Dear church,

When you read Matthew 18, I hope you feel how much God loves you. If you haven’t read it yet, please stop and read it now. Just let the words of Jesus soak into your soul. Imagine what it would have been like to be there with the disciples, listening to Jesus explain the love of God to them.

The greatest in the kingdom of heaven is a humble one, like a child. There’s nothing special about the great ones in the kingdom of heaven. They are just kind of “average.” They might blend into the crowd. They don’t draw attention. There’s nothing about them that makes one turn to them. They are like children, running in and out of the crowd. The adults don’t pay them much mind.

We came home today to find Sam playing on the trampoline. He was having a mighty imaginary battle. It was nothing extraordinary. Kids do that kind of thing. Kids don’t think much of that kind of thing. Kids don’t really care whether they are noticed in their playing. They aren’t much for pretenses. For a child, life is something to be grabbed and squeezed for all the joy it can produce.

And normally I wouldn’t have noticed Sam in his epic imaginary battle on the trampoline. But Matthew 18 was in my mind. The great ones in the kingdom of heaven are like this. Like humble children who don’t try to be anything but that.

In our church, we have kids in the back of the sanctuary each Sunday (when we are meeting of course). And as I read Matthew 18, I am so glad that we do. We might hear those kids during our worship or during the sermon or during communion. And when we hear them, we might remember that the great ones in the kingdom of heaven are like “these little ones” – kids living the lives that God gave them, without a care in the world, without comparison to others, without a grasping for image or reputation or stuff. Just kids being kids.

I think about these things as I read Matthew 18. That was God’s reminder for me. There’s nothing about us that makes God loves us. We don’t earn his love. And if we wander off, he’ll come find us. And if we have enormous debts and plead for mercy, he will forgive us.

And so I hope you feel God’s love as you read Matthew 18. He loves you dearly!

Chris

Dear church,

Matthew 17 has the story of Jesus’ transfiguration. There’s a lot of powerful theological stuff packed into about eight verses of the Bible.

Matthew tells us the transfiguration happened “after six days.” So it was the seventh day. It makes me think back to the creation story in the book of Genesis. After six days of creative work, God rested. Things were brought to completion on the seventh day.

And Jesus’ face and clothing shone. Jesus’ face, in fact, shone “like the sun.” That made me think to the book of Revelation where in the new heaven and earth there will be neither sun nor moon, but the glory of God will provide all the light — and “its lamp is the Lamb” (Rev. 21:23).

And so the transfiguration provides a link between the very beginning of the biblical story and the very end.

And, of course, the transfiguration reminds us of Moses going up on the mountain to receive the instructions for the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant. He took three others with him. Jesus took three with him. And unlike Moses’ three friends, Jesus’ friends saw the whole thing. And there’s no physical tabernacle to be built. That work is already done. Again, there’s some kind of fulfillment going on here.

And Moses and Elijah were there, talking with Jesus. Peter had a suggestion, and Peter was cut off by the voice of God. God told the disciples about Jesus, and God said, “Listen to him.”

This, of course, was terrifying, and the disciples fell to the ground. And Jesus came and touched them. “Rise, and have no fear.”

What a story!

I was struck by the touch of Jesus. He touched them. I wonder if that was to remind them of his humanity, of his “with us”-ness. Clearly, Jesus is divine. He is untouchable perfection, but he comes to his followers who are face down on the ground in their fear, and he touches them. I can’t help but think about the comfort that can come from the human touch. And Jesus, of course, spoke words of comfort and reassurance to his followers.

And then Matthew wrote, “And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.” This is probably the key to the whole passage. They saw no one but Jesus only. If there is to be true fearlessness, we must see no one but Jesus only.

Can we say this about our own lives? We have no fear and we listen to him because there’s no one else in our field of vision, there’s no one else in our devotion, there’s no one else who we care to see or hear. No one else is crowding into the frame. It’s all about Jesus and his leading. There is no one else.

Jesus is the one who connects heaven with earth. He’s the beginning and the end. He’s untouchable, and yet he comes so close as to touch us. And he promises that we, too, can live without fear.

