South Vietnam.  There were no plastic action figures to move fearlessly through the perils to win the war before dinner.  This was real, scary, and, for a 19 year-old boy from Long Island, an excruciating introduction to the ugliness of what it means to have a sinful nature, the result of fallen humanity. 

More than 50 years later, the comparison of the invincibility of playtime with toy soldiers in the early 1950’s, and the extreme mortal vulnerability I experienced around my 20^th birthday being the action figure some generals moved around, is still vivid enough to enter my dreams at times.

I have relived the emotions over the years as we hold our parades for the warriors who manage to return; the uniforms are smart and starched, and the music is inspiring.  Sentiment runs high for the courageous warriors; we praise their sacrifice…and then Mom calls out the back door that dinner is on the table…and we know it’s time to get back to real life.

This isn’t cynicism, but something of a realistic sadness that, whatever doesn’t fit with our playground, idealistic, heroic ideas of war, we cast-off as irrelevant – including the soldiers that no longer fit in a culture that cannot deal with the roller-coaster effects of their PTSD-driven anger.  We conveniently move-on, as if the call to wash-up for dinner trumps the anguish of the soldiers we placed in harm’s way.

The Temple in Jerusalem had become a backyard playground for religious leaders.  They went through the motions which only a settled, religious, repeated experience can provide.  The shock experienced when Jesus showed up and turned over centuries of ceremonial pretense in the religious community was like an earthquake on steroids. 

Jesus put an end to the endless ceremonial sacrificing of animals in Jerusalem’s Temple when he came to be the ultimate sacrifice.  And when He entered heaven to stand for us, offering His own blood as payment for our sins there was, and is, nothing left to do; Calvary was the war to end all wars. 

For You Today

Lent should remind us that the battle is over, and the victory has been won.  It should remind us that the cost was ultimate, and we should put away our action figures and be all grown-up into Christ.

All else is petty.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

Living In a War Zone

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Monday, October 16, 2017

But you, my dear friends, must remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ predicted.  They told you that in the last times there would be scoffers whose purpose in life is to satisfy their ungodly desires.  These people are the ones who are creating divisions among you.  They follow their natural instincts because they do not have God’s Spirit in them.  But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life.  In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love.  And you must show mercy to those whose faith is wavering.  Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment.  Show mercy to still others, but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives.  Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault.  All glory to him who alone is God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord.  All glory, majesty, power, and authority are his before all time, and in the present, and beyond all time!  Amen.  Jude 17-25^(NLT)

Living in a war zone is not the happiest place on planet earth.  Most of us do not want to be in a place of combat.  Yet, there are enough of those places in our journey through life to validate the old phrase out of the frying pan, into the fire!

The effects of living too long under the stress of actual combat circumstances can leave one empty and debilitated.  There are a lot of names for it:  battle fatigue, combat neurosis, combat fatigue, shell shock, anxiety disorder, survivor guilt, posttraumatic stress disorder.

Posttraumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder associated with serious traumatic events and characterized by such symptoms as survivor guilt, reliving the trauma in dreams, numbness and lack of involvement with reality, or recurrent thoughts and images[2].  Medical studies show PTSD occurs in as much as 35% of Vietnam Veterans, 50% of survivors of natural disasters, and as high as 80% of survivors of manmade disasters, such as the chemical disaster in Bhopal, India in 1984[3].

It is a reality that the human mind was not meant to live in horror!  I have dear friends, family, and have personally experienced the PTSD effects of living in a war zone.  I am thankful for the unselfish dedication and skill of those who help victims of all kinds get through the dark periods of remembering the hell that never should have been!

Jude warns that divisions in the church would be a constant threat to the spiritual health of Christians, because war-like conditions are brought about when selfish ambition takes over.  If you have followed Christ, and been part of the church, you understand; despite the smiles on Sunday, there are spiritually shell-shocked believers in every pew.

