Liturgy of Light in Dark Places

(originally published August 3, 2017)

Thursday, August 3, 2023

O Lord, hear my plea for justice.  Listen to my cry for help.  Pay attention to my prayer, for it comes from honest lips.  Declare me innocent, for you see those who do right.  You have tested my thoughts and examined my heart in the night.  You have scrutinized me and found nothing wrong.  I am determined not to sin in what I say.  I have followed your commands, which keep me from following cruel and evil people.  My steps have stayed on your path; I have not wavered from following you.  I am praying to you because I know you will answer, O God.  Bend down and listen as I pray.  Show me your unfailing love in wonderful ways.  By your mighty power you rescue those who seek refuge from their enemies.  Psalm 17:1-7

I’ve often wondered how the people of great reputation in the Biblical accounts could also appear so small, frail, and full of weakness.  But as soon as I begin that pondering, reality rises up in my thoughts, that those people are flesh-and-blood, not icons painted on a wall.  Of course they have moments, even months or years, when they’re not icons of faith; they’re reminders that we all come from small places.

When we leave the womb we begin to face the possibility of isolation, being alone.  And, not being created for aloneness, it troubles us.  David spent months being chased into the wilderness places, hounded by an increasingly insane King Saul, former benefactor and mentor (when your friends turn, the darkness deepens!).  So David spent time hiding in caves to avoid capture and death.  Dark caves, silent places, are places where you have no place; you only exist.  David spent a lot of time crying-out to God for rescue from his troubled existence.

 Did you catch David’s dark weakness when he lifted up his voice to pray?

I am praying to you because I know you will answer, O God.  Bend down and listen as I pray. 

David expressed faith (I know you will answer, O God).  But the next phrase tells just how much David senses his prayers are very disconnected from God:  Bend down…, this is the cry of someone who feels very small and very isolated. 

This is my liturgy of light for dark places.

There have been a number of times in my life, (and it still happens occasionally), that the aloneness of that small and vulnerable newborn child, just out of the mother’s womb, rises up in my soul and proclaims the profoundness of the deep darkness that surrounds and would swallow me up!  It is then I need the liturgy of light! 

Liturgy is something we might connect with a labored, boring responsive reading, or long, drawn-out call and response during the sacraments.  Literally, the word “liturgy” is work of the people, our part in offering worship to God.  As the people of God offer genuine, heart-felt worship, darkness is dispelled, chased from our lives.  That is why whenever you don’t feel like coming to church on a given Sunday…and you go anyway…when you leave church that day there is a general sense of lightness; you feel better for having attended – glad you went! 

The darkness had to leave when you emptied yourself in the presence of light!

For You Today 

Got darkness?  There’s an app for that…liturgy of light!

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

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  

 

Title Image:  By Dinesh Valke from Thane, India, via Wikimedia Commons 

Images without citation are in public domain.   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

The Hallucination of Order

 

Thursday, May 5, 2022

The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need.  He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams.  He renews my strength.  He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name.  Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me.  Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.  You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies.  You honor me by anointing my head with oil.  My cup overflows with blessings.  Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.  Psalm 23:1-6

The Psalm King David wrote is loved by untold millions.  What is not to love about peaceful streams, lush green meadows, and having your strength and soul restored?  Yet, human experience tells us that life is chaotic, messy, even at best.  Is David’s picture of a peace-filled life with God a realistic expectation, or a cruel hallucination…merely a form of wish-thinking, chasing after the perfect life in a chaotic universe?

A hallucination is a distortion of a real image or event.  Expecting perfect order in a chaotic universe is a disconnect with reality.  So, does that mean David’s image of God’s unfailing love is a pipe dream?  Not by any means.  One simply has to see it in correct perspective; David’s picture of what God provides is virtually proven by the chaos of our world.

Consider the provisions and the problems:

#1. Rest beside peaceful streams presupposes there are raging (chaotic) rivers.

#2. Renewed strength presupposes your personal strength can fail.

#3. Right paths announce that there are some wrong ones to avoid.

#4. Dark valleys instill fear while God’s presence brings courage.

….and the list is much longer.

Chaos, weakness, wrong choices, and fearful realities are not hallucinations, they are the reality of a fallen world.  Rest, renewal, corrected (forgiven) wrong choices, and courage to go on are just as real for the inner person. 

When the reality of life’s harshness meets the goodness of God’s grace, the follower of Jesus Christ has – as David wrote to begin the Psalm – all I need.

For You Today

You might be facing some tough decisions, chaotic storms, or a mind-numbing shortness of courage and other resources.  If so, take some time right now to give God great praise for the opportunity you are facing.  Just like David, facing Goliath the giant, you’re going to see you lack nothing you really need, because those promises never fail.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road with Jesus; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title image: Pixabay.com & Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

A Changed Man

[i]

Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days.  Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches.  Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches.  One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years.  When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”  “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up.  Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”  Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”  Instantly, the man was healed!  He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking!  But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, so the Jewish leaders objected.  They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath!  The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!”  But he replied, “The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”  “Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded.  The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd.  But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.”  Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.  So the Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules.  John 5.1-16

When John the beloved apostle wrote this Gospel account he had a specific purpose in view.  That purpose was not to tell a story from beginning to end, but to show the meaning of that story.  It wasn’t chronology, but theology, our thoughts of God – who He is.  John wrote to help us understand that Jesus is the Lord God.  The way he does that in this incident is to re-tell the conflict Jesus had with the Jewish religious leaders over rituals and traditions.  Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath; the traditionalists in the group didn’t like the change.  They loved the system of their religion more than the God they were created to love.  We have to admit, most of us don’t like changes.  Mark Twain once said:  The only person who likes change is a wet baby.^[1]

Let’s look at a man who was in sad shape before he met Jesus.  The Lord touched him, and what changes occurred!