Mary and I went to the grocery store yesterday, and people were tip-toeing around the store in masks and gloves. And they would do little dances in the aisles as they tried to get around each other while still maintaining a six-foot buffer. Frankly, that’s impossible to do in a narrow grocery aisle, but they did their best. It was both amusing and sad.

And the anxiety in that building was palpable.

“Rise, and have no fear.” I told the lady in the check-out line it probably wasn’t as much fun as it used to be to work at City Market. She told me how she prays to Jesus that she doesn’t get sick and that the coronavirus just goes away. And then she told me that I should be wearing a mask.

It’s an interesting time to be a Christian. She might be right. It might be we all should be wearing masks and dancing around other people in the grocery store aisles. Sickness remains a real thing, even after the transfiguration. Jesus is coming back to make all things new, but he’s not come yet.

And still, there was not even the slightest stirring in my heart that I should grab a mask. As I listen to his word for me (and it might not be the same word for you), I don’t hear him telling me to put on a mask. I hear him telling me, over and over again, “Rise, and have no fear.”

To me, he seems to be saying – “Live!” Be people of life. Get up, go out, and be a witness to the life you have been given. Rise, and have no fear. To stand before the creator of the universe without fear is the greatest gift of all. Surely, that impacts all that we do.

And when we lift up our eyes, we see only Jesus.

Chris

Dear church,

I learned a new way to make pancakes yesterday. The kids like pancakes for dinner. But it’s such a drag – standing by the stove and watching those circles of batter brown up. Pour, watch, flip, watch, take them off, pour some more, watch, flip, watch – and on and on until I’ve made enough pancakes for the six people in our family. Plus Max the Beagle, who also likes pancakes.

As I was getting everything ready, I said to Mary, “I wish I could just throw all the batter into a pan and bake it all at once.” And she said without hesitation, “You can, no problem.”

I didn’t know this could be done! (Granted, I am not a sophisticated cook.) I dumped all the batter into a large cake sheet pan and baked it in the oven for 12 minutes. It was a life-changer! I’m never going back! No more standing by the stove. No more losing focus and burning some pancakes and undercooking others. In that moment, I felt like a new man. The phrase – “Dad, let’s have pancakes for dinner” – will never be the same.

In our Gospel of Matthew reading today – chapter 16 – the Pharisees and Sadducees asked Jesus for “a sign from heaven.” They wanted to know whether Jesus was approved by God. They wanted to know whether he had a special status in creation.

Jesus responded by telling them that although they could interpret some things – the coming weather, for instance – they couldn’t properly interpret a sign from heaven, or the “signs of the times.”

Jesus called the Pharisees and Sadducees an evil and adulterous generation. To be adulterous is to enter into a covenant and then be unfaithful to the terms of that covenant. We often think about this in terms of unfaithful spouses in a marriage. To cheat on your spouse is to be adulterous.

The Pharisees and Sadducees claimed they were married, connected, bound to God’s Law. But Jesus said they were adulterous. They weren’t faithful to the Law, to God’s way of living. As we read the gospels, we come to see the Pharisees and Sadducees really were “married” to their authority and to the status quo.

Jesus said the only sign they would be given was the “sign of Jonah.” Jonah was a prophet who spent three days in the belly of a big fish before he was spit out. Jesus would spend three days dead, in the belly of death, before he rose again.

That particular sign changes everything for the Pharisees and Sadducees. That sign, if accepted, would have upset everything in their lives – right down to what they did for a living. Jesus was a fulfillment of the Law that the Pharisees and Sadducees claimed to be so attached, and so their allegiance would have needed to switch over to him. Their worship of God would have been directed in new ways, and it primarily would have consisted of taking up their crosses and following Jesus.

That’s the only sign Jesus would give them – his death and resurrection.

I think Jesus knew the Pharisees and Sadducees didn’t really want a sign. They just wanted to be left unthreatened by this carpenter from Nazareth. I think they wanted the people to get over their excitement about Jesus and return to normal Jewish life. And, of course, the Pharisees and Sadducees didn’t want the people’s infatuation with Jesus to cause unnecessary trouble with the Romans. That wouldn’t end well.

Do we really want our lives to be upended by Jesus Christ? It’s true that to accept him means that every facet of our lives must change. Jesus is the ultimate life-changer.

