Cross Talk

Do you ever feel like God’s timing is all wrong for your life?  Do you feel like He might be delaying too long, and that by the time He does show up to answer your prayers it might be too late?  That’s how a guy named Jairus felt.

Jairus was a devout man, and ruler of a local synagogue.  In our day, we would say that he was a parish pastor.  I can relate to Jairus because this pastor has a 12 year-old girl.  I have a 12 year-old boy.  He has the whole world in front of him – an endless amount of possible outcomes for his life.  It’s exciting, and if I am honest, a little bit scary.

Jairus’ daughter also had a bright future.  She was the apple of her daddy’s eye.  She loved the Lord, and would soon be a beautiful woman of God, but life has a way of taking us down unexpected (and unwanted) paths.  This pretty pre-teen became sick, and so Jairus gave her the appropriate “over the counter” herbal medicines of his day.  Unfortunately, they had no effect, and so he fetched the local physician.  The doctor came to examine the girl, whose health had quickly deteriorated, and as he walked into the room, he knew what the outcome of this house call would be.  He tried to make the girl comfortable, but beyond that, there was nothing else he could do.  The physician pulled Jairus aside, shook his head and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Jairus’ mind was now racing.  He would not give up until his girl’s final breath.  Because he was the local parish pastor, some of the folks in town had been telling him about a Rabbi named Jesus.  Not only was He a powerful preacher, but He also healed people.  Perhaps, Jairus thought, it’s time I met him personally.

Then a man named Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying.   Luke 8:41-42.

“Pleading” is a polite way to put it.  The Greek tells us that he begged.  This wasn’t just a single polite request.  This respected ruler fell at Jesus feet, his tears mingling with the dust of Christ’s sandals, and he begged.  “Please, please, please Lord.  Save my daughter.”  Seeing this man’s faith, Jesus responded differently than the physician from earlier that day.  Instead of shaking his head hopelessly, Jesus smiles and consents.

Up to this point, our story is going according to plan.  The girl is still living.  Jesus agrees to come and help.  They are just a short distance from the house in which she lies.  It looks like we are going to have a happy ending.  But then Jesus gets interrupted…

There is a woman in the crowd who has come to see Jesus also.  She has suffered from menstrual bleeding for years, and she had spent all she had on doctors.  Her physicians could only shake their heads and tell her, “I’m sorry.”  Hiding in the crowd, she reaches out, believing that if she could just touch this Great Physician who heals, she might find relief.  At that moment, Jesus feels the power go out of Him and He stops the procession.  He wants to find out who touched Him.

“What are you talking about?” Peter asks Jesus. “There’s a throng of people surrounding you.  Why are you delaying?  We have to hurry.  There’s no time for interruptions.”  Yet Jesus insists.  He wants to know.  In the Old Testament, Jesus wrestled with Jacob, who wouldn’t let go until Christ blessed him.  Now in the New Testament, He wouldn’t let it go until He found out who touched Him. 

Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. (She had the same view as Jairus had moments before.)  In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

You know what happens next.  This interruption had deadly consequences.  Because Jesus stopped to heal the “daughter” who bled for years, He let the Jairus’ daughter, who had just had her first pre-teen period, die.  How is this fair?  Why did God delay?  Jairus must have looked at this spectacle and just shook his head.  “I am sorry I even came.”

Do you ever feel like God’s timing is all wrong for your life?  Do you feel like He might be delaying too long, and that by the time He does show up to answer your prayers it might be too late?   Do you look at your neighbor whose prayers have been answered and wonder, When is God going to visit my home with some blessings?

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.  2 Peter 3:8-9

Our story concludes with the ending Jairus was hoping for.  It just so happens that this Jesus who heals is also able to raise the dead.  He took her by the hand and said, “My child, get up!” Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat.  Later, after His own resurrection, Jesus ate breakfast with His disciples on the beach.  Now that the girl’s spirit has returned, it’s good that she break bread with her parents – not only for her own strength, but to confirm to Jairus that Jesus truly does give life.

Maybe you’ve reached that moment in your life when you realize, like Jairus did, that only Christ Jesus can truly supply you with your heart’s desire.  You fell at His feet in prayer and begged Him to bless you, and just being in God’s presence gave you great peace.  But now you must wait.  Waiting for God’s answer to your prayers is maybe the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do.  You wonder, What’s causing the delay?  When will He visit my house?

By faith, Jairus learned that what looks like an unnecessary interruption can turn out to be God’s perfect timing.  When Jesus pauses, He does so for a purpose.  He is never too busy to bless His people, and He is never too slow to fulfill His will.  And even when we stand at the bedside of a loved one who has died, we know that we have a Jesus who not only heals, but can raise the dead.  Therefore, Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.  Psalm 27:13-14

Do you have a Jairus story?  Have you experienced God’s perfect timing in your life? Post a comment.

There are so many different stories to be told about the devastation in Haiti.  Perhaps the scenes that have moved me the most are the ones where, in the midst of death and debris, there is the sound of singing.

