I... Can't... Wait

     1 to 3 inches of snow expected. I know not everyone gets excited at the prospect of snow, but I always have. As a child it meant many things. School closed, sledding, snowball fights, hot cocoa, and so much more. As an adult... the list is pretty much the same. Yes, teachers are just as excited about snow days. To be honest, my favorite thing about snow now, is the snow. I just love the way it looks, I love the cold, and I love the way snow sounds. Next time it snows, really snows, go outside where it is quiet and just listen. You won't be disappointed.

     Excited, that is what we should be. Kids get it right. Ask a kid if they are excited about Christmas and you are almost guaranteed to get an emphatic, "Yes!" for an answer. Ask an adult and the results won't be as certain. So what changed? Why do we stop looking forward to Christmas as much as we did as a child? We should try to recapture that anticipation we had as children. This season before Christmas is Advent, the time when we prepare for the coming of the Christ child. This should be a time of great anticipation. We are anticipating the day that all of history, all of eternity, changed with the birth of a baby in a backwater town outside Jerusalem. I know we are all carrying baggage as we make our way through this year. Jesus doesn't promise to take that baggage away, but He does promise to help you carry it and He promises that His yoke (future post about yokes coming) is easy and His burden is light. So I am not going to tell you to lay your burdens down, I know that is no easy task. I will tell you to let Jesus help you shoulder them. That is what we have to look forward to; that is why we should be looking forward with excitement. 

Old, Familiar Carols

     The year was 1861. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's second wife of 18 years, Franny, was killed when her dress accidently caught  fire in the farmhouse. His first wife, Mary, had died 25 years earlier during childbirth. After Franny's death, he found it impossible to continue his writing and stuck to mainly translating works into English. Two years later his oldest son, Charles, enlisted in the army against his father's wishes and went off to war. Several months later, Wadsworth received word that Charles had been severely wounded in the Battle of Mine Run. In his despair, losing two wives and now potentially losing a son, Henry finally put pen to paper and wrote these words.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
and wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Entitled Christmas Bells, it marries the despair of current circumstances with the hope that Christmas Day promises. I think the words have never had more meaning than they do this Christmas 2020. If this has been a less than stellar year for you, as it has been for me, listen, just listen. You will hear the bells playing old, familiar carols, carols that remind us what happened that first Christmas morning. The bells remind us that God is not dead, he isn't asleep, right will prevail.

I love Christmas music, always have. This year I find it having an even deeper meaning to me as it kindles memories that I desperately need this Christmas. That is my prayer for you, that these old, familiar carols kindle needed memories for you and that you are reminded of the promise and hope that Christmas brings. Wadsworth's poem was set to music and has become a much loved Christmas carol. There are several great versions out there, one of my favorites is by Casting Crowns. I suggest you find it, or whatever version you prefer, and listen for the bells and remember.

Back to Normal?

     A lot of things have taken on a new look in 2020. Many gatherings take place only in cyberspace. The ones that do take place face to face have changed; temperature checks, face masks, and social distancing are now the norm. A phrase heard frequently is, "I can't wait for things to go back to normal." but is back to normal where we need to go?

     620 years before the birth of Jesus the king of Judah, Josiah, decided it was time to get the temple back into shape. As they were cleaning out to get ready to get the work started, the high priest, Hilkiah, made an interesting discovery. He found a copy of the Law buried in a closet. He immediately took it to the king. When the king heard the words contained in the book, he tore his clothes to shreds because he realized that their normal had strayed from the path that God had laid out for them. Their normal was not where they were supposed to be. Over the course of a few generations, "normal" had drifted further and further away from where it had started, tradition had replaced scripture. King Josiah recognized a chance for a reset, to go somewhere other than back to normal. (2 Kings 22:1-20)

     2020 has given us an opportunity to make just such a reset. Back to normal shouldn't be our desire, we need to go where God is leading us and that may not look anything like "normal". "We've always done it that way." is the best way to prevent growth and progress. Let's look forward and instead of going back to normal let's go forward to better. Let's look at this as a chance to figure out ways to to do things better, not to just keep doing things like we always have.  

  

 More Now Than Ever

     2020, the year that never seems to end. 2020, the year of masks, social distancing, shelter in place, oh and a very contentious election. 2020, the year where you can explain away any mishap or difficulty by simply saying, "It's 2020." How do you celebrate Thanksgiving in 2020? Do you even try to celebrate it? Do we actually have anything to be thankful for?

     In February of 1995, Phyllis Campbell took a chance and hired a 28 year old with no teaching experience to teach high school math and history. I had a lot to learn about running a classroom and she was the perfect person to shepherd me through that process. I just want to say, "Thank you, Mrs Campbell, for all that you did to shape my career as an educator."