We still do our jobs, but we do them differently – with more unconditional love toward those around us, including our co-workers and competitors. We still love our family members and friends, but we care for them with a knowledge that our ultimate allegiance is to Christ and his church. We still share with our neighbors and communities, but we do this with a fearlessness that our ultimate judge is not humanity but God.

Also, to accept the sign of Jonah is to live out the truth that we no longer have death or the world to fear (Matthew 10:28). That’s an interesting reality today, when the world has so much in it right now that seems threatening and when so many people are stricken with deep fears of sickness, death, and economic ruin.

If we refuse to be an “adulterous generation” and to follow Jesus by laying down our lives, how do we faithfully navigate a world like this?

Chris

Dear church,

There’s something in Matthew 14-15 (our Scripture readings for yesterday and today) about touching and washing. We know all about touching and washing these days. Don’t do the first, and do the second – a lot.

Touching can be dangerous. It can cause us to come into contact with disease, and this can make us sick. People just wanted to touch the fringe of Jesus’ garment, and in doing so they were healed.

Touching Jesus is one thing. Touching other things is another. Because we touch, we must wash. And so we wash for 20 seconds at a time – because we might have touched something unclean.

We went to the school yesterday to pick up Sam’s trombone. The school principal was there with a mask on, and gloves. And she brought out Sam’s trombone. Only it wasn’t Sam’s trombone. It was another kid’s trombone. After the mix-up was cleared away, the principal retrieved the foreign trombone from our car. “We’re going to have to spray this down again,” she said. There was a touch of weariness in her voice. She was tired of washing things.

The Pharisees asked why Jesus’ disciples didn’t wash their hands before eating. The Pharisees had taken an Old Testament law and over-applied it. Read Leviticus 15 sometime, just for fun. The Pharisees had placed a great emphasis on tiny points of the Law while disregarding the serious matters.

The tiny points were about hand-washing before eating. The serious matters were about living lives of purity. Jesus reminded his disciples their hearts should be close to God and the things they did with their bodies were an outflow of what was in their hearts. Unwashed hands don’t make us unclean. No, it is the condition of our hearts that can make us unclean.

As I prayed through this Scripture, I thought about my heart. What is the condition of my heart? Am I paying as much attention to my heart as I am to what I touch – and how often I wash my hands, and with which soap, and for how long? We pay very close attention to our hands these days, and to what we touch. Are our hands clean?

I think Jesus would ask us a different question today. Maybe we can use our hand-washing to our benefit in these days of self-isolation. Maybe every time we wash our hands, we can spend that time examining our hearts. Twenty seconds of conscious attention on our hearts – multiple times per day – likely will have more eternal value than the work of the soap and water.

Chris

Dear church,

I rolled out of bed this morning and went to church. It was a frosty morning, and I had to scrape the windshield of the car before pulling out of the driveway. It is good to see where we are going.

The church building, of course, is empty. It’s always empty now. The worshippers are staying home. The government has commanded it. And the broader church has commanded it, too. It’s not safe for us to get together to worship. If we do, COVID-19 might spread. We love our neighbors by staying home. We can sacrifice at least this much.

But I’ve decided to be that fool who risks his life – and maybe yours, too – to come to church on the first day of the week. Is it actually “church” if you’re alone? Not really. But someone should be in the church building on Sunday mornings. I just couldn’t bear for it to sit empty, vacant of souls, on the Lord’s Day.

The doors, of course, were unlocked already. They always are unlocked – one of the genius things the Redstone church people decided to do years ago. So I turned on the lights. I even turned up the heat in the sanctuary. No one was coming to church. It would just be me. But the lights and the heat – somehow they give a place a little life, even if the room is empty.

The Sunday church gathering, boiled to its essence, is a place of life in an otherwise dying world. At least that’s how I see it. We gather on Sunday to proclaim to the world and to each other that death has been defeated.

Sunday church is where people who have been gifted with eternal life gather. They are people of different backgrounds and personalities and ethnicities, different levels of intelligence and wealth and natural talent. It doesn’t matter who they are. They are all the same in this way – they have eternal life through Christ. And they come to church on Sunday to build up one another even further in the eternal life they’ve been given. They show up in bodies that are perishable and slowly breaking down, and they can quietly note that perishability. And yet they rejoice anyway – because death has been defeated. For Christians, in the church on Sunday, the message is all about life in Christ.

