An Ever Rolling Stream

Since the hymn has six verses, the fifth one is not one that is always sung.  Somehow, it is that very verse that I have been singing the last few days.  It is an Isaac Watts hymn entitled, "O God, Our Help in Ages Past."  Though written in 1719, the church is still singing it.  The fifth verse begins with the words, "Time, like an ever rolling stream..."  It is not hard to figure out why those words have stuck in my mind like glue.  A long time ago, I stepped into this ever rolling stream and for almost seven decades now, I have been carried forward by it.  The shore has always been there, but for some reason, I have remained surrounded and overwhelmed by the waters of the stream. 

Having been in retirement now for over six years, I find myself more conscious than ever about the time that is flowing around me.   I remember as a young man that time was really not something I thought too much about and while I do not sit around counting the minutes and hours, I am so aware of the precious nature of each day.  Each day is truly a gift.  One of the things I resolved to do when I entered this season of my life was to be more aware of the present moment.  To the degree that I have been successful, my life has been enriched and when I have failed, it has surely been diminished.

Time is a not an enemy to oppose, but a friend who gives valuable blessings.  Those lines Watts wrote about time cause us to sing, "Time, like an ever rolling stream, bears all who breathe away, they fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day."  And it is true.  Some who waded through the waters of the stream are no longer with me.  They found their place on the shore.  I miss their presence and wonder why I have been blessed to go forward so long.  Each step forward is taken with thanksgiving as I remember I have not traveled alone and when it does come my time to go to the shore, the Savior will be there waiting for me.  Until then, I wade on with a grateful heart in this ever rolling stream.

One More Post Christmas Musing

This year was the first time I had heard of the Blue Christmas Service which the church is offering for those who find Christmas to be more tougher than joyous.  Hard times do not necessarily stay away from folks just because it is the Christmas season.  These hard and difficult moments can create scaring memories which seem to bring pain on each anniversary of the moment.  When I was seven years old, my father was buried on Christmas Eve.  No Christmas has passed through the decades of life that this painful memory is not remembered.  No matter how much joyous celebration is around, it never completely obscures the memory. 

 

Of course, I am not the only one who has such memories during the Christmas season.  It is good to see the church responding with sensitivity and care for those who find the Christmas season to be filled with a mixture of pain and joy.  The Blue Christmas ministry reminds me of other opportunities for the church to express special sensitivity for people whose experiences take them outside the normal response of a particular holiday.  For example, Father's Day and Mother's Day can be very painful for children who have lost one or both parents either because of death, divorce, or abandonment.  It is hard for such children to be in a church environment which gives them no room to deal with their own parental issues.  Also, on Mother's Day or Father's Day, there are Moms and Dads who desperately want to hear a child call them by that name, but it has never happened.

 

Caring for people is not always easy in the society of ours with such diverse needs, but how important it is that folks in pain do not fall through the cracks while everyone else is celebrating.  The special days will always have special meaning for us as they should.  The Blue Christmas Service speaks of a church stepping into a field of ministry where many people have been dwelling unnoticed.  May it give birth to other ministries for the ones who find their hurts amplified by the holiday.

Even More Post Christmas Musings

As one who grew up singing songs like "The Old Rugged Cross" and as one who has come to count as a favorite hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross"  it just seems strange to see the cross decorated with Christmas lights.  It just does not feel right.  There is something about the sight that causes my sensibilities to flicker.  Yet, there it is, nonetheless.  A six foot cross planted in front of a church is no strange sight, but decorate it with red and green Christmas lights and it is something which does not fit together. 

 

One is a most sacred symbol; the other more a symbol which belongs to a secular culture promoting a commercial Christmas.  There was nothing pretty about the cross upon which Jesus died.  It depicts one of the world's most horrible scenes.  Like many others before and after Him, Jesus was hung on a cross to die a slow and terrible death.  But, unlike those others, His death spoke of God's undying love for each one of us.  It is hard to understand the kind of love made known to us from that horrid place so full of suffering and pain, but our inability to understand it does not diminish it in the least.  On that cross our Savior died, somehow taking upon Himself the consequences and punishments for all our sins so that we might receive something other than what we rightfully deserve.

Decorating that symbol which speaks of so much suffering on the part of Jesus simply seems a bit odd.  The old rugged cross speaks of the death of Jesus for me and you.  It became a necessity because of our disobedience and sin.  Jesus went through a hell of suffering to make a way for us to once again be right with our Father God.  It can stand alone.  It needs nothing else to cause men and women to be drawn toward it.  A Savior raised up to die is enough.  No red and green Christmas lights are needed.

 

Still More Post Christmas Musings

Even with a great big and very bright heavenly star to guide them, the men from the East needed direction.  Finding Jesus who was wrapped in obscurity and poverty was apparently no easy task.  When they got close, they went to Jerusalem and asked King Herod, "Where is this child who has been born king of the Jews...?" (Matthew 2:2).  Maybe the men from the East assumed one they knew to be a king would surely be born in a place of prominence.  If so, they were surely wrong for Bethlehem was no Jerusalem and the animal stall was no hotel room.