     Yes, 2020 has been a strange year, but isn't every year? The word unprecedented has been thrown around a lot this year, but if you think a minute you will realize that every year is unprecedented. SO, how can you be thankful amidst all of these unprecedented days? I would suggest you look to the Apostle Paul. His entire ministry was one unprecedented event after another. It started in blindness, included multiple shipwrecks, he had to flee from several angry crowds, suffered multiple beatings, spent several years in jail, and ended with an execution. That was Paul's life and yet he is also the person that penned these words, "Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." (1 Thes 5:18 NIV)

     All of my students have had a hand in molding me into the teacher that I am today. One group requires special thanks though. Coaching volleyball has changed the kind of person I am. Those hours with my teams, facing the trials, pressures, successes, and failures that come with sport have taught me how to recognize the emotional issues that plague teenagers in general and teenage girls in particular. I have always been good at predicting behavior, but I wasn't good with emotions. Well, coaching teenage girls has changed that. I am not going to try to list all of you and risk leaving someone out so, "To all of my volleyball players and those that helped with practices and stats, thank you. I am a better person because of you. You will always be 'my girls'.

     So if Paul could be thankful in all things, even when those things included beatings, shipwrecks, jail, and more, surely we can be thankful in the face of this current pandemic. Yes, things are annoying at times, and yes we have to do things differently, but are those really reasons not to be thankful? Paul said to be thankful in all things, not for all things. That is an important distinction. This year has seen a lot of things that I have not been thankful for, but I have continued to be thankful in them.

     My life is spent almost exclusively around teenagers, and for the most part I love that. It is what I was called to do. It does have a down side though. I can go long periods of time without having a conversation with another adult that didn't revolve around school and teenagers. A few years ago that was starting to take a bigger toll on me than even I realized. It was then that a friend of mine, Amie Willis, decided to go back to school. She needed help with some of her math and science classes and asked if I could help her. She quickly became my outlet for adult communication. Having another adult I could just be Mike with instead of Mr Matt was more important than I understood at the time. "Amie, thank you for being a great friend and more importantly letting me turn off Mr Matt and just be Mike. That has meant more than you will ever know. It has  given me a way to recharge batteries that I didn't realize were running so low."

     So, if you are struggling with how to be thankful for Thanksgiving 2020, try what I have done here. There are people that you haven't said thank you to. Find them and tell them thank you. I think you will find that you have a lot more to be thankful for than you realize. You will find you can be thankful in things, even in 2020.

 Go Stand Over There

Acts 8:26-30

     Evangelism, if there is a word that strikes more fear into the heart of a Christian than evangelism I don't know what it is. It is the odd contradiction of our faith that the one thing we are called to do is the thing most of us fear the most. If only it was easier to share our faith.

     Philip was tired. It had been a long day and he just wanted to go home and relax. That's when he heard it, the unmistakable voice of God, "See that chariot over there? Go stand next to it." Well that's an odd thing to do, thought Philip, but he dutifully headed over to the chariot. When he got there he overheard the occupant reading the following passage, 

“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,

    and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
    Who can speak of his descendants?

    For his life was taken from the earth.”[b] 

So Philip asked him a simple question, "Do you understand what you are reading?" Thus began a long conversation started by a simple question, a long conversation that led to the conversion of one man. One man, but it led to so much more. You see that man worked in the royal court of Ethiopia. That man took his new found knowledge back with him and shared it with those around him. The result? Ethiopia became the home of one of the first Christian churches outside of Israel. All because Philip was standing in the right place at the right time. Evangelism isn't just shouting the gospel from the rooftops, it is more often asking a simple question at the right time. Yes, God calls people to preach and shout the message from the high places, but He also prompts us to just "be in the right place at the right time." So no need to fear the word evangelism, just go stand next to that chariot.

The Dash

     You are going to find as you read that the title has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of this piece. I was going to write something entirely different but it just wasn't coming together like I wanted and it was sounding too much like things other people have already said much better than I ever would. I was going to write about tombstones, more precisely the dates on them. Two numbers separated by a dash. If you want to see basically what it was going to be, look up The Dash. There is even a poem called The Dash.

     Here is what you get instead. Today, after almost 54 years on this planet, I have learned the importance of simple encouraging words given at the right moment. That might seem odd to those of you that know me. That's what I do best, encourage people. Today, I have learned the power of simply telling someone that they are thinking of you and praying for you. Simple words, words that I have said hundreds of times to people going through difficult times. Words, that if I am honest, I have wondered if they actually accomplished anything.

     Well, now that I find myself on the other side of those words I can say that they do. Reading and hearing the words of others, from the most eloquent to the simplest, is a cathartic experience. (Sorry, big word but I couldn't think of a better one.) Galatians 6:2 says, "bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." When several people add their strength to something, no one person has to do a lot of lifting, but the net result is a lot of strength. So that is what you are doing when you send those encouraging words. You are adding a small amount to a much larger whole. So encourage those that are suffering. It doesn't have to be grand and eloquent, simple and heartfelt is fine, in fact perfect.

...and then there's Saturday.

     The week leading up to Easter is a roller coaster ride of emotions. There is the intimacy of sharing communion at the table with Jesus in the upper room on Maundy Thursday. Then there is the anguish and loss of Good Friday. It all culminates with the glory of the resurrection on Easter Sunday. And then there is Saturday.

