OUT OF THE DARKNESS INTO THE LIGHT

A few years ago, while living in North Florida, I took the kids fishing at Watertown Lake. Like all of the lakes there in North Florida the water was very dark. They say it’s from all of the tannins in the oaks. I think it’s beautiful- like a tea that has been steeping for thousands of years. The lake has a long, L-shaped fishing pier that goes out beyond its weedy fringes into deeper water, and after the kids spilled out of the van, my oldest, Bowden, led the charge, clomping out over its rough wooden boards. He ran the length of the pier, with his younger siblings trailing out behind him like a sled dog team. They ran in order of age- Lucy, Jack and little Miles who was just four years old at the time

I watched as Bowden baited his hook and then cast a line into the water. His younger siblings also watched, and then they came running back to me clamoring for their own rods, which I had been carrying for them. I set up shop near the middle of the pier. Lucy  moved a few yards off to my left and gave her new fishing rod, which she had received as a Christmas gift, its inaugural cast.  I was busy untangling Jack and Miles’ fishing rods and baiting their hooks while they peered over the side of the dock looking for “alligator bubbles.” Going fishing with small children requires a lot of patience. Their lines are forever getting tangled, and they can't bait a hook or cast or wait patiently. Basically, they can't fish. Fishing with little kids is really more of an investment in the future. The hope is that they will grow up loving fishing with Dad and that when they are older it will become something for us all to do together. I had finally gotten their lines untangled and was busily baiting their hooks when I heard Miles say something about “bubbles.” I looked up just in time to see him slip head-first off the side of the pier into 10 feet of coffee-black water.

Jack instantly began shrieking at the top of his lungs, “He fell in! He fell in!” while jumping up and down in a tearful frenzy of fear and desperation. Lucy dropped her rod and yelled, “Daddy! Daddy!” A woman, who was also fishing just a few yards to my left and who had also seen Miles fall in, cried out “O, dear Lord, have mercy.” The black water suddenly looked sinister as it swallowed Miles up. Of course, I jumped into the lake after him. The adrenaline took over completely. I didn’t feel the cold of the water or the weight of my clothes. In such a moment a parent exists for just one purpose. I tried to open my eyes underwater, but I couldn’t see anything. So, I moved my arms back and forth until my fingers felt the bundle of sweatshirt and hair and warmth that was my little boy. I grabbed him with more strength than was necessary and brought him back into the sunlight.  I delivered him into the waiting arms of bystanders who hefted Miles back up onto the pier. By the time I had regained the pier myself, Sarah had already whisked Miles away to the van where he was being dried off and wrapped in a blanket. My heart threatened to beat right out of my chest.

But later that night, after I had put the kids to bed, I opened the book I was reading and found a bookmark that Miles had made for me earlier that morning. He had drawn a cross on a piece of paper and had proudly presented it to me. “The cross stands for Jesus,” he had explained. “You can use it for a bookmark if you want.” My heart ached as my mind filled with dread at the thought of what could have been. Then it flooded with relief that Miles was tucked safely into his bed down the hall. It felt like when you wake up from a nightmare and for a few moments you are not sure which world is real.

What if he had died? What if I had been on another part of the pier? What if nobody had seen him fall in? What if? That was too terrible a thought to entertain, and too ugly to look at for long. If Miles had died that day I’m not sure I would have had it in me to come back to the house. I would have wanted to seal the place off and never go there again. I can’t imagine the pain of seeing his bath toys gathered quietly near the drain, or his pajamas hanging out of the side of the hamper, or the spot near the front door where he had scribbled on the wall, or that bookmark he had given me. My life came all too close to being divided into before and after we went to that lake.

But he didn’t die. I jumped in after him, found him, and brought him back.

And this is a picture of Christmas.

I had told Miles not to go too near the edge, just as God told Adam not to eat of the forbidden tree, but when Miles fell in I did not stand on the edge of the dock and say, “Serves him right!” No, motivated by a fierce love, I jumped in after him. That was the behavior of a sinful man, how much more could we expect from the God who is love and righteousness. When all of mankind fell into a place of dark separation and death God jumped in after us as well.

Christmas is a celebration of the moment when Jesus jumped in after us.