And so I came to church, turned on the lights, and adjusted the thermostat. I can’t help it. Someone should be here.

And I read our Gospel of Matthew passage for the day. It starts like this, from chapter 12, “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.’ …”

I laughed out loud. It’s startling to laugh out loud in a big, empty room.

I laughed because I felt like they were saying it to me. “Look, your disciple is doing what is not lawful to do on Sunday.” (Of course, the Jewish Sabbath is Saturday, but we Resurrection people set apart Sunday to honor the Jewish Messiah. That empty tomb, on the first day of the week, is important.)

The Pharisees had good reason to be concerned about Jesus and his disciples. God had commanded the Sabbath be kept holy. The Sabbath is a gift from God to humanity. There’s a lot that can be said about it. It’s a reminder to us that we exist in time. Our days are numbered. But we number them in a blessed creation, made by God. God set aside one day as holy. And we set it aside week after week acknowledging its holiness and honoring God. Our Sunday “sabbath” honors not only creation but the new creation that we have become in the risen Christ.

And the Pharisees knew the need to protect the Sabbath – to protect the Law. “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” God promised retribution against the nation for breaking his commandments. No one wants God’s retribution. Plus, the Pharisees liked their power – and Jesus in some way was a threat to that.

And I could hear that in my ears. You are NOT allowed to go to church. You are NOT allowed to gather for worship. It is NOT lawful right now. It’s not the government that I’m hearing that from (although the government is saying that). Rather, it’s our fellow Christians.

I suppose church is not “lawful” because it violates the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. That seems to be the prevailing message from the larger Christian community today. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors, and we can love them best by staying away from them and all other people, including other Christians. We want to stop COVID-19, “flatten the curve,” prevent an overburden at our hospitals. Besides, what would the world think of us if we gathered? And so church is not “lawful” right now on multiple counts. We should sacrifice church for the sake of our neighbors.

The larger Christian community is right. Probably. Maybe.

I can’t help but wonder whether we are loving our neighbors (and loving God, which is the great and first commandment) by canceling our worship services. I wonder, when we refuse to gather, whether we are living out the reality that death is nothing that must be feared. I wonder whether we are missing opportunities to witness to others about the toothlessness of death (thanks to Jesus!) when we do what the world does and hide indoors.

The church is fundamentally different than the world. I’m not sure we look fundamentally different right now. We actually may be allowing ourselves to be molded in the world’s image by silently affirming the world’s fears. And we may be missing a grand opportunity to witness about the power of Christ by hiding ourselves from the world and from each other. Satan has to love this.

What if someone contracted the coronavirus and a fearless Christian came and witnessed to him or her – and that person became a Christian, too? But where can you find a Christian these days? Normally, you could find them on Sunday. Not today.

I picture a faithful Christian being condemned, perhaps even by another Christian: “You are risking everyone’s health and safety – even lives – by going to church (or gathering with other Christians anywhere). You don’t care about our lives!” That Christian could respond by saying something like, “I do care about your life. I don’t fear death, and you don’t have to fear death either. The gift is for you, too. Let me tell you about Jesus.”

Maybe you’ve puzzled over these things yourself. I will continue to puzzle over them.

In any event, our church services still are canceled. We will continue to be lawful. It would be peculiar if we did anything else. (Of course, I’ll be here. I can’t help but be here.)

Chris

Dear church,

Chapter 10 in Matthew’s Gospel has a lot for us. I think it has a lot for us especially in these days of being locked down by the government.

The disciples were sent out by Jesus to do the things they had seen Jesus doing – preaching the gospel, healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, and casting out demons. In just the previous two chapters of Matthew, the disciples had seen Jesus do all those things. They had seen Jesus proclaim the gospel in all the cities and villages. They had seen him heal the sick, including Peter’s mother-in-law. The disciples had seen Jesus bring a dead girl back to life. They had seen him cleanse a leper – Jesus touched the man and said, “be clean.” And the disciples had seen Jesus cast out multiple demons – in one case, he just told the demons, “Go.”