     Saturday. I think we spend much of our life in that Saturday. We aren't in that upper room sharing a meal with Jesus, we aren't in the deep despair of death and loss, and we aren't in the glory of rebirth. It is just, Saturday. Life goes on and we have to make our way from mundane task to mundane task. Things aren't great, things aren't bad, they just are. We do have an advantage that the disciples didn't have. We know that Easter is coming, even better, we know that Easter has come. We know "the rest of the story." So we may not feel like every day is Easter, a lot of our days probably feel like that Saturday, but we can live in the assurance that tomorrow is Easter. We can live in the assurance of the resurrection even when we don't feel like it.

Back to "Normal"

     So I have been thinking back to my college days a lot recently. No, nothing about the current global pandemic even remotely reminds of my college experience. It does call to mind something I learned though. Some back story. I graduated from a small Methodist college with a degree in math. Being a church sponsored school, every student was required to take one religion class before graduating. Most students were not very excited about this. To make matters worse, there were 2 religion professors, the "easy" one and the other one. Well, try as I might, I ended up with... the other one. Well, to make a long story a little less long, I ended up really enjoying the class and the professor. Yes, he was demanding, and yes he directly challenged these know-it-all 20 somethings to defend their faith, but he also forced us to figure out why we believed what we did. I did well enough in the class that the professor tried to persuade me to change my major to religion.

     Now, I say all that to get to this point. The class was Judeo-Christian Heritage and was an overview of Christianity from Genesis to modern day. One of the things that stuck out to me, and the thing that has me thinking back to those days, is the first century Christian church. It went from a literal handful of adherents to a religion that spanned the better part of 3 continents in a very short period of time. The thing that played a major part in its growth? The obstacles it faced. Despite nearly everything in society working to quell its spread, the gospel spread like wildfire. The early church had to be inventive in how it spread its message to avoid the dangers of being caught. It forced the church to become mobile and it didn't allow its members to get comfortable. The urgency and the cost of believing, instead of being a hindrance actually proved to be fertilizer for the young church.

     Today we are faced with a new set of challenges. No, it isn't particularly dangerous to be a Christian, at least in this country. It is challenging in an all new way. Churches are having to figure out how to assemble when you can't assemble. How do you spread a message when you can't meet? What do you do when, "We've always done it that way." isn't even an option any more? The church is having to flex creative muscles it hasn't had to use in decades, maybe centuries, and it is going to be the better for it. Churches have greatly increased their reach by going to cyberspace. Faith has become more than a luxury to be taken out and put on every Sunday, only to hang it up again until the next week. This crisis will pass in due time and life will go back to "normal", I pray that the church doesn't. I pray that the church is forever changed by this and it sees growth like that first century church.

Faith in a Time of Fear

     Social distancing, what a strange new phrase we have learned. The realities of our world have forced us to at least partially shut ourselves out from the rest of the world. Things are different and not just a little bit frightening. As a Christian, how are we to respond? We know God has not given us a spirit of fear, so should we just go on with our lives as normal? I had been toying with what kind of response I should have to the new normal we are experiencing when I heard the best advice I have yet to hear on the radio. Well, actually they were quoting someone else, someone somewhat unexpected. That person was Martin Luther. Yes, 500 years ago, Martin Luther penned the perfect response to the coronavirus in a letter to a fellow preacher.

     We tend to forget that Luther lived during the Black Plague. We learn about Luther and we learn about the plague, we rarely pay attention to the fact that they overlap. Luther was asked if he and his family, including his pregnant wife, would flee the city for the "safety" of the countryside. Here is his response.

“I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me however I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash no foolhardy and does not tempt God."

As a Christian, you won't find better advice. Pray for protection, take actions to protect yourself, take care not to potentially infect others, and continue to serve God where He has called you to serve. In a nutshell, don't live in fear but be practical. Yes, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but he has given us sense. We need not live in fear, but we also need not be reckless. We also don't get a pass from doing what God has called us to do, in fact, it is more important than ever that we continue to serve God in whatever capacity He has called us.

Tents or Houses

     Moses had just returned with the 10 Commandments and it was time to worship. There was only one problem, there wasn't anywhere to do it. That is when God gave very detailed plans for what would become the tabernacle. Now if you want to see (technically read) the plans, you can find them in Exodus 25 and 26. If you do go and read that, you will find that everything is designed to be portable. All of the furnishings were designed to be easily carried and the tabernacle itself was really just a big tent. Why portable? They were never meant to be there very long. This was just a time of preparing them for what was to come; for a time when they could build a permanent structure to worship in.

     I think today we have a bad habit of building houses where God wants us to put up a tent. We linger too long in places where we should only be passing through; in places where we have things to learn to prepare us for what is to come. If you find yourself in a period of preparation, don't build a house there. Put up your tent, stay until it is time to move on to where you are meant to go and then move on. Don't spend your life somewhere you weren't meant to stay simply because you built a house instead of putting up a tent. Had Moses built a temple where they were they would never had moved on to the Promised Land. That time in the wilderness taught many important lessons in how to be a people, a people called by God, but it wasn't where they were destined to stay. You may be "in the wilderness" right now, but you aren't destined to stay there. Don't build a house and live there, put up a tent.