Cell Phones In Church

Just thought this was funny! A wonderful message for a modern church!

I've Been Thinking About Good Friday And Easter

This is my latest contribution to our local newspaper's Pastors' column. It's due to be published on April 6:

I get the honour this year of offering some thoughts on what almost everyone would agree is the “highlight” weekend of the church year – Good Friday and Easter. I will be honest and admit that year after year I struggle with Good Friday and Easter – not because I don't understand them, but because it's hard to think of anything new or fresh that one can say about them. A few years ago, I realized that perhaps I had created my own problem. Maybe there's nothing new that can be said about Good Friday and Easter. Maybe everything that can be said has been said. Maybe trying to come up with things that are new and fresh and “exciting” actually downplay the significance of what actually happened. Maybe we just need to proclaim it – Jesus died and Jesus rose from death. There you have it. Good Friday and Easter summed up in a mere seven words!

Oh, I suppose it isn't quite as simple as that. If it were that simple everyone would believe it, and (sadly from my perspective at least) not everyone does. And I suspect that there's nothing I can write in the space of a short column that's going to convince someone who doesn't believe those seven words to suddenly embrace them. It's the Holy Spirit's job to do that, not mine. But if I'm not called to convince, I am called to proclaim and because I'm called to proclaim this, I have to believe it. I've always been taken with the words Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians: “if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then our preaching is useless, and so is your faith.”

The Christian church and the Christian faith exist today because Jesus died and rose again. If he didn't, then there's no point. A lot of people over the centuries have tried to make the church into something that it isn't called to be: an arbiter of ethics, a keeper of morals, a political power, an oppressive tyrant, a religious social service organization. I don't know why we feel the need to be constantly trying to make the church something that it isn't called to be. So, what is the church called to be? We are a community of people who celebrate the living Jesus! We are a community of people who gather in his name and try our best to carry on his ministry to the world around us. We are a community of people who are overwhelmed with gratitude at the realization that in the cross of Good Friday, we see an act of divine solidarity, as God (in Jesus) submits to experience suffering and even death itself, and we are a community of people who are overwhelmed with joy when we realize that in the Easter event of resurrection, we see that the bonds of death (which to us seem so final) aren't final to God – which fills us with the hope that we too (with God's help) will overcome the bonds of death.

I believe I'm on safe ground in saying that the very existence of the church testifies more eloquently than I can to the truth of Jesus' resurrection. Not that the church is perfect. Far from it. Ever since its beginning the church has made mistakes and sometimes even engaged in evil. But at its best, the church is a noble and powerful institution – not financially or politically but in its ability to touch people's hearts and lift their spirits. But without the resurrection of Jesus, I doubt that the first believers – as harshly persecuted as they were – could have, without exception, stood firm in proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus unless it had really happened. Someone under torture would have cracked and said “it didn't happen. We made it up.” No one did. You can be sure that if someone had, it would have been recorded by history.

So, it did happen – just as we read. Jesus died and Jesus rose from death. Good Friday and Easter. That's what this weekend is about. That's why the church celebrates its faith throughout the year – because Jesus lives, even though he died! I hope you, too, can celebrate that fact! Happy Easter!

Musings About Sunday, April 1

It's Palm Sunday and I'm preaching on a passage from the Book of Revelation - 21:1-6! (No, I'm not a lectionary preacher, at least not right now.) How to tie the two together - or, is it even necessary to tie the two together. It's probably not necessary (I mean, we're going to have Palm Sunday hymns for the first half of the service, so the content will be there) but I think I'll tie it together anyway.

This follows last Sunday's message on Isaiah's beautiful prohecy in ch.65. That reflected as well on the peacefulness of the future promised by God. This week, I want to move the topic more directly toward reconciliation with God, because that's going to be my main Good Friday theme - the cross as reconciliation.

First, I changed the working title. It was originally "The Greatest Promise." I was going to reflect on the fact that in Jersualem, the people were drawn to the promise that Jesus seemed to hold out to them, and then look at the promise in Revelation 21 of a creation and a people completely at one with their God. But I've changed my thinking a bit. The new title (with apologies to Charles Dickens) is "Great Expectations." I'm going to reflect on (1) our expectations of Jesus and then (2) how our expectations can be so easily disappointed (thus, the Palm Sunday connection - Palm Sunday led to Good Friday because Jesus didn't do or accomplish what people expected of him) because they're often based narrowly on our own needs or wants, and then (3) how the Revelation passage points us ahead to what our real expectation should be - perfect peace and reconciliation with God.

So a fairly typical three point sermon structurally at least.

The most significant image for me is that in the vision God is present with his people - no need for a temple where the people would meet God; God is simply there; we are simply with God. No barriers; no separation. That's the vision, but surely it's more than just a future hope. It must be pointing us in some way to a present reality as well. We have all sorts of barriers between us and God - most of our own making. How do we deal with them? How do we gain intimacy with God? Can we?

We're having Communion. Do I need a Communion tie-in? What should it be? (Does the New Covenant represented by the Cup bring us into a state of union with God now, so that while we may have to await it in all its fullness, we can still experience it now?)

Thought For The Week of March 26

"But that’s not the way it’s going to be among you. Whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant." (Matthew 20:26) Our society measures greatness in very specific terms. Wealth, power, fame - even brute force. Those who possess these things are the "great" among us. The rest of us are along for the ride at best, exploited by the "great" at worst. But Jesus turned the whole thing upside down. The great are those who give of themselves for the sake of others, not those who use others for their own ends. The great are those who - even if they don't possess much worldly greatness - make a positive difference in the lives of others. The great are those who willingly cast off the trappings of worldly greatness and are content offering humble service while receiving little in return for themselves except the satisfaction that they have served both their neighbours and their God faithfully. We are all invited to share in that kind of "greatness!" Have a wonderful week!