The disciples had seen Jesus do these things, and Jesus told them to do what they had witnessed him doing.

This is what discipleship is. People pass things on to other people. We become followers. We witness other people doing things, and we begin to do those things ourselves. The disciples saw Jesus traveling light, and they began to travel light. They saw him acquire no gold or silver or copper, and so they didn’t acquire those things. We follow the example of our teacher.

And the disciples went out and presumably did all the things Jesus told them to do. We don’t know what the result was. Matthew doesn’t tell us that in his gospel. Did they win hundreds of converts? Did they win none? We aren’t told here. It must not have been important. It must just have been important that the disciples went as disciples and did the things their teacher instructed – and showed – them to do.

I think this passage is simply about discipleship – how to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

So what does it mean to be a disciple of Christ. How do we become one? Jesus’ sending out of the 12 disciples makes me think Christianity is more than just dogma or a list of beliefs. Jesus didn’t send out a list of beliefs. He sent out people. And those people were to tell the story, and they were to live it out by their actions. It seemed to matter as much to Jesus how the disciples about their business as to what they actually said.

Maybe redeemed people are the message.

This chapter also made me think about seeing something done and then doing it ourselves. Jesus, in his humanity, showed his disciples the way – and they showed others, who showed others, and so on. Discipleship is about passing it down from one generation of believers to another.

And it seems to me as if we can only pass down what we’ve seen and heard from others. I’ve never seen a Christian teacher bring the dead back to life or cleanse a leper – and so I don’t know how to do those things. But I’ve had many Christian teachers, following in the tradition of the apostles, proclaim the gospel to me. This is the essence of Jesus’ ministry, and it has not been lost. Jesus is the Word, after all. The gospel is news – good news – to be told. “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” – a verse that’s in both the Old Testament and the New.

The kingdom of God continues to grow through the preaching of the gospel. People continue to “proclaim from the housetops” the whispered words of Jesus (10:27).

We might want to think back often on the people who proclaimed the good news on our own housetops. What was that like? What did they say? How did they say it? If their words reached down into our souls and touched us (and we became Christians), would those words also touch others? If they reached me with those words, could I reach others with those same words? Am I doing what they did?

Oh, that’s a lot of food for thought for me!

Frankly, many Christians I know don’t say anything to anyone about the gospel. They are too afraid. Those silent Christians aren’t like the people who proclaimed the gospel to them. They aren’t following in the way they’ve been taught. They are fearful of what others might think or say. They are fearful of seeming in some way to be intolerant or pushy. They may have other excuses as well.

But the people who proclaimed the gospel on our housetops – to us – weren’t afraid. They were bold. They followed Jesus’ instruction, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (10:28). This is a good lesson for me. Am I as bold as I ought to be? Am I preaching the same way in which I was preached to when I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior?

This particular blog post is rounding into a lecture. I feel like pulling it back, reeling it in. You probably don’t want to hear a lecture today. You may want to hear warm fuzzies in a time of national uncertainty.

But we live in a time of fear, and Jesus told his disciples not to fear. He told them to enter into the world as simple, humble people – and to speak the gospel. And when the world pushed back at those disciples, they were to have no fear and to rely on the Holy Spirit and to never give up.

Again, the question bears asking: What do we fear in this time of coronavirus and lockdown and closed churches and canceled worship services?

May God bless you all today!

Chris

Dear church,

I’m not sure what we can do right now. Is it OK to go get the mail? The term “lock down,” I think, is in full force at the moment. The government has locked us down.

Stories have been emerging about how people are spending their time while under this government lock down. People are watching lots of movies and playing lots of video games. Enterprising parents are trying to “homeschool” their children. People are doing really cool things with dominoes.

I hope you are doing well. If there’s anything the church can do for you or any of your neighbors in need, please let me know. We have volunteers who are ready to help at a moment’s notice.

Today’s Gospel of Matthew reading is chapter 9. Jesus begins to encounter questions and opposition in this chapter. Jesus’ willingness to forgive sins, and his hanging out with tax collectors and sinners, and his disciples’ non-fasting were cause for concern among some of his contemporaries.