Jude also offers the Rx for spiritual PTSD – mercy, plenty of mercy!  Those of us in the church who have tried to follow Christ faithfully, and been helped along the way with our own wavering faith, are to be there for others.  We are to be an example of what genuine faith looks like; we are to be hands-on, standing committed to shore-up the faith of those who stumble.

Contrary to the cynical remark about the church of Jesus Christ being the only army that shoots its own wounded…the genuine Church is the one that follows the example of her Master, willing to bear one another’s burdens, and even die for each other.

For You Today

There are many today who are walking around hollow-eyed, emptied of hope, and ready to give up.  Some are “former” believers, blown-apart by the struggles of the war zones of our culture.  They need someone to come alongside and be their hope while Christ becomes their salvation.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy of:  Pixabay.com

[2] Synonymns.com

[3] McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine, ©2002

A Life of Sacrifice

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Thursday, August 31, 2017

Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.  Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.  He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.  Ephesians 5:1-2^(NLT)

I am always somewhat embarrassed when someone refers to my brief stint as a member of the U.S. Army and says:  Thank you for your service.  It’s not that I’m ashamed; it’s just a part of my life that I endured.  I did not join-up to defend home, hearth and freedom; I was drafted because my number came up.  I didn’t request to go to Vietnam – I was assigned because they needed another grunt to fill a spot.  I didn’t do anything particularly heroic; I was there for a year and came home.  When I took the oath to defend the United States against all enemies, domestic and foreign, it was for two years, and then, if I survived, I would be free to go on with my normal life.

I’m glad I survived, but there were those many that didn’t.  They, along with many others from many other wars, are part of a group to which we refer as heroes, those whose sacrifice made our freedom possible.  We don’t investigate those lives too deeply.  We want our heroes to stay heroes; it’s much easier on Memorial Day to have a parade and be glad we survived, and be at least momentarily thankful that others died to protect our way of life.

But what of the living heroes, those who gave up so much and yet survived to carry the scars and stress, bearing the cost of our wars in their bodies and minds?  And how do we genuinely honor such sacrifice?  I trust, for the sake of those who live in the shadows of their horror–filled, PTSD daily nightmares, which can never truly be repaid, we are finding ways to sacrificially support recovery and rehabilitation.  And that we do not just throw money at the symptoms.

Of course the sanest way to push-back against the need for the kind of heroes we honor and memorialize is to make bigger heroes out of peacemakers, people who find ways to diffuse anger and make war a faded archive.

How you do that is another thing.  I’ve never been much of a joiner in the waves of political movements; I hate waving any kind of flag.  It may be somewhat emotionally exhilarating to get on a charismatic leader’s bandwagon, but most of it is simply to get a political career off the ground.  Rather, I see value in living an authentically changed life.  I see movement one life at a time.  I guess my calling as a pastor is tied to that kind of core value; I cannot change the whole world and I know it.  But if God can use me to make a difference one life at a time, at one moment in time, it somehow resonates with Paul’s challenge to live in imitation of Jesus who loved me, and loved us – enough to sacrifice His life to clear our sins out of the pathway to God. 

I cannot offer a world peace strategy, or save everyone ravaged by the infections of natural disaster, war or some heinous deed.  But I can be ready to be involved with the person right in front of me.  I can come alongside and be a voice of hope for one other human soul.

This is the working out of what Jesus said is the key to genuine life:

If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.  Luke 9:24^(NLT)

Trying to hold on to everything that benefits your selfish desires spends life like a prodigal son in the far country, but a life of sacrifice, investing in the lives of others is what will make our life blossom and mature into the kind of Kingdom vine you were meant to be.

For You Today

Somewhere in this day you’ve been given will be an opportunity to plant a sacrificial Kingdom seed.  The authentic follower of Jesus Christ living a sacrificial life will not hesitate to kneel down, dig a little hole, and plant deep in someone else’s life!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy  Pixabay.com