Happy Passover! Happy Easter!

Passover week is forever linked to Easter week ... for an important reason.

God delivered Israel with a mighty hand of judgment and an outstretched arm, but he didn’t do it overnight.  Not that he couldn’t have.  As God said to Pharoah through Moses, “By now I could have wiped you off the face of the earth.”  But God had his purposes. 

God’s deliverance of Israel came in stages, so that his people would prepare themselves and come to know the character of this God who had chosen them, planted them, nurtured and protected them from the time of Abraham to the time of Joseph. And then let them wallow in slavery for 400 years … only to enact a greater deliverance.

God’s judgment on the Egyptians came in stages, so that Egypt would come to know and fear him as Almighty God.  At first they mocked Moses.  Then they came to respect the actions of the God he served and tried to pacify him.  Finally they were in abject terror because after ten warnings followed by successively destructive natural disasters, they were convinced these were not “natural.”  Egypt drove them out of their country, freeing them forever in a great coup.

God was doing SO much more than freeing slaves and lifting oppression, as great as that was.  He was creating:

·       a witness to his people of his character

·       a witness to the proud Egyptians

·       a witness to their pantheon of gods (Nile, frogs, etc.)

·       a witness to surrounding nations

·       a celebration of their freedom (the Passover)

·       a testimony to their future generations (Passover Seder yearly)

·       a new nation (Israel)

·       a challenge to Pharoah’s worldly power

·       an archetype of the freedom journey (used on the Mayflower, used in the Civil War, etc.)

·       a prefigure of Jesus Christ’s  triumph through death (the lamb becomes the lion)

·       a promise of God’s ultimate deliverance of the whole world (New Jerusalem)

 That’s why the Jewish Passover is forever linked to the Christian Easter.  God delivers.

 He is Risen!  He is Risen indeed!

Jesus Revolution - from California to Ohio & Texas

I’ve spoken and written my testimony many times – how I came to know Christ through a Billy Graham movie, and then a book called The Cross and the Switchblade , and finally through an on-fire youth group called Children of God (COG). But I never knew that what we were experiencing in Ohio was somehow linked to a Hippie movement in California, a Hippie named Lonnie, and a Pastor named Chuck Smith.  That part is the story that Jesus Revolution tells. If the leaders in my community had known of that connection, the message never was widely spread. All I knew was that I was touched and changed by the Holy Spirit, and kids from all over Springfield from different churches were gathering at Grace Lutheran Church on Wednesday nights to sit in a circle and sing along to Mike Nace’s guitar.

So now I will tell the part of my story that reflects the color of the local Jesus Movement. 

We were called “Jesus Freaks” and we didn’t mind.  In fact, it was kind of a badge of honor.  If the “world” didn’t understand, that made our experience of what God was doing all the sweeter.  With my more mature years, I realize the fallacy of that attitude as exclusionary, but that’s what we had and what we seemed to need at the time.  We were teenagers who weren’t understood by our parents.  We needed a place to belong, and the only place we were understood in our newfound passion was with others similarly “touched.”  We were a bit anti-establishment, as the Hippies were, but without the sex, drugs and rock-and-roll of that worldly culture.  So where could we fit in?  Only with those of our own kind.

 

The music we sang was pop culture, but it was also corny.  After all, it sprang up almost overnight against a backdrop of centuries-old hymns.  Yes, while the secular culture was singing anti-establishment Bob Dylan and other “thoughtful” and reactionary protest songs, those touched by the Holy Spirit in the Jesus Movement were neither at home with those nor with the hymns.  Every revolution needs its anthems, so we had “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love,” “It Only Takes a Spark to Get a Fire Going,” “Jesus, Jesus, I Love You So,” and the edgy “I Wish We’d All Been Ready.” They were a spiritual version of sitting around the campfire and singing “Kum Bah Yah.” But many of these simple songs were also able to help us express our heartfelt gratitude to the God whom we were intimately experiencing.  So, any “outsider” who judged them either on musicality or on theology would have been rejected, and rightly so.

