Month: February 2016

There is not a doubt in my mind that Jesus was God in the flesh. Not a doubt. In John 14, he said it himself; “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” In other words, when God looks in the mirror, he sees Jesus. Not Buddha. Not Mohammed. Not Moses. Jesus. He was, as they put it back in Nicea in 325 A.D., “very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father.” Amen. Here, though, is what’s hard for me to grasp. “For we do not have a high priest who … Read more…

Precious little potential adults. Tiny packages of tightly compressed energy. Imagination factories. Manufacturers of fun. Laughter machines. The main reason we have balloons, Happy Meals, birthday parties and lawn sprinklers on hot summer days. They make mothers into mommies and fathers into daddies. They can turn a tear into a smile in twelve seconds flat. Or an immaculately clean house into a dump in less time than that. Truth tellers, they are, and chaos creators. Heart breakers. Memory makers. Time takers. In the span of nine months they can accomplish what their grandparents couldn’t in two decades; turn twenty-something party … Read more…

Three powerful characters drive the action in Second Samuel 6, and all three teach some important lessons about worship. From Uzzah, we learn to take God’s holiness seriously. David teaches us to practice holy self-forgetfulness. It’s kind of hard to focus on God when you’re fretting about how you look to others. Michal teaches a lesson, too. And it may be the hardest of all. Michal did not like what she saw, not one little bit. David’s liturgical dance welcoming the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem was undignified, inappropriate, irreverent and un-kingly. Her late father and king, Saul, would … Read more…

At our first church, we always held a New Year’s Eve singing that started around 10-ish and finished up at 11:59:45, at which time we’d count down the seconds to midnight. Then we’d pray in the New Year and adjourn to the fellowship hall to eat pancakes. I don’t remember if we called it Praise ‘n Pancakes or Glory ‘n Gluttony. Either way, it was a grand tradition. One year, our oldest, most conservative elder, Virgil, was leading some of the singing in the pre-pancake part of our service. Virgil was the main preacher and I was his associate. He … Read more…