Jesus touched the man's WILL

This man was conditioned in his spirit to be spiritually wasted in the same way his legs were useless.  For 38 years his illness and the way people related to him had kept him in a societal bondage.  He believed God was on a first come first served accessibility.  So he had the perfect excuse for never getting better.

Jesus confronted the man…Do you want to get better?  The man played his well-rehearsed line…Man, smell the coffee…everybody else moves faster than me.  Jesus’ answer was simply…Rise up!  There was no pity or patronizing; Jesus told the man to get himself together and walk.

At that point the man had two choices – he could remain in his retreat from humanity, or he could trust the stranger with this new idea and get up. 

Christian people share the burden for leadership.  We also face, and struggle with the lame man’s temptation to opt-out of responsibility.  It is easy to pull the covers back over your head on a Monday morning.  That is the nature of our will, and God will not force us to get in the game.  He will, however, “touch” us to remind us the game is not over, and that we have a choice. 

Jesus touched that man with a face-to-face confrontation.  It isn’t the same way with us all, because we are so different:

¶ Jesus touches some with the memory of a fine Christian leader’s example of working hard, loving others and life engaged on an enthusiastic plane. 

¶ The touch might be in your Dad’s words, still ringing in your ears long after he is gone. 

¶ The Bible is a touch of Jesus; it will prick your heart and conscience. 

¶ The touch of Jesus might be in a kindness extended from a friend or foe.

¶ The touch of Jesus might be in a child’s admiration that you don’t want to destroy.

Jesus touched that man, and He is touching some of you right now.

Jesus touched the man's WItness

It is a certainty that this man told everyone who would listen what happened to him.  He had been lying on that pallet for 38 years waiting for a miracle.  Day after day he was continually reminded how his life was unending impotence. Suddenly the whole horizon unfolded before him; he had a life.  It is without doubt he became a walking billboard for Jesus.  Even when questioned by the town political/religious leaders the man was unshakeable. 

Here is a question before the house this morning.  What will make a weak/hopeless man into a fearless/tireless witness?  Perhaps the answer is found in the name of the pool, Bethesda.  In Hebrew that is the word, “Chessedh”, literally “the house of grace”.  Chessedh is the “covenant mercy” of God.  Perhaps many of us would do more with our witness for Christ if we were to keep in mind His mercy and love for us.

Jesus touched the man's Weakness

The Bible tells us this man was healed.  The verb root is “enlarged”.  The man became normal, changing, growing, and it put him right in the middle of controversy between the Healer and the critics.

What about you?  Henry Blackaby wrote about this syndrome of our weakness when it comes to being healed:

Many people have grown up attending church and hearing about God all their lives, but they do not have a personal, dynamic, growing relationship with God.[ii]

Our generation has taken many of the activities that the Bible identifies as sin and has labeled them as addictions or character flaws or the result of an abusive upbringing.  We act as if having an addiction is sufficient excuse for disobeying God's commands.  

As Christians, we are no longer helpless victims of our sin. There is no sinful habit or past hurt that is beyond the healing touch of our Lord.

Have you gone year after year without receiving spiritual healing?  God is capable of freeing you, but you may have become comfortable in your sin.  You may not want to be healed.  If you really want to receive spiritual health, God can give it today.  He wants you to ask Him.

And so, the natural question now is: 

¶ Do want nothing to change, or would you jump at the chance for new life? 

¶ Do you want what you’ve always had, or do you desire a closer walk with Him?

¶ Are you satisfied with limping, or do you want Him to make you whole? 

If you’re tired of laying on the sidelines, let Jesus touch your will, your witness, and your weakness.  You will arise, take up that pallet and walk!  

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…Amen!

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[1] Mark Twain, Leadership, Vol. 15, no. 3.

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[i] Title Images:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com.    All Scripture quoted is from The New Living Translation (unless otherwise stated) 

[ii] Henry Blackaby in “Experiencing God”

Remembering Before You Can't

[1]

Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honor him in your youth before you grow old and say, “Life is not pleasant anymore.” Remember him before the light of the sun, moon, and stars is dim to your old eyes, and rain clouds continually darken your sky.  Remember him before your legs—the guards of your house—start to tremble; and before your shoulders—the strong men—stoop.  Remember him before your teeth—your few remaining servants—stop grinding; and before your eyes—the women looking through the windows—see dimly.  Remember him before the door to life’s opportunities is closed and the sound of work fades.  Now you rise at the first chirping of the birds, but then all their sounds will grow faint.  Remember him before you become fearful of falling and worry about danger in the streets; before your hair turns white like an almond tree in bloom, and you drag along without energy like a dying grasshopper, and the caperberry no longer inspires sexual desire.  Remember him before you near the grave, your everlasting home, when the mourners will weep at your funeral.  Yes, remember your Creator now while you are young, before the silver cord of life snaps and the golden bowl is broken.  Don’t wait until the water jar is smashed at the spring and the pulley is broken at the well.  For then the dust will return to the earth, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.  “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless.”