 

It was a time of “us against the world” on so many fronts.  As teens we were not doing many of the activities of our peers.   As students, we felt the need to challenge worldly attitudes in our high school classrooms, and to compare literature we were studying, for example, to what we were reading in the Bible.  This made us stand out even if we didn’t want to.  At church, we were groaning to experience real heartfelt worship, but the three organ-accompanied hymns were over before we had a chance even to get started! We wanted to shout “Hallelujah!” and “Praise the Lord,” when everyone else was sitting quietly with heads bowed. We wanted to greet people at the door with a hug and sincere “Jesus loves you!” but that was just too radical for church culture.  At home, our parents thought we were in a cult.

 

On a personal note about my home life, after I got filled with the Holy Spirit and received my prayer language, the Lord began to coach me in intercession.  I had a six-foot wooden cross installed in my bedroom.  I pushed aside clothes and shoes and dedicated my walk-in closet to long prayer times.  My mother would come in and find me reading the Bible in my free time.  And although I dated, belonged to school clubs, took piano lessons, and kept a high gpa, I also attended Wednesday night COG, Sunday morning church service, and Friday night ministry or connection times with other youth groups. Most of the time my mother did not forbid me to do these things, although she did look askance at me and feared I was in a cult.  She did put her foot down one time when I told her I was fasting.  Being a Christian in my home was an uphill battle.   Mom definitely did not understand me, and although my father attended church he also thought “God helps those who help themselves” was in the Bible.  I felt alone, and sometimes persecuted.

 

There was one on-fire group in our town that was sponsored by a mainstream church, and that was called The One Way House which was connected with First Christian Church.  This was an actual property outside of town complete with a farmhouse, a barn, and a creek.  The leadership was young – late teens, early twenties – and the rest of those who came were even younger.  Kids came, they sang and worshiped, they listened to teachings from the Bible, they prayed together, they “fellowshipped” (our word for socializing among Christians), they got saved, and they got baptized in the creek. It was an amazing time.

 

I suppose we took it for granted that this kind of thing had always been going on and always would be.  Because we were so young we didn’t have any perspective about revivals and movements of God.  Not until I moved away to college in Texas did I come to realize that this was a time and a season in the sovereignty of God. 

 

And yet, the Holy Spirit was just as much with me as I studied at my Catholic university in Dallas as he had been back in my Lutheran youth group.  As a matter of fact, he beat me there!  For when I arrived, I was immediately swept into an ecumenical Spirit-filled Catholic-Protestant prayer group on campus.  I also began to attend an auditorium-filled Sunday evening gathering led by Catholic priests, nuns, and lay leaders called “The Christian Community of God’s Delight.” The thousand-fold worshipers began by lifting praise to God in newly-written canticles and Spirit-songs (music which ebbs and flows and harmonizes, led by an unseen Conductor).  Then one-by-one individuals led by the Holy Spirit would step up to the microphone to give a prophetic word, an encouragement, or a Scripture.  We ended with one of the leaders recapping those individual messages, and we could always see that, somehow, just as with the music, a Divine Message had been given to us all. 

 

After this service, we were dismissed to go to individual classrooms where we learned how to be filled with the Holy Spirit, what the Bible says about tongues, prophesy and spiritual gifts, and how to operate in those gifts.  It was amazingly organized, biblical, and beneficial.  Again, I took for granted this ecumenical move of the Holy Spirit.  My Catholic friends and I, seeking to understand our common ground, concluded with assurance that it was “JESUS.”  This was my first cross-cultural experience – sponsored by the Holy Spirit.

 

This testimony has been an attempt to reflect just a bit of what was going on in Springfield, Ohio and Dallas, Texas in approximately 1971 – 1974. I have since learned that this microcosm is merely a drop in the ocean of what God was doing from California to Florida in that season – the season we called the Jesus Movement, and that Time Magazine dubbed  the “Jesus Revolution.”

 

Jesus, revive us again!  The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come!”

The early music of Love Song, the band from the movie: https://youtu.be/66DlLkh6o4Q 

Good Neighbors With No Fences

Next month I will celebrate 28 years of living in my neighborhood. I live on a cove with 5 other houses. We all know and care about each other, but of course that didn’t happen overnight or without intention.