Nearly one week after the 7.0 earthquake, rescuers pulled out an elderly woman named Anna Zizi from the collapsed Roman Catholic cathedral.  Considering her age and the length of time without food or water, her rescue was truly a miracle.  What was even more amazing was that as she emerged into the afternoon daylight, she began to sing praises to God.  It was a testimony seen over and over again in Port Au Prince.  Singing in the midst of despair.  Hope in the midst of devastation.

As I watched the various news anchors reporting from Haiti, I noticed that they didn’t quite know what to do with this.  How do you explain the sound of singing when you are expecting a drone of disappointment?  After all, during Katrina we didn’t hear choruses in New Orleans, whose heartbeat is Jazz.  During this depression, we don’t hear tunes from downtrodden Detroit, whose nickname is Motown.  Yet in this tiny island, whose history includes slavery and poverty, there you can hear the sound of singing.  How can we begin to understand this?

In the Bible, St. Paul experienced many grand adventures.  My favorite appears in Acts 16.  In the town of Philippi, Paul and Silas were speaking openly about Jesus Christ and healing in His name.  This offended the Roman officials, and so “the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.”  (Acts 16:22-24)  T

Then comes the amazing part: About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.  (Acts 16:25)  They were singing!  Despite bleeding backs, wearied limbs, and a darkened cell, their faith gave them great joy.  They knew that God would not forsake them, and they considered it a great privilege to suffer for His name.

Notice also that other prisoners were listening!  These captives knew the extreme pain Paul and Silas were in because they had experienced similar beatings.  When they were whipped, they didn’t sing. Their lives were enslaved by their circumstances, and so they could only curse their misfortune.  Yet here were these Christians singing.  On this night, their simple song of faith spoke just as powerfully as any street sermon that they had preached the day before.

Despite our own situations, we too can sing of our salvation.  Whatever real evil we might face, we know that Christ our Savior has rescued us from the worst catastrophe imaginable: being judged by a Holy God.  Through the calamity of the cross, Christ paid for our sin.  By the devastation of His death, He destroyed death so we might live.  We are no longer under judgment.  Like Anna Zizi who was freed from the rubble, we too have been set free!  So we sing.  How can we not?

I am not trying to minimize the suffering in Haiti.  It’s unimaginable.  Neither would I try to diminish any difficulty that you, the reader, are facing.  After all, the economic depression is depressing. Sickness can sap our strength.  Troubled relationships trouble our spirits.  Yet despite all this, we are not trapped by our trials.  Through faith we find triumph.

Therefore, follow St. Paul’s advice.  He writes, Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  (Philippians 4:4-7)

Is that the sound of singing I hear?  Remember, others are listening.

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What have you taken away from the Haiti tragedy?  Please share thoughts by responding to this blog.

“When the LORD saw that Moses had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush… ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’” (Exodus 3:4-5)

 

Have you ever thought much about holy space?  I pondered this topic during Immanuel’s 24-hour prayer vigil because I spent most of those hours in our sanctuary.  When we think of holy space, this is normally what comes to mind: houses of worship.  But is there a need for finding holy space in our everyday lives?

 

During our vigil, we set up a prayer labyrinth within the sanctuary.  It began in the back, just inside the Narthex, and meandered in and out of pews, stopping at various stations along the way.  The first five stations prepared us for the center of the labyrinth, as we moved closer and closer to the chancel.  Along the way, we read Scripture and prayed over all the “stuff” in our own lives (noise, worries, guilt, and false aspirations).  Then came station six, the labyrinth’s center.  I kneeled at the communion rail in the chancel, and read these words from my prayer journal:

 

This is holy space.  God is here.  You are welcome.  Take your time here, don’t rush.  Take time to read through the following Scriptures.  As you do, repeat a word or phrase.  Meditate on them.  Hear God speak to you…

 

As a pastor, I spend a lot of time serving in the chancel area, but at this moment, I was experiencing this space from a different perspective.  I could kneel at the rail, pray, and listen to God’s voice in His Word.  This place where we kneel for communion now also became a place for experiencing God’s invitation to “be still and know that I am God.”  (Psalm 46:10)

 

In his book, Ordering Your Private World, Gordan MacDonald encourages disciples of Jesus to set aside both time and space to meet regularly with God.  Chiefly this happens on Sunday morning in His house, but during the week we can experience this as well.  I must be honest that when I first was introduced to this idea, I didn’t pay much attention to it.  After experiencing station six in our labyrinth, however, I am beginning to re-think our need for holy space. 

 

What’s interesting about Moses’ experience in the wilderness is that it didn’t happen at an altar or a tabernacle.  One moment he stood in an arid piece of wilderness with scrub brush all around, and the next, the ground he was standing on became holy space where Moses met with God.  That’s so typical of our God!  He comes down to us and enters into ordinary things to be with us.  We find Him in ordinary words, bread, wine, and water.  This is where we know we can always find Him, in Word and Sacrament.  We find Him coming to us in our houses of worship and in the homes where His people dwell.

 

At that moment and in that place, God got personal with Moses. “Call me Yahweh,” the Almighty said, revealing His personal name.  “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” is what God said, reassuring Moses that He hadn’t forgotten His people. 