 

Those traveling men were not the first to have difficulty finding the poor, nor are they the last.  Those of us who travel the journey of our life often need directions as well.  Not long ago while visiting another town noted for its upscale lifestyle, I drove through some of the communities which were not gated but could have been.  As I looked at million dollar homes on lakes and golf courses, I could not help but wonder if some of these pseudo rich, owned by the bank folks knew where the poor lived in their community.  I wondered if they ever saw them. And while their extravagance is not mine, there is enough in my own life to cause me to wonder how in touch I am with the fact that the world around me is filled with those living in a poverty I cannot comprehend.  And, perhaps, it is also a poverty I do not want to see.

 

Certainly, during the Christmas season it is fashionable and appropriate to lift the cover of obscurity from the poor of the community so they can be showered with the gifts of the seasonal "well-meaners," but then after a moment, they will be allowed to disappear again.  Unlike Jesus who seemed to attract the poor and the broken, there seems to be so little about our own lifestyle that invites the downtrodden of the world to seek us out as those who can surely be counted as one of the compassionate and caring ones of the world. 

More Post Christmas Musings

When I was pastor at the Vidalia United Methodist Church, a much younger preacher came to serve a church in one of the adjacent small towns.  Even though the congregation was nowhere near large in numbers, he planned a traditional three hour Good Friday service during that first year.  I remember asking him, "What will you do if no one comes?"  I also remember his answer, "I will read the scripture lessons and pray the prayers.  Some things are important enough you just do."  It has been over twenty five years and as is obvious, that young preacher left a lasting impression and taught me a lesson at the same time.

 

This year the calendar put Christmas Day on a Sunday.  As I noted the response of some to that uncomfortable dilemma, I remembered my old friend.  In response to Christmas being on Sunday, some churches made the decision to adjust schedules, have worship on Saturday, or not have any services at all.  The rationale is understandable.  "Everyone will want to spend time with family on Christmas morning," or, "No one is going to come so we might as well make the best of it."  While the message being sent to the church members is supposedly a family friendly message, I wonder if it might not also be a message that says, "We don't expect folks to say that the celebration of the Christ event is going to take precedence over all the other stuff of Christmas."  I fear it is the message of lowered expectation, the message of accommodation, the message of finding the easy way.

 

Maybe all of this speaks of being  old fashioned and out-of-date, but I would rather think it speaks of being out-of-step which is more where the church should be than where it often seems to be.  Jesus said, "...the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life..."  (Matthew 7:14)  The gospel has always been the message of sacrifice, the message of the hard way and there is always something sad about the message being compromised for the sake of expediency.

Post Christmas Musings

Sometimes random thoughts just pop up as if out of the blue.  It is a mental phenomena not always understood.  As I listened to some unwanted Christmas music on the car radio back in the early days of Advent, I found myself making some comparisons between Christmas and Easter.  As we all know, Easter is the chief celebration day on the Christian calendar.  If such celebrations were given a numerical value, Easter would be number one.  As the Apostle Paul reminds us, throw away the resurrection and the gospel is an empty thing.   After putting Easter firmly on the top of the totem poll, I would place Good Friday and the crucifixion just below it.  And then, Christmas would show up as a number three.

 

But, have you ever noticed that there is far more Christmas music than Easter music.  Check out that church hymnal.  Listen to the Christian radio stations announcing that Christmas music will begin on December I and imagine the same thing happening three weeks before Easter.  Not a chance!  By the time we get to Christmas, we are worn out, wishing it was over, but with Easter, there is truly holy space to anticipate it and then to relish the joy of the moment.  It is not just the secular community which does such a number on Christmas that its arrival is greeted more with relief than joy for the sacred community jumps on board that ship as well.  The church just cannot seem to do the waiting of Advent and chooses instead to jump pre-maturely into the celebration of Christmas.

So, what change do I think might come as a result of this post Christmas musing?  Actually, none.  Any hope of change on the part of the church seems impossible to consider given the way the church of our day seems so willing to take its marching orders from the secular community around it.    Common consensus gives legitimacy to all sorts of stuff which the written Word of scripture would never do.  Who knows?  Maybe, this is more lament than musing.  Or, maybe it is just regret that the secular society around the sacred community of the church is not being shaped and influenced by the powerful message given by the Holy Spirit to the church brought into being by the Christ. 

Then, and Only Then

A baby born in Bethlehem,
     but first,
         sweating and stretching,
         strength given up to straining,
         silence broken by screaming,
Then, and only then,
      a baby's low cry,
      a mother's whispered love.

A Sonrise in the garden,
     but first,
         sweating and stretching,
         strength given up to straining,
         dying done in darkness,
Then, and only then,
      trumpets sounding,
      great victory won.