We are a cultural mixture. Some families are of one race, some of another race.  Some families are Democrats, some Republicans. Some are gay, some are straight. Some go to church, some don’t.  But we don’t seem to pay much attention to those things.

Over the years various neighbors have done favors for me.  They have delivered medicines and groceries.  They checked on me if they thought I was sick.  They have driven me to physical therapy appointments.  They have given me produce from their garden.  The children of one family have made greeting cards for me.  One time, long ago, a very special lady drove my son to the hospital when he broke his arm.  One family has block parties and invites us and other neighbors into her home.  And one neighbor even helped rescue me from an attacking hawk!  I have babysat for them, taken them baked goods, homemade jam, Easter baskets and birthday presents, and prayed for them.  In return I have a safe place to live and the knowledge that I am never alone.

I think I know what Robert Frost was getting at when he wrote in “Mending Wall”: “something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that sends the frozen ground swell under it,”¹ for nature tends to tear down barriers,  but people have to be intentional. 

My block is not like the neighbors in Frost’s poem, but is more like Scout Finch’s description in To Kill a Mockingbird:

“Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives”²

One day I was at a party at one of these neighbors’ homes, along with a lot of people I didn’t know.  My friend greeted me in a heartwarming way.  She welcomed me and then turned to her guests and announced:

“I have a Beto sign in my yard and she has a Ted Cruz³ sticker on her car…” then she reached over and put her arm around my shoulder and hugged… “And we love each other!”

Be intentional, my friends.

1.Mending Wall by Robert Frost

2.To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

3.Beto and Cruz were opposing candidates for the U.S. Senate from Texas.

Who is to Blame -- the Jefferson Statue

We're angry!

Jefferson owned slaves!

Tear his statue down!

The statue of Thomas Jefferson, commissioned to celebrate the Louisiana Purchase centennial, and sculpted in bronze by Karl Bitter, was paid for by the students of Thomas Jefferson High School in Portland in 1916.

The statue was recently toppled and vandalized by protesters.

But who do we blame for this statue?

Do we blame the Cuyahoga County Courthouse in Cleveland, Ohio for commissioning the original in 1909?

Do we blame Karl Bitter who sculpted the statue out of marble and replicas in bronze.

Or perhaps the Roman Bronze Works of New York who cast it?

Do we blame the Exposition Executive Committee of the St. Louis World’s Fair which commissioned a replica?

Do we blame the Jefferson High School students and alumni who raised the money to put up their statue in 1916?

My question is this:

Did anyone ask any of these people if it was OK to tear down their statue?  This was private property, probably owned by the school district or the City of Portland, and those who desecrated the statue violated their property rights, to say the least.

Another question for those who vandalized it is this:

Are they so incensed at the existence of this statue that they will now destroy all copies of it, which are currently displayed in Cleveland, Brooklyn, Charlottesville, and St. Louis?  What about all the other statues and memorials currently honoring this 3^rd U.S. President?  And all references to him in books, paintings, student textbooks and the like?

I doubt it.  Their act was symbolic.  It was aimed to create a reaction, and it certainly has.  Destruction of a country’s symbols inflames the patriotic. 

The vandalism may not have been anti-American, but, as the graffiti states, a protest against slavery by the BLM.

But if it was a Black Lives Matter group that aimed to topple Jefferson as a symbol of the oppression of Black Americans, they missed their mark.  For one thing, they failed to notice the inscription on one side of this statue which shows that Thomas Jefferson, whatever his faults, agreed with them.

“BEAR IN MIND THIS SACRED PRINCIPAL, 

THAT THOUGH THE WILL OF THE MAJORITY IS IN ALL CASES TO PREVAIL, 

THAT WILL, TO BE RIGHTFUL, MUST BE REASONABLE; 

THAT THE MINORITY POSSESS THEIR EQUAL RIGHTS, 

WHICH EQUAL LAWS MUST PROTECT, 

AND TO VIOLATE WOULD BE OPPRESSION."  