The one episode that made me pause was Jesus’ casting out of a demon from a man who was unable to speak. Jesus had cast out demons before. And Matthew barely makes mention of Jesus casting out this particular demon. Jesus also had healed people before. In the previous passage, he had healed two blind men. And Matthew notes that when the mute man was healed, he spoke.

I wish I knew what the man said! It must not have mattered because Matthew doesn’t tell us that. He doesn’t tell us that the man spoke prophecy or that he praised God or that he blessed Jesus. Matthew just said the man spoke.

As I was praying through this scripture, I felt God pointing me toward the reaction of the Pharisees. They attributed Jesus’ power to the “prince of demons.” I wondered what about this particular miracle elicited that kind of response from the Pharisees. Why did they react to the healing of the mute man and not the healing of the two blind men just a few minutes before?

I don’t know. But there is something about being able to speak that is important. That’s what I sensed in my own spirit as I prayed through this. So please note, this is from me. This is what I felt God saying to me as I spent time in this text. To be able to speak, to communicate with others in an unhindered way, is a crucial part of our living. Just think how nice it is to talk to someone on the phone for a few minutes as opposed to sending a long string of emails or text messages. Or blogs.

In the human voice, we can pick up all sorts of messages. The way things are said is important. And just hearing someone freely expressing himself or herself is a beautiful thing. And yes, it’s a good thing even if the message isn’t one we want to hear. In our government-imposed lock-down, we especially can come to appreciate the sound of each others’ voices.

And this man was locked down by a demon. He could not talk. And Jesus liberated the man from that demon. And in Matthew’s Gospel, the stress isn’t so much on the casting out of the demon but on the man speaking. “The mute man spoke.” He was freed to communicate with the people around him. And the Pharisees complained.

This miracle made me think about communication and how important it is and how Satan doesn’t want us to speak freely with each other. Bad communication is the source of a lot of ills in the world. Pride often keeps us from speaking freely – or our pride can cause others not to want to speak freely with us. And relationships break down without communication. Our relationships with our spouses or friends or church members or God – they break down without communication.

Jesus healed two blind men, and the Pharisees said nothing. He healed a man who couldn’t speak, and they made accusations against Jesus.

I think there’s something to that. Maybe Satan knows honest and free communication eventually leads to the truth. Maybe Satan knows it leads to us knowing one another and knowing God more deeply. It leads to love for one another. And, of course, Satan hates that.

My take-away was that we should do our best as a church to open up our communication with one another. “The mute man spoke.” It was a miracle that got Satan riled up.

We might say, however, that words can hurt. I agree with that. They can hurt. But hurt can also be turned into a beautiful thing if the communication can continue beyond the hurt. A hurtful comment, after all, comes from somewhere. Someone has a feeling in his or her heart that has been expressed. Keep communicating. Figure out what that feeling is and how it originated. Dig deeper.

A church can be a fairly silent place. We sing and small talk. But do church members always share with one another in real ways? We might not feel comfortable doing that. “Church is not a place to share deep things of the heart.” “I’m not close enough to anyone in the church for that.” “I don’t think anyone in the church is smart enough to help me.” “People in the church might think what I have to say is stupid.” “I don’t think anyone in the church is spiritually mature enough to help me.” “I don’t want to bother anyone with my problems.”

There’s half a dozen reasons a person may stay closed off, locked down, from their brothers and sisters in Christ. You probably could come up with a half-dozen more reasons without much of a struggle. And you can judge for yourself whether these are God-honoring reasons.

My only encouragement is to think about these things. The mute man spoke. He was freed to communicate. The opponents of Jesus had a strong reaction to that.

Chris

Dear church,

My reading from the Psalms today had me in Psalm 55. It is one of King David’s psalms of anguish. Things weren’t going well for David. He wrote “the noise of the enemy” was making him restless. Is there any “noise” that is bothering you today? We come to learn that the crux of David’s problem was the betrayal by a close companion, “my familiar friend.” David didn’t tell us who this person was.

