Tag: Easter

Two Thousand Years Ago

In 2026, we will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of our country. Let’s hope we make it. In 2017, Protestants celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Around 2030, we will celebrate the 2000th anniversary of the ministry, death and resurrection of the Greatest Life that walked this “terrestrial ball”. The anniversary of His physical life and death is worth noting, and celebrating, because of Who He was and Who He is.

I am amazed when I think that Jesus Christ, Who Christians believe to be the Incarnate Creator God, physically walked this planet exactly two thousand years ago. The Son of God was walking around Incognito in Nazareth two thousand years ago today. Since the year of His birth is said to be by scholars about 6-4 BCE, then He’d be, in the flesh, twenty something.

There is no written record of what He was doing as a young adult. Before He began His public ministry, He most likely worked as a carpenter like His step-father, Joseph. An interesting, creative, simple, sweat-of-the-brow occupation, one that my family knows very well. Sweat-of-the-brow.. how ironic, that’s not something He should have been doing. That curse was reserved for Adam and his descendants. Yet, within ten years, He would bear more of Adam’s curse, He would bear his sins as well as the sins of all of his descendants. Today we remember that sacrifice, that gift, His Passion.

Today we remember the darkest day of human history, the day when Jesus Christ was murdered for political expedience, so it seemed. He was inconvenient, He was uncontrollable and He was very popular, definitely on Palm Sunday. Unfortunately, the voices, the sentiments, on Palm Sunday – “Blessed in He Who comes in the name of the Lord” – were replaced by the voices and sentiments on Good Friday – “Crucify Him!” Perhaps even by the same voices, how fickle is man!

Two thousand long years have passed since This Man walked the dirt roads of Galilee and Judea. Two thousand long years, His followers have tried to live out His last command, often imperfectly. Two thousand long years have passed while the Church awaits His return.

We are blessed by the sacrifice He made that Good Friday almost two thousand years ago. Our sins have been paid for, we have been redeemed, we have been forgiven of the very object that kept us separated from God, the Father.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. – 2 Corinthians 5:21

Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. – 2 Corinthians 5:17

We are blessed by the new life He gave us through this sacrifice.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. – 1 Peter 1:3-4

And we are finally blessed with a living hope, the confident hope of His return. A verse that is engraved in gold on the mausoleum that my grandfather built and where he and my grandmother rest – the Holy Cross Mausoleum in Colma, California – shouts, if you will, over all the gravestones at Holy Cross, some which include my parents and many other friends and relatives:

Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ…- Titus 2:13

Our Savior is a living Savior, a living Friend and as Thomas solemnly declared after putting his fingers upon the wounds on His hands and His side, “My Lord and My God.” Today as we remember His great gift to us, and on Sunday we will remember His resurrection. We will remember our Lord and our God is not dead. He is a living Savior poised to return to the earth He trod two thousand years ago. He will tread the earth again.

And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, From east to west, making a very large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south. – Zechariah 14:4

One day we shall behold Him, one day we shall see Him face to face. If you don’t know this Jesus, crack open a Bible and read the book of Luke or John and get to know this incredible Person, this Person who died for you nearly two thousand years ago and this Person Who will be your greatest Friend, your Savior and your Lord and your God.

“Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Unmoored

boat-adrift

About a year and a half ago, my dad, Bob Moore, passed away. I didn’t realize that his death would leave me feeling untethered, unmoored, if you will (no pun intended).  I thought I had grown to a point to not need him; evidently, even with his deteriorating condition, his presence, his life was still “a strong pier to which I latched my little barque.”

After taking a new job and moving to a new city, I thought I’d eventually get my bearings. Then our Quarantine Shelter-in-Place descended upon us. My dad’s passing, changing jobs and moving to a place where I knew few folks contributed to a sense of disorientation; however, this quarantine has made it much worse.

I had started this blog after he died and titled it “Untethered” because that’s how I felt. But I had to go on, even though I felt like a little boat out in a sometimes tempestuous sea without anchor, harbor or mooring. Now, with this global pandemic upon us, I feel even more “unmoored”. Overnight, things we were accustomed to, perhaps took for granted: work, school, church, recreation stopped. Quite quickly. Thankfully, I have a position that is secure, but not so for many of my kids. Not so for many, many other folks. Unnerving, scary, almost un-“bear”able.