Miles was powerless to save himself. He could not swim. He needed someone to come to him, find him in the cold and the dark, and deliver him back into the light. This is also a picture of our condition when we were saved. We were cut off. Hopeless. Helpless. Utterly lost in the darkness. We had neither the wisdom nor the power to move toward God, but he came to us. That coming to us is Christmas!

This is what Luke 1:78-79 says, speaking of Jesus, “…because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” Colossians 1:12-14 says, “…giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

I SEE DEAD PEOPLE

The only formal training I had received in delivering a death anouncement was during my time at the Police Academy. One afternoon, the belt broke on a vacuum as it was cleaning one of the academy's hallways. The TA's were always quizzing us about the various things we were supposed to be learning as well as various terms, statutes and core values that we had been charged with memorizing as well. An unsatisfactory or incomplete answer meant that you were going to be sweaty for dinner. When the vacuum died we had just received a block of instruction on CPR so our minders thought they would use this as an opportunity to test our knowledge of cardio pulmonary resuscitation. They singled out another guy and demanded that he perform CPR on the broken vacuum cleaner. Giggles ran up and down the line as the poor guy struggled to blow on the handle only to be told that the mouth was down near the base. "YES, SIR!" He was all ate up. Who wouldn't be? Especially, with two TA's breathing down your kneck, stetson brims pressed into your forehead, and yelling abuse at you as you struggled to recall how to perform CPR. With horror I realized that they were calling me to help him save the vacuum cleaner. We had also learned two-man CPR. I didn't fare any better. I remember that in the confusion as I violently did chest compressions on the vacuum bag, dust began to fill the hallway, which caused the TA's to hastily declare the vacuum dead. After dinner they had us deliver a death anouncement to the other vacuums in the janitor's closet.

This was what I thought about as my cruiser nosed its way down Lincoln Avenue toward an address on the south side of town. Another police department had called that morning to inform us that a man, whose Mother lived in St Albans, had been found floating dead in the Connecticut River, and they wanted me to drive over to her house and break the news in person.

My cruiser stopped in front of an unassuming two story, white with green trim and a screened in front porch. I reached up over the visor and retrieved the envelope containing a neatly folded piece of letter-head on which I had typed the name of the officer in charge of the investigation and his contact information. Then donning my stetson I stepped from the cruiser and gamely walked up onto the porch.

That is such a strange moment- it's like the calm before a storm that you're in charge of unleashing. It's miserable. I did a gut check and knocked on the door. There were some words that needed to be spoken and, once uttered, I would be free to drive away from this woman's nightmare. I heard feet shuffling down the hall, and I steeled myself for what had to be done. The door opened to reveal an older woman, with thin graying hair and a cigarette smoking in her left hand.

I said what needed to be said in the kindest words I could muster. I asked her if I could call anyone to come be with her. I got her a glass of water from the kitchen. Strangely, even harder than breaking the news of her son's death was making my exit. How can you walk away from a woman who is crying, devastated, and alone? I wished she would take me up on my offer to call someone, anyone, to come be with her, but she claimed to have nobody. She eventually gave me my out by thanking me for coming and showing me the door.

"I'm truly sorry for your loss, Mam."

Those words rang hollow. How empty.

As time passes, my memories from my brief tenure as a police officer have grown dim and kind of fuzzy around the edges. Names and streets elude me now. Unfortunately, however, some memories remain horribly vivid. Like the time I kicked in the door to an old woman's apartment and found her decaying remains in the back bedroom, or the handful of suicides I responded to. There was also "Pie-Dog's" car crash down on the lake road. That's to say nothing of the half dozen or so "untimelies" that I was called upon to document for the state. With latex hands and a screaming heart I turned them over, and ran fingers through their hair, looking for wounds. I noted lividity, counted medications, and diagramed the scene. Every corpse is filed away mentally, catalogued in vivid, macabre detail. I can remember feeling a sort of tingly, light-headed sensation each time as I walked into the presence of a deceased human being.

I want to be macho and say they didn't bother me, but that's not true. They did. They still do. Worse than the corpses though were the walking dead- men and women who were trapped hopelessly in their self-destructive lifestyles. The walking dead haunt me. They were slaves of compulsion, caught up and born along in a current which would lead inexorably to their own destruction. Every time I dealt with them I would come away with just one question- How's it going to end? I wondered if they saw the trajectory of their lives as I did.