The psalms are like that. They are sufficiently vague (most of the time) to enable us to use them as our own prayers. We can take the concepts and situations that show themselves in the psalms and fill them with our own specific needs and circumstances. Of course, anyone who has been betrayed by a loved one could pick this psalm up and pray it for themselves. But you can explore other ways to use this psalm in your prayers. Perhaps that “familiar friend” is your body. Perhaps your body is failing you in unexpected ways. There is much to lament in that. You might find more ways to use this psalm as well.

And, of course, this is a psalm of hope. “Cast your burden on the Lord,” David wrote, “and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.” It reminds me of the parable from yesterday about the man who built his house on the rock. He was unmoved. He heard and did the words of Jesus, and nothing could shake that house. It stood firm. The faithful are sustained by Christ, and he will never permit them to be moved. I just encourage you to look for ways for the psalms to guide your prayers.

Our Gospel of Matthew reading today is chapter 8. There’s a lot of action packed into that chapter. A healed leper. A healed servant. A marveling Jesus. A healed mother-in-law. Demons cast out. A teaching about discipleship. A calmed storm. Marveling disciples. More demons cast out. And there was a lot of “begging” going on. I hope your time in reading this chapter was fruitful.

For me, I focused on the calming of the storm. The disciples did “follow” Jesus onto the boat. We have to give them credit for that, especially after Jesus laid out the high cost of following him.

As I prayed through this little story, I sensed Jesus’ response to his frightened disciples come to the front. It stood out to me as highly important. The disciples rushed to the sleeping Jesus and said, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And Jesus admonished them. “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” He didn’t admonish them for coming to him in their time of need. He admonished them for their fear.

Jesus was not afraid. He had been asleep. We are to be like Jesus – people who have dealt appropriately with fear, people who have given all things over to God.

I’m sure we could talk about this everyday, especially in this time of the coronavirus. People are scared. If they are not scared about getting sick themselves, they are scared about their loved ones getting sick. And if they aren’t scared about that, they are scared about the wrecked economy.

For me personally, I can find myself getting worried (scared?) about the future of the church – not just the Church at Redstone but the church in America. I believe the church cannot be the church unless it gathers together. There’s something sacred that happens when we gather. We’ve had television and internet church for a long time, and it’s a cheap, cheap substitute for the actual, embodied gathering of the church. And so I worry that people might become satisfied with their internet churches – like eating Pop-Tarts instead of real food.

And so this is a time when many people can be fearful about many things. Jesus’ teaching to his disciples, both through his words and through his example, was they should not be people of fear – ever. Not even when the boat is getting swamped and it is impossible to see through the wind and the rain.

So I picture how the disciples could have acted differently. They could have sized up the situation with calm in their hearts, recognized that it was beyond their ability to fix, and then sought the aid of Jesus. They could have simply given it over to him in confidence rather than a frantic last resort. In faith, they could have left the result completely up to him – fearlessly ready to live or die with Jesus. And when Jesus rebukes a storm, there’s a “great calm” that follows.

This is actually heavy stuff. How are you doing in this area? Keep reading in the Gospel of Matthew! I know you’ll be blessed if you do.

Chris

Dear church,

Mary brought home toilet paper yesterday. Twelve fat rolls. Nice. It’s amazing how we take things for granted. Toilet paper is now a thing to be celebrated.

Our Gospel of Matthew reading for today is chapter 7. It’s the last part of the Sermon on the Mount, and I zeroed in on the last little teaching of Jesus – the parable of the man who built his house on the rock/sand (Matthew 7:24-27).

I pictured drilling holes into a large slab of rock that’s been exposed at the surface. Those holes would be where I would insert piers. My house would be fixed to that rock. It almost would be part of  it. That’s the image I had – drilling holes into the rock so that my house could become part of the rock.

Jesus seemed to be telling us to be prepared for storms – the rain, the floods, the winds. Storms will come. The wise man is prepared because he hears and does the words of Jesus. The foolish man hears the words of Jesus but does not do them.

And so that caused me to glance back over Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount – to live out our lives of faith from the heart, not for the sake of appearances; to live for eternity rather than for human riches; to not be anxious by knowing that God remains in control; to not judge others; to pray to our heavenly Father; to follow the Golden Rule; to enter by the “narrow gate”; to be wary of false prophets who come in sheep’s clothing; to really know Christ.

We do these things. And when the storms come, we are secure.