To add to this disorientation is a political landscape and suspect media that do NOT cultivate calm, competency or control. To that mess, I must trust Jesus’ words, “Be ye not troubled.” That aspect of this situation is just too overwhelming.

But here in the corner of my little world, how do I find some sense of perspective, peace and protection? My environment helps. My new town is surrounded on the south side by luscious green hills, so it’s easy to look up, and remember from where my help comes.

Oddly, as I grapple with this disorientation, I’ve yearned to go to someplace familiar, like the Russian River, grasping to feel some connection with my childhood that seemed to have some security, some foundation, some familiarity. In my new town, there is not one river, but two; two rivers where small boats skirt by freighter ships. A providential plus.

However, we’re not the only generation to suffer through global crises.  Certainly my parents and their parents remember the Great Depression. Then that was followed by a global conflict, a conflict that resulted in the death of millions. A pandemic of Evil. A World Unmoored.

Also, two thousand years ago, on the small stage of Judea, in Rome’s Palestine, a Man had been born, had lived and was killed by the various powers that be. And yet for the handful of men and women who counted Him as Lord and Savior, the Anointed One, the very Messiah of Israel, they were left bewildered, lost, and unmoored after His gruesome death. For three days, they hid, and they feared for their own lives.

Until that glorious first Easter day…He Lives! The resurrection of Jesus Christ exploded all religious models. Here was the Way, the Truth and the Life. Here was the Creator God extending His reconciling Hand to mankind. Who was, still lives. And the fact of the Resurrection drove the first generation of believers to boldly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, even in the face of great persecution. Their hope was strong and steadfast.

When the disciples struggled with their boat on the troubled Sea of Galilee, and our Lord slept below…they not only feared their deaths, but they also thought Jesus was unconcerned. When they finally awakened the Lord, He gently, quietly rebuked the storm, and the disciples, “‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?'”

So in the midst of unknown new surroundings and the temporary scary new normals, I look to the One who calmed the seas. I look to the One to Whom I can latch my little barque. I look to the One Who asks me – asks us – “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 

“Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence.”

— Psalm 42:5

  “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast…”  

       — Hebrews 6:19 

800px-Rembrandt_Christ_in_the_Storm_on_the_Lake_of_Galilee

 

 

 

 

Second Chance

prodigal son

In 1963, Henri Nouwen became captivated with Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son. He even went to St. Petersburg to spend time with the masterpiece and subsequently wrote his own work of art, The Return of the Prodigal Son. He analyzed every detail of the painting and with the text of the biblical story, tells the tale of reconciliation not only for the obvious prodigal, but the need for it even within the Father’s household.

This past week, I had my own little captivation with El DeBarge’s song Second Chance. Of course, it is not a Rembrandt painting, but it did remind me of the heart of a prodigal. I know many prodigals, and am one too in many ways. DeBarge’s prodigality is pretty well-known, but in this song, this song he wrote after a couple years in jail, he turns his face toward home, toward the Father’s house. While his sins are obvious and well-documented like those of the returning son, some of us are in our own “distant country” like the older brother. We dwell in our own lands of prejudice, fear, shame and hate. We may appear to be in the Father’s house, but we are “distant” from the Father’s heart, which is at the center of His house. The prodigal son’s brother could not understand – in fact resented – all the excitement and joy over the return of the son because his heart was in “a distant country” – where there was no room for love or joy.  He was far from the Father’s love.  I am afraid many Christians are like that.

I am distant when I stay in my fear-filled ways. I have many fears, I’m afraid to say. Recently, I had to make a big decision, a decision I was afraid to make. But I made it and stepped out and faced that particular fear.  And, when El DeBarge sings these lyrics in his feathery angelic falsetto “so when the mirror speaks, it tells me that you’ve faced your inner fears and you’re loving the song,” I know I have moved closer to the Father’s heart – away from the fear that alienates love and joy, and closer to that “perfect love that casts out all fear.”

Easter Sunday, the day Christians all over the world remember that Jesus Christ conquered death in his resurrection, is mankind’s greatest second chance. He made redemption, reconciliation and rebirth possible for those far off and for those who are near. We have a second chance to be courageous or clean and sober or kind and compassionate, even Christ-like, but also a second chance at a new life. Happy Easter, folks!