I'm not sure I could help them, but sometimes I want to try. I know Christ is the only answer to their problems.

Fellow Christian, isn't it a joyous thing that the Great Commission does not task us with giving death announcements to the living but rather life announcements to the dying.

Here's a life announcement from Ephesians 2:1-6:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,  even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

Go out today in the power of the Holy Spirit to notify the dead that they can find the life abundant in Jesus!

GODLY vs. GODLIKE

Most people read the story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet in John 13:1-17 and interpret it as a command to humble themselves and sacrificially serve others, and that is certainly a right and true interpretation. In fact, it is the primary meaning of that text. However, it is equally true, yet less commonly emphasized, that it is also a command to let others serve us in our neediness.  

There are many in the church today who need to be confronted again with the truth that, as followers of Jesus' example, they must actively use their gifts, and their homes, and their time, and their cars to be a blessing and a help to others through Christian service, but, in the main, I have always found Christian communities to be marked by an open-handed generosity and a willingness to serve sacrificially. Maybe not perfectly, and maybe not everyone, but for the most part Christian communities seem to evidence a wonderful heart of service. This is not only something that I have personally experienced and benefitted from, but, as a pastor, I also often hear the stories from others of the extraordinary and challenging example that some are setting with their radical commitment to serve as Jesus served.

But let me ask you something. Which seems like the harder assignment to you; washing someone’s feet or letting someone wash yours? Which is harder;  to show up like a knight in shining armor in the midst of somebody’s crisis, or to meekly ask for help?

Sometimes the strongest servants have the hardest time allowing others to serve them. Those who love to meet the needs of others often have the hardest time seeking help for their own needs. And. This. Is. Sin.

There is a thin line between trying to become like God in character and trying to become like Him in essence. When we serve others sacrificially we are imitating the character of our God, but when we act as though we are self-sufficient and have no needs we present ourselves as being God’s equal. This betrays a grasping desire for the place of God, rather than a desire to be like Him. Both pursuits are, in a sense, acts of worship but the object of worship changes away from God and toward the self when we refuse to confess neediness within the body. This is spiritual embezzlement and a misappropriation of glory!

Fellow Christian, it is true that you were made by your Creator with certain strengths and gifts, but it is also true that you were purposely designed with limitations and areas of weakness. Both are from God for your joy. You are gifted in order that you might be a blessing and a help, and you are limited in order that you might be blessed and helped. The church is intended by God as a community where we meet needs according to our strengths and have our needs met according to the strengths of others.

Christians are needy people, and this is so because need is the very fuel of worship. If you find yourself unable to enter into worship it is because you feel no particular need for God. As Luke 1:53 says, “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.”

If we are not honest with one another about the needs in our lives--- if we try to be godlike rather than godly--- we miss out on the joy of having our needs met within the diverse giftings of the body, and we rob others of the joy of using their gifts in service to us. Of highest concern, however, is the fact that we rob God of His glory because if we do not humbly confess our need, instead of our unified testimony being that of a community where needs are being met by Christ through His body, the church, then our testimony is that we are a community of little gods. Self-sufficient do-gooders. Again, This is spiritual embezzlement and a misappropriation of glory! Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, do you wash my feet?" and  “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”

Some Christians need to be reminded of the necessity of joyous service, but others, like Peter, need to be reminded of how needy they are.  

Another question, what is your greatest need today? 

Health scares? Cracked teeth? Marriage in crisis? Depression? Addiction? Sin-habits? Crushing Debt? Wayward children? Are you anxious about something? Are you contemplating suicide? Are you lonely? What is the need in your life that your mind returns to over and over again throughout the day?

Does anyone in your church family know about that need?

You are not designed to carry that load alone. It will crush you if you do not allow others to share. If no one in your church family knows about your need, then you don’t need to be told to wash other people’s feet. You need to be told to let others wash yours.

GIFTEDNESS IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THE CAUSE IT SERVES

I heard a song on the radio. Its sound was bigger than its lyrics. It was like a finely crafted box of the highest quality, whose maker had imagined it filled with beautiful, meaningful things, but whose owners had inexplicably chosen to fill it with a few broken crayons, some candy wrappers and a hair scrunchy. This song was like that.