How many people today have no sense of security, no sense of peace? Their roof is leaking, and their house is tilting to one side. There’s a great fear of sickness out there right now, and I suppose that’s warranted if this earthly life is all there is. As Christians, we can say something else. We protest that kind of thinking. Eternity stands in front of us.

And there we are again, drilling holes in the rock. And some people may have said to us in the past, “What are you doing? That’s an impossible task. It’s easier over here on the sand.” And we would say that we are building wisely. And we know that it’s an impossible task, but we have help. And we also know that the storms will come.

And in this “storm,” we are unaffected. Yes, our daily lives may have changed dramatically. The streets are terribly empty. And the government is commanding us to stay home. And everything is just logistically more difficult. But in real and deep ways – in the only ways that really matter – our lives are unaffected. We are as secure today as ever.

It’s a blessing to be able to stand in the rain and floods and winds. We are unmoved because of our Rock. He’s the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And his promises are good for eternity. And we can share that message with those around us who don’t have that kind of foundation, those who are worried, those who are lashing out in fear. We have good news to share as we stand strong.

That’s it for today. May God bless you. Don’t take for granted the fact that your foundation is a firm one!

Chris

Dear church,

My reading in the Psalms today started with Psalm 42. “As the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.” It was a perfect psalm for today, when for the first time in my life, there was no church service to attend on Sunday morning. “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” I encourage you to read Psalm 42.

We will be back together again soon. We may feel a little disconcerted right now with the continuous cycle of negative news and our quarantined lifestyles and our lack of church gatherings. But we can hope in God.

In our reading plan in Matthew today, we’re looking at chapters 4-5. I spent some time this morning praying through the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4:1-11. Jesus went into the wilderness and fasted for 40 days. He was alone. He was hungry. All that he knew was behind him – gone. His mother. His brothers. His friends. His neighbors. He was alone. He was in need. He was weak.

Jesus was completely isolated from the world. Social distancing, I guess you might say. And then the devil showed up.

As I prayed through this passage, the word “afraid” came to mind. To be in that state – alone and weak – and to encounter evil must have been … scary. We can say what we want about the divinity of Jesus. We can say that surely the Son of God never would be afraid. But also, surely the emotion of fear was one Jesus would have had to deal with in some way. If Jesus was fully human, he had to do something with the natural human tendency to fear.

As we live out our lives in Christ, we must let him lead us in this area. This is a time in our society when things are being stripped away and left behind. Many people are losing their jobs. We’re losing our sense of financial security. We’re losing our face-to-face contact with other people. Our schedules are interrupted. Fear is a natural emotion to have in these times.

And so as I prayed through this Scripture passage, I thought about being alone and needy and fearful. And I thought about temptation. I thought about how temptation can enter into our lives in those circumstances. And I thought about my own temptations.

A little self-disclosure here: When things are stripped away, when they aren’t going well, I’m tempted to be angry. I don’t know why, but it’s the truth for me. This is how the devil works in my life. I’m tempted to be short-tempered and easily annoyed. I’m tempted to forget the peace that surpasses all understanding. Think about your life and temptations. In those isolated moments when you are alone and needy and the normal things in life are stripped away, where do the temptations come?

Jesus, of course, resisted the temptations. And he banished Satan. “Be gone, Satan!” He called the devil by name and sent him on his way. And immediately, angels came and ministered to Jesus. Why would the Son of God need angels to minister to him? I suppose it’s that “fully human” part again. Jesus separated himself from the temptations of Satan and pulled closer to his heavenly Father. And he received the help that his heavenly Father has to give.

And again, as we live out our lives in Christ, we need to let Jesus lead us here. Resist the devil and he will flee from you (James 4:7). And we can stop and receive the ministry that comes from heaven – the help and healing that comes from God.

I suppose the lesson, at least for me, is to recognize the temptations that come when I get a little disconcerted – when the world isn’t doing what I want it to do, when the things that I want are stripped away and I am left feeling empty. Perhaps it is the temptation to fear. Or the temptation to become angry. Or something else.

I should let Christ lead me through it. Rebuke Satan. Call him by name and send him away. And wait for God. “Hope in God,” as the psalmist wrote.

Have a good week!

Chris