-- THOMAS JEFFERSON.

LOSING EASTER

I have always loved Easter traditions – the flowers, the special new outfit, the music, the food, the family gathering.  And there’s the egg-coloring with the kids, hiding baskets of goodies for them, Easter egg hunts.

But how will we celebrate Easter in quarantine?  Most of the traditions I can think of would be impossible or would be “virtual” realities.

Time to rethink.  What was the first Easter like?  Not all of  that.  They had a sad and confusing meal.  Then one of their number deceived and betrayed them and left.  Then they all went out to an olive grove where their leader spent the night in groaning and prayer, and asked them to also.  They disappointed him and fell asleep.  Suddenly the deserter came back with armed guards and took their leader away.  They scattered.  Some of them watched him die. 

Then they went into hiding.  While still hiding out, some of their women sneaked out to Jesus’ grave, which was guarded by soldiers, and came back saying they saw him alive.  More confusion and chaos.  Dare they believe it?!

While still in seclusion, they waited.  What else could they do?...  They waited and prayed in the midst of terror and visions of Jesus appearing and disappearing.  It must have all been very disorienting.  So much changed so quickly.

Then they tried to go back to their old jobs and make a living, but everything in their lives – their whole world – had changed.  Finally the resurrected Jesus gave them new orders.  They all had a new life and new jobs.  It was a new day they never could have imagined before.  (Read the book of Acts to see what that life was like.)

I see some parallels between the condition of the disciples in hiding, and our current social distancing, do you?  Rapid change, fear and uncertainty, unparalleled events, and separation from others.

Pause.  Let’s rediscover the First Easter this year.  Let go of the layers of tradition which don’t work while we are “sheltering in place.”  Wait on God.  Pray.  Perhaps God has a new life and new jobs for us after this.

RICH WITH PRACTICALLY NOTHING

A mechanic pulled up next to me just when my car broke down.

A friend walked into the garage just when I needed a ride.

A visitor picked up some medications for me just when I ran out.

Are these all coincidences?

I don’t think so.

But you may think otherwise.

We can see such opportunities as serendipity, or as karma, or as God’s favor.

 The Psalmist tells us that our own efforts only go so far, and that we do need God’s favor and help:

“Unless the Lord builds the city, the workmen labor in vain.  Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.”

It’s humbling.

We Americans love our independence.  We love action.

We have to be intentional about trust in God.  But if we do.  Even if we only give him a little bit of faith.

He multiplies it.

2 becomes 4.

4 becomes 8, or 16, or 48.

And 2 fish become 5,000.

Prayer:

“Jesus, when my faith is small, don’t let me forget what you can do with practically nothing.”

(Prayer quoted from Cynthia Ruchti in Mornings with Jesus.)

A Series of FORTUNATE Events

My car shook with a “clunk clunk” sound in the middle of afternoon traffic on Highway 183 South. But following me in her car was my co-worker, Cynthia.  I managed to pull over and park, and minutes later Cynthia pulled up next to me.  Just as I lifted the hood and was wondering whether to call for a tow, a man in a truck pulled up and offered to help.  He spoke very knowledgeably and as I walked over to him I saw that the insignia on his shirt read Arbor Car Wash and Lube.  As it turned out, amazingly, all I had to do was drive a few feet to the Arbor garage parking lot to get my car checked.  Within a few minutes, a kind mechanic at that shop had run a diagnostic and told me the error codes.  No charge.  Soon I was on my way and Cynthia continued on to do her errand.

The second fortunate event was the next morning when I pulled into the Firestone Station to have my car serviced.  I was there the first thing early, and the service manager offered to do a free routine check and to use the information given me by the other mechanic to diagnose the car – saving me $100.  As I waited in the customer lounge, I was shocked to see my good friend Elizabeth, whom I had not seen in years, walk in the door.  We embraced with enthusiasm, and then spent the next 45 minutes pleasantly catching up and encouraging one another in the Lord.   When her car was ready but mine was not, she offered to drive me home.

