The Pastor's Page

We are less than 40 hours away from a whole new year. While our starting and ending dates for the year are quite arbitrary, they have a tremendous symbolism! We do much more than simply turn the page on the calendar, or start a new tax season. We make promises and set resolutions. We decide to lose weight. I have a friend striving for sobriety in the coming year. Their start date, January 2^nd. Honestly, they wanted to get the holiday season and all its temptations behind them before, feeling they would pretty much guarantee failure if the began in the middle of a season with so many temptations.

First Presbyterian Church is facing an exciting year. The challenges and adventures, the rewards and the struggles are, at this point, all hypothetical. They are signposts on the horizon, mile markers along the road, things we use to judge our progress on our journey, to help us keep direction as we travel.

Where will you go in 2019? Where will you start, and where is it you would like to find yourself at the end of the year? I know that my calendar changed dramatically 6 weeks ago. I find myself altering long kept schedules and making plans for destinations and tasks I never thought would be mine.

Going through that process of redirection does involve some excitement, but it also involves a sense of loss. The regularity of one schedule is replaced by the real possibility of one that is much more organic, always changing, moving, and reforming. One of the “exciting” things would involve the need to learn a new language in less than six months. Considering how little I learned in 2 years of high school Spanish and my poor grades in that class, it is a daunting task as well.

All of this simply leads us to the fact that our God is a lover of surprises. God loves to challenge us. The Holy Spirit throws things in our path that constantly drive us toward our that same Spirit. We are faced with opportunities that will be totally impossible without complete reliance on the power of that Spirit.

This could be an extremely frustrating existence if it were not for the face that we know we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and cares for us. We can embrace the reality of these future events as being placed along our journey for the express purpose of leading us into an ever deepening relationship with the Triune God. These are not events to overwhelm us. No, they are opportunities to marvel at the God who makes us conquerors in all things!

Pastor Craig

We Hope

The First Sunday of Advent is traditionally called the Sunday of Hope. We light the Hope candle on our Advent Wreath and we hope for the return of Christ to reign in His world.


This hope is more than a wish. This hope is as needed as life and breath at this time. Hebrews says that “faith is the evidence of the unseen” (Hebrews 11:1). I think we could say the same for hope.


This year has brought us the loss of loved ones. Some who are near and dear to us will not be at our Christmas table this year. We miss them. There is a hole in our lives and we HOPE in the resurrection, that time when we hope for our own resurrection and rely on the promises of Christ Jesus that all those who belong to him will see his faith and gather around his throne to rejoice in his goodness.


This year has brought us increased racial tensions. An event happens between people of different races and others immediately proclaim that the event is the product of one race hating the other, or, maybe, both races hating the other. The consequences ripple throughout society and the world and other lives and families suffer as well. Riots, lootings, and arson destroy neighborhoods that were already on the brink of poverty and collapse. Opportunists use the tension to cause chaos and sow discord. They attempt to destroy our hope that love and peace can reign between races, cultures, political and socio-economic differences.


We need the Prince of Peace who brings Hope in our lives now more than ever. Today we light the Candle of Hope, not just because it is the First Sunday of Advent, but because we need our own act of defiance. We light a candle in the blackness of human sin and suffering and we proclaim the coming of the one who brought salvation to humankind and who will bring the fruits of the Spirit in our midst and gather us around his throne, regardless of color or any other divider we experience in this world.


We Hope.

Pastor Craig

Doing Advent Right!

If Christ is the revelation of the whole meaning of humanity, if the meaning of human life is solely and entirely to be found in the fact that I am a child of God, then everything in my life becomes relevant or irrelevant in proportion as it tends to my growth as a member of Christ, as a child of God, and the extension of Christ in the world of humankind through his Church.[1]

Advent: A time spent in reflection and preparation for the coming of the Messiah. If the quote we began this short essay with is true, then we are doing advent very, VERY wrong.

Now, without getting all negative and ruining the Christmas spirit you are trying so hard to create at this time of year. If Lent, another season of preparation that most evangelical Christians would rather overlook, is about our life in reverse and thinking about our past sins and the lengths our Creator chose to take to assure our relationship with him, then Advent must be about looking to the future and how we should be living that we might glorify our Savior when he comes again. Think about it again. Lent is about our past and motivates us to glorify God in the season of Easter for he tremendous gift of our salvation. Advent is about the present and future, where we look at where we are ask, “How is my present life showing forth my citizenship as a child of the Kingdom of God?”

Few of us wish to put ourselves through such a period of examination. Most of us would rather sing another verse of Joy to the World and light another candle. But, Christianity is a faith that seeks to move us forward. Sometimes the best way to do that is to take a good look at the road traveled thus far, thanking God for his guidance grace and mercy for putting up with us. Other times, the best way to do that is to take stock of where we are and plan for the journey that is yet in front of us, making sure our road is straight and our pace is steady.