That’s the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion:  Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty.  God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.  Ecclesiastes 12:1-8, 13-14[2]

I believe Solomon stops short of dementia, but not far short!  He mentions just about every low point you need to get depressed about the future.  Hair turned white, legs wobbly, eyes dim, sexual desire gone, drooping posture, and, for good measure he throws in a dental situation that even makes eating a chore.  As I write the sun’s morning glow is beginning to peek out from behind the tree line, so I got up and opened the shades so I won’t miss out on a pretty sunrise while I can still see and hear the birds chirping; assisted by trifocal glasses and powerful hearing aids, of course. It’s hard to place oneself on Solomon’s scale of physical woes increasing age seems to gradually, but gleefully bestow on the aging.  But that gets markedly easier as you do push the threescore-and-ten barrier.

This passage is generally preached with young people in mind, an urging to get right with God before it’s too late.  However, anything this side of the grave is appropriate.  Even at 70, 80 or 105, you are “young" compared to those  you read about in the obituary column. 

Very often in ministry I’ve had the privilege to visit very senior saints confined in nursing homes or their own homes, unable to do much for themselves because of a litany of maladies.  And with hardly an exception, they all remark in one way or another their wonder at why God still has them here.  I quickly agree that I wonder that too, but then pose the possibility that exists for ministry at every age and stage of life, unwell in body or not.  The inference, of course, is that God is not done with us here if we’re still breathing.

I give you Iris Jones as a prime example.  Confined the last decade to a nursing home for a good bit of Solomon’s medical chart, Mrs. Iris ministered more than most, writing cards of encouragement to her pastor and wife with shaky hand, praying long and strong, and smiling.  Those were what she could do, and, despite severe headaches, failing strength of legs and balance, and bodily pain more than most could bear, she made you feel like you were the most important person walking on planet earth.  She should’ve been named Barnabas, the Encourager!

For You Today

Whatever you can do today, use the strength God still allows; it won’t last forever!

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

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com        Unless otherwise noted, Scripture used from The New Living Translation©

[2] For another post on Ecclesiastes 12:13 see:  Something Better

Measuring Strength

[1]

Monday, September 24, 2018

Just as Death and Destruction are never satisfied, so human desire is never satisfied.  Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but a person is tested by being praised.  You cannot separate fools from their foolishness, even though you grind them like grain with mortar and pestle.  Proverbs 27:20-22(NLT)

When it comes to what humans want, nothing is ever enough!  If a child has a handful of M&M’s they want a truckload.  If they had access to a truckload, they’d wonder how they could get their hands on a fleet of trucks.  And so, it goes…

As adults the equation doesn’t change.  What does change is the size, complexity, and cost of the M&M pile.  It’s like the old rhyme:  There is no difference between men and boys…only in the size and cost of their toys.

Our proverb writer takes a step farther into this deep truth – a fool will remain a fool.  The question becomes:  How can you measure foolishness?  One test for measuring the strength of human integrity (which is the opposite of foolishness) is praise from other humans.  The proverb master suggests that if you want to know if you’re dealing with a fool, praise him.  A fool will respond to any kind of praise and crave more; those with integrity of character may accept a compliment, but it will not change them. 

And a measure of strong character is always why we do what we do.  I am a preacher, called into the ministry of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is not MY ministry, it is a gift with which Christ has blessed my life.  The call compels me to use my time, spiritual gifts, and whatever strength I have, to bring praise to the name of Jesus.  If I am to carry-out this calling with integrity it will NOT be by fishing for compliments on how well I do it; that’s not fulfilling my call – it is pandering my call to satisfy my foolish pride.

That sometimes gets dicey.  In social situations we remember mother’s advice to keep quiet if we don’t have something nice to say.  But some of us, particularly people pleasers, go beyond silence and praise others just to pump them up.  It’s a nice lie.

But what does that say about our moral center?  Should we offer (untrue) praise, just because it makes fools happy?

Well, this whole discussion can lead to a downward corkscrew of what constitutes flattery, and what is appropriate praise.  And the whole thing becomes a semantic morass of acceptable vs. unacceptable words.

Rather, applying the principle that foolishness is empty, and integrity with humility is everything, we should aspire to put praise – words from another flawed human – in its’ proper place and appreciate the thought, but never place enough weight on praise to make it our end goal.  The real goal of a human life is to please God, and fools cannot do that. 

Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.  Proverbs 1:7(NLT)

For You Today

To walk through this life as a wise person, and not a fool, is simply a matter of surrendering your life to pleasing God.  All else is foolishness, and it fails the test of measuring true strength!

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

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