Back at home, I made some breakfast and had only taken a few bites when my office manager, Karen, pulled up in front of my house.  She had kindly offered to take me to work.  I thought I might as well get some hours in at the office, and then  later call someone else to take me back to my car.

That’s when the third fortunate event occurred.  As we drove toward Hwy 183 North, we had not gone more than a couple miles when my cell phone rang.  It was the Firestone manager, and my car was ready for pick up.  So quickly!  Then just up ahead  of us, I caught a glimpse of the Firestone Station, so I quickly shouted to Karen, “Turn right here, turn here!”  She was able, instead of veering left onto the entrance ramp of Highway 183, to make a quick right turn, and drop me right back at the door of the Firestone Station. 

This was a bit too much for me.  I was dazzled by the split-second orchestration of each event since the previous day.  It was as if an invisible hand had moved the chess pieces of all our lives around in perfect harmony – meeting my needs perfectly and even blessing a few others along the way.  I hadn’t prayed, except a quick “Help me” when my car started to shake, yet it was as if God was right there in the midst of us.

I did have to spend a significant sum for the repair, which I had not been anticipating, but I got in my full day of work on both days – didn’t miss a beat.  And I suspect that the God who orchestrated all of these fortunate events, will also be able to handle my repair bill.

For Holocaust Remembrance Day – MY VISIT TO DACHAU

In 1975 I was travelling in Germany, and I went to visit Dachau Concentration Camp.  Back in those days no one said stupid things about the Holocaust having been a media invention.  We knew it had been shockingly real – our parents had fought a war not only to protect our nation but to liberate peoples being conquered and exterminated by the Nazis.

So, I went out of curiosity, but the type of curiosity mingled with deep reverence and even dread.  It’s somewhat near the feeling you have when you attend a funeral.  Unpleasant, but important.

There was still barbed wire around the compound, and the heavy iron-grilled gate was still in place, although of course it was open and we could enter and leave at will.  Still, there was a slightly creepy sense upon entering – knowing the stories of horror told by many of the survivors of this and similar camps.  One building had been made into a museum, and there were long hallways of pictures, and they included the entire history of the rise of Nazism, Hitler, the camps, the war, and finally the liberation.  People filed silently and somberly along these hallways, reading, staring, riveted by an invisible force that wouldn’t let them look away, drawn like moths toward a dangerous flame. Disturbing. It’s the kind of experience where you ask yourself: “Why am I doing this to myself?”  But you already know the answer.

The pictures were all within arm’s reach – this was no ordinary museum. The most unexpected – shocking – part of this for me was that in every picture where Hitler was depicted, his face had been gouged out, smudged and spit upon.  You could feel the hatred, disgust and despair emanating from those eviscerated photos.

Outside this building we could enter one other building that was still standing.  This was one of the many barracks.  It was a long rather thin wooden structure, unadorned with any decoration or color that would lift the mind or spirit.  Inside were row upon row of plain wooden bunks, hundreds of them.  There was no privacy, no personal space, no comfort, no hint of individuality.  It was depressing just to stand there.  I quickly left.

The last part of the experience was the only redemption.  At the back of the lot, three small open-air chapels had been built, one each for Protestant, Catholic, and Jew.  This was a place to stand and reflect that this evil era had come to an end, and that good had triumphed.  It was a place to be grateful to God.

It's Nobody's Fault! -- thoughts on aging

Are you caring for an aging parent?  Perhaps you did care for them and now they have passed away.  There are many lessons to be gleaned through such a gargantuan task.  If you are currently involved in this task, you are likely too busy to read this!  If so, just read the four headings. J

This morning my thoughts turned to the last seven years of my mother’s life, those years of caring for my mother – how she changed, and how I changed as I helped her and walked with her through that tumultuous time.  My insights crystallized into four statements about the changes and difficulties of aging and dying:

1)       It’s no one’s fault. 

As I helped Mom with the normal everyday tasks such as cooking, cleaning, paying bills, and as we had to face monumental changes together – moving, leaving things and people behind, giving stuff away, switching the parent-child role – she would get angry a lot.  And she was angry at me.  I comforted myself and felt “guided” through all this by clinging to the thought, “These difficulties, sadnesses, and griefs are because of aging, and it’s no one’s fault.”