So, how do we approach this season we begin today? How do we keep it from being a mournful time? None of us, including myself want to, entirely, give up those rousing Christmas hymns that remind us of shepherds and angel songs and kings on long journeys to humble places? I think we do that by embracing the true meaning of this season. We look at where we are, we celebrate God’s continued faithfulness in the midst of our ever so glaring failings, we set our hearts on our destination, and we gird ourselves to complete the journey ahead. All of this we do with the firm reliance on God’s continued faithfulness, on the Spirit’s continued guidance, and the Son’s ever forgiving and restoring grace; the things of which those great Christmas hymns have always been made.

Let us light the Candle of Hope – again.

Pastor Craig

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[1] Thomas Merton The Good News of the Nativity

Risky Relationships

Below is a FaceBook post by a girl who spoke no Romanian to another girl who did not speak at all. The two could not exchange words. Yet, they communicated in ways few people can. When Christ is present, sometimes no words are needed.

Maria Cleopatra was a precious girl I met while I was in Romania volunteering at a clinic. She lived to be almost five despite the fact that she had hydrocephaly. It was not expected for her to live this long, and some doubted her ability to understand or relate; however I knew different. She laughed at the sound of another person's laugh, and she cooed and stretched as you rubbed her back or head, places that were hardly ever touched due to her fragile condition. Maria, you will be so very missed, and I am glad you are no longer suffering. ♥

Today is Easter. It is a day we are reminded of the awesome work Christ did for us, the risk, if you will, God took to secure a relationship with Him. Most of us risk so little. We are afraid of the hurt we know accompanies so many relationships. Rejected affections. Broken promises. Betrayed confidences. Yet there are those who seem to risk so much, who are committed to love even when they know that hurt is on the way.

In one sense there is no risk here. The volunteer knew she would return home in a couple months. She knew the child was given “No chance” by medical staff there in Romania. It is a situation made for heartbreak. You know it will happen. You just don’t know how soon.

Have you ever thought how Jesus felt about laying down His life for you and me? He knew we were unfaithful. He knew we would quickly run after some other affection, something else that would attract our eye oh so quickly. Yet, He jumped in boldly. He held nothing back. He let us stomp on Him, beat Him, spit on Him, curse Him, and nail Him to a tree and crucify Him. It was a most serious path, leading to this wonderful day of resurrection, a day that moves us beyond language, a day that cements relationships with the bond of Christian kindness, compassion, grace, and forgiveness.

We follow the example of our Savior when we jump in boldly, giving little or no thought for ourselves, simply committing our hearts to one another, as Christ gave His life for us. When we sing They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love this is the kind of love we are singing about. Christ is Risen! We are loved. We can love in return.

 Pastor Craig

Be Still

Be still and know that I am God. (Ps. 46:10)

It is a hard thing to do. We think we would like to be still until we have to do exactly that. We are given the opportunity to do so several times a day. We allow other things to crowd in on that still time. We keep our schedules before us. We have reminders that pop up on our phones, that E-mail us automatically when we have an appointment coming up, or we carry pocket calendars around with us lest we miss some momentous event.

Many of us do not like stillness and quiet. We crowd our lives full of events and responsibilities to avoid the still time, for it is in that still time that the Scripture promises us God’s presence.

Yes, He creeps in and whispers something that the everyday rush and noise would have allowed us to ignore in almost any other circumstance. However, in the stillness of that quiet moment there can be little doubt that God has spoken and is now still, awaiting our response. What do you say when God shows up in the midst of your quiet time? Unfortunately, many of us treat Him like someone we hardly know. We don’t know what to say, how to act, or how to respond to His actions.

This short piece was one of the more difficult things for me to write in a long time. I started and threw out maybe as many as a dozen ideas, some made it all the way to the words on the page only to fall victim to the delete button. I was frustrated. I got anxious. The topics were good, but why didn’t the words seem to be the ones that I needed to say.

In frustration, I put my head down. I was still. I heard God saying, “This is where I have wanted you for a long time, but you have been too busy for me. Even your “quiet times” have been whirlwinds of activity.”

“Yes, Lord, you are right. You’re always right.”

It took a bit, but I soon saw that God had been trying to get my attention for some time on this matter. I remember reading a chapter in a book, Christianity for the Rest of Us, how many churches were incorporating extended moments of silence into their worship services. I had read another article about pastoral Sabbaths and the need to get away to experience the presence of God. Both of those articles were duly noted and filed away as trends, something to talk to the worship committee, or novel to try on some future Sunday.

All the time God had been doing something so much greater than  giving me new ideas to try in some future context. No, God had been calling to me. “You! Hey, You there, come over here and experience my divine presence.” So, before I wrote this I sat down with God. I got no new talking points, no sermon revelations, no soul shaking instructions. I simply experienced the presence of my Savior in a calm and comforting way.

So, on this Advent Sunday of Hope, get rid of the hustle, don’t rush anywhere, turn off all the media and all the electronics, and enjoy the Hope of the Gospel as your Savior sits with you.      

 

  Pastor Craig