It had a driving beat and complex layers of sound that danced and flirted before harmonizing into a beautifully simple symphony. However, as I gazed in at the lyrical contents I was sad to find that they were not beautiful or meaningful or worthy. They were not even sufficiently cryptic that I could see in them whatever I wanted to see.

Giftedness is only as good as the cause it serves.

THE WORSHIP WARS

In Joshua 5:13-19 we read about an encounter that Joshua had with an Angel before the battle of Jericho. It says that Joshua, “lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord.”

 Joshua, who apparently didn't recognize right away that the figure was an  angel, essentially asked, “Are you on our side or their side?”

 And the Angel answered, “No.” 

 The angel could not really say that he was on the side of the Israelites. He served God and as long as the Israelites were in the center of God’s will he would be there also, but God will not be pressed into service to a human cause or group or faction, and with a great economy of language the angel reminds Joshua of this dynamic. "I’m on God’s side and you better be also."

 I think about this in connection with the so-called "worship wars." Singing together in worship is designed by God to proclaim our unity with Him and also to create unity within the body as we join our voices together in praise. It’s ironic then that this gift, which was intended in part to display and reinforce Christian unity, has caused more division in modern times among God’s people than perhaps any other. The worship wars have divided more than a few churches, and it’s sad that Christians are fighting over the very thing that should be uniting us.

The fault lines are familiar to us: 

The old hymns vs. Modern Worship Music.

 Do we sing from hymn books or do we project words on a screen.

 What instruments are allowed on the stage?

 Some denominations insist that all songs should be sung acapella.

 I know of another denomination that thinks the church should only sing the psalms we find in the Bible.

 Do we use special lighting? Or does that feel too manipulative?

 Do we emphasize corporate singing or solo performances?

 For some the music is too loud or it’s not loud enough.

 Too amateurish. Too polished.

 It’s too emotional. It’s too stuffy.

 Some prefer an upbeat happy worship experience, others want the service to strike a more somber, reflective note.

 Some don’t like when they introduce too many new songs, but others ask, “Why do we sing the same songs over and over?”

 One person likes a twangy southern Gospel sound, another likes rock and roll.

 Musical tastes and preferences in worship are very diverse within the body, and we tend to pigeon hole others based on their stylistic preferences in worship. 

When I was growing up--- in junior high and high school--- when I would meet other kids for the first time they would always ask me, "What kind of music do you listen to?" It was a ritual, like when two dogs sniff each other, and they weren’t just making conversation either.  What they were really asking was, "what kind of person are you?" Or maybe, to be more exact, "are you my kind of person?" I know this is true because most kids would answer nervously, "I listen to a little bit of everything," which was the same as saying, "I can be anyone you want me to be."

I sometimes get a similar feeling when someone asks me about the worship style at my church. I worry that what they are really asking, “Is your church my kind of church?” or even “Are you my kind of Christian?”

In 2013, Stephen Miller wrote a thoughtful piece for Relevant Magazine entitled "The Modern Worship Music Wars." In it he wrote about the dangers of spiritualizing preference. Preferences are normal, and even to some extent good because God loves diversity, but, as Stephen Miller observed, the real danger lies when people begin to assign spiritual value to their preferences, or a lack of spiritual value to somebody else’s preferences. For example, if somebody is naturally drawn toward a more traditional, hymn-based corporate worship experience, that person might exalt that as the most spiritually helpful and genuine expression of worship, while simultaneously demonizing a worship experience that they deem to be more “flashy” and produced and modern. The reverse can also be true. Someone might wrongly think that the Spirit has gone out of a church whose preferred music style is more conservative and traditional, because they personally prefer a more energetic and emotive worship scene. When Christians think like this and talk like this--- Making our preferences the standard--- we will invariably come away thinking of others who deviate from that standard as somehow less. This is arrogant, and not very helpful. 

In the worship wars everybody seems to think that they are on the side of the angels, but I suspect that if we, like Joshua, actually asked the angels whose side they’re on---are you for us or for that church with the fog machine?--- they would probably answer, “No.” And if we want to experience God’s power in the midst of our worship we need to move beyond asking him to affirm and ratify our preferences toward a greater understanding of what is most pleasing to Him and what is closest to His heart.