2)      You can’t fix it.

My default mode is fixing things and making them better.  The changes of aging can’t be fixed.  They can only be endured and lived through together.  It was a radically different kind of living for me – to make gargantuan efforts without being able to “fix” Mom, or fix her life for her, or make all this go away.  It was valuable to experience this in a “head on” sort of way, because, truth be told, there are lots of things I had been trying to fix in my life that were not in my power to fix.

3)      It’s not going to have a happy ending.

Watching someone age, and knowing that someday they are going to die, is the ultimate downer.  The thought could have presented itself, “If it’s not going to have a happy ending, why try?”  Most people are tempted to quit when the obstacles are too high and the outcome is anything but assured.  In fact, it is downright heroic and even mystifying when someone presses on in the face of unbeatable odds.  In To Kill a Mockingbird, when Atticus tells Scout that defending Tom is something he has to do even though he probably won’t win, I am admiring yet confused.  But now that I have gone through it myself, I understand -- there are a few things in this life that are worthy in themselves, regardless of “success."

4)      It’s all going to be OK.

It’s not really explainable, but love makes it all OK.  Love, and God, and eternity.  Knowing that I had given my all for Mom, that I had truly loved her as a daughter should, gave me a sense of rightness and completeness that nothing else in my life has done (other than raising my children).  And that love has an “outside of this world” component.  There was a sense of God walking with us.  This made it far better for me than if I had walked with her toward death and knew there was nothing else.  That would have been senseless, purposeless.  But with God, everything, even aging and death, seemed to have purpose – even if that purpose didn’t fit into my puny brain at the moment.  After she passed away, I was laid low with heavy grief for a while, but I glimpsed her life in that Great Beyond, and I knew she was now OK and happy --- more complete and happy than she ever was or ever could have been in this fallen world.  Amen!  

“All will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well.”

HELP FOR THE "IDEA MAN"

“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is 

   the purpose of the Lord that will be established.”

I find this to be the case in my life.  I am constantly coming up with new ideas.  I have planned and designed schools, written K-12 curricula, written business plans, written several books, and much, much more.  It seems every few days I have a new idea.  On paper.

But the frustration of this creativity is that very little of it gets put into actual practice.  Should I be discouraged?  Give up having ideas?  Give up planning?  I don’t think that is the best answer.

I think the answer to this is that God has given me rivers of creativity, but only He can direct the river.  He is the one who has the big picture.  Rivers that overflow their banks and have no limits are just called floods.  They don’t do any good for anyone.

But when God directs ideas, He causes them to be actually put into practice and to last.  That’s the promise that they “will be established.”  And there’s a BIG difference between ideas in your head, or on paper, and those ideas that become houses where people live, businesses where people work, crops that people eat, and so on.

When King David had ambition to build a great temple for God’s glory, God stopped him in his tracks.  He didn’t say to him: “Forget it, David, you’re just full of hot air.  That idea won’t fly.”  Instead he said: “That’s an excellent idea, but you are thinking too small.  You want to put together bricks and mortar – which will only last a few decades.  Instead, I will build you a house, and it will last forever.”

Think of it – a house that will last forever.  That kind of house is not made of humble materials like stone or wood, but of something only God can create – human beings.  And specifically, that One Human Being who was both God and man and whose kingdom will have no end.

Now, THAT’S the big picture.

So, when I tell God,  “Hey, I’ve got this great idea,” He doesn’t laugh at me, although I’m sure He must chuckle to himself sometimes.  But He says, “Daughter, that’s a very good idea, but turn it over to me.  I will take the very best of your ideas, which I have put into your heart, and I will bring others alongside to complete them. And even better, you will not be the one to create your own legacy, but I will create a legacy through you which will last.”

It takes patience and faith to let God create a legacy through you.  I don’t get to see it right now.  I only vaguely have the assurance that there is something out there, something not yet complete, and I will get to see it all someday.

In the meantime … back to the old drawing board … now what was that idea I woke up thinking about…