 

Ironically, Moses would be present at a similar encounter in the New Testament.   Peter, James and John were with Jesus on a mountaintop. One moment they were hiking, and the next, Jesus is transfigured before their very eyes.  God burned in a bush.  God burned like the sun in His Son.  He is in our midst.

 

This brings me back to my original question: do we need holy space in our everyday lives?  We know the joy of setting aside time for God in daily devotion, but would it also be helpful to set aside space for Him too?  If God could meet Moses in a bush, wrestle with Jacob by a stream, and be with Noah in a boat, could He not also transform a secluded bench on a hiking trail, a tree in our backyard, or a particular chair at the kitchen table as holy space to get personal with us?  What would it look like if we not only set aside time but also a place where we could meet regularly with God?

 

As I write these words, I am sitting on my back porch, looking at the hills.  It’s a Sunday evening, and the sun is setting.  The few clouds in the sky have turned a magnificent pink.  I relish this moment.  I listen for God’s voice in His Word.  I thank Him for His goodness.  I take off my flip flops. Yes, this is holy space. 

 

Did you participate in our labyrinth?  Please reply to this blog and share your experience.  Is Holy Space part of your regular  devotions?  Please share your insights.

I have received a number of questions regarding the recent decision by the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) to allow committed gay men and women to become ordained pastors.  Our own LCMS (Lutheran Church Missouri-Synod) president, Gerald Kieschnick, wrote an official reply to this decision, which I have included below.  He states well the position of our denomination.

 Before you read his statement, let me provide some initial thoughts:

 All of us know gay men and women, who are perhaps even one of our own family members. This is not just an academic topic, but a deeply personal one. It involves real people.

• God created us as sexual beings, and so our human sexuality is a good thing! After humankind fell into sin, however, our old sinful natures began to misuse our sexuality. Homosexual activity is just one example of this misuse. Other sexual sins include lust, pornography, fornication, and adultery.
• There is a difference between temptation and sin. Many Christians who experience homosexual temptation have resolved to remain celibate or enter into the covenant of a heterosexual marriage. These are God-pleasing alternatives.
• The recent ELCA decision really speaks to a greater issue: what do we believe regarding the Bible? Our denomination upholds that the Scriptures are God’s Word. They are inspired and without error. When they speak clearly about a topic, we hold these views to be God’s will for our lives. In affirming their position on gay pastors, the ELCA is directly violating God’s clear instruction.
• Finally, we are all sinners. We dare not judge others, but rather, being mindful of God’s grace in our own lives, speak the truth in love. Jesus didn’t shy away from people who had sexual hang-ups. He released a woman caught in adultery, and counted prostitutes as some of his friends. Our faith calls us to love others the same way.

 Statement of the president of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in response to certain actions of the 2009 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America August 24, 2009

The two largest Lutheran church bodies in the United States are the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) with 4.8 million members and The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) with 2.4 million members. 

On Friday, Aug. 21, the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to open the ministry of the ELCA to gay and lesbian pastors and other professional workers living in “committed relationships.”  In an earlier action, the assembly approved a resolution that commits the ELCA “to finding ways to allow congregations that choose to do so to recognize, support, and hold publicly accountable life-long, monogamous, same-gender relationships.”

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has repeatedly affirmed as its own position the historical understanding of the Christian church that the Bible condemns homosexual behavior as “intrinsically sinful.” It is therefore contrary to the will of the Creator and constitutes sin against the commandments of God (Lev. 18:22, 24,20:13; 1 Cor. 6:9-20; 1 Tim 1:9-10; and Rom. 1:26, 27).

Addressing the ELCA assembly on Saturday, Aug. 22, I responded to their aforementioned actions, stating: “The decisions by this assembly to grant non-celibate homosexual ministers the privilege of serving as rostered leaders in the ELCA and the affirmation of same-gender unions as pleasing to God will undoubtedly cause additional stress and disharmony within the ELCA. It will also negatively affect the relationships between our two church bodies. The current division between our churches threatens to become a chasm. This grieves my heart and the hearts of all in the ELCA, the LCMS, and other Christian church bodies throughout the world who do not see these decisions as compatible with the Word of God, or in agreement with the consensus of 2,000 years of Christian theological affirmation regarding what Scripture teaches about human sexuality. Simply stated, this matter is fundamentally related to significant differences in how we [our two church bodies] understand the authority of Holy Scripture and the interpretation of God’s revealed and infallible Word.”

Doctrinal decisions adopted already in 2001 led the LCMS, in sincere humility and love, to declare that we could no longer consider the ELCA “to be an orthodox Lutheran church body” (2001 Res 3-21A). Sadly, the decisions of this past week to ignore biblical teaching on human sexuality have reinforced that conclusion. We respect the desire to follow conscience in moral decision making, but conscience may not overrule the Word of God.

We recognize that many brothers and sisters within the ELCA, both clergy and lay, are committed to remaining faithful to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, are committed to the authority of Holy Scripture, and strongly oppose these actions. To them we offer our assurance of loving encouragement together with our willingness to provide appropriate support in their efforts to remain faithful to the Word of God and the historic teachings of the Lutheran church and all other Christian churches for the past 2,000 years.

Dr. Gerald B. Kieschnick, President
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod