I want to talk to you today about our Abba Yahweh.
It seems to me that too many of us want God in our lives, but we want Him to come to us. We aren’t even willing to meet Him halfway. No, too many of us seem to be what I call “come and get me People.”
Now please understand that these are often some of the most wonderful people you’ll ever meet. I mean some of them would literally give you the clothes off their back. But when it comes to God, well they love Him and are willing to listen about Him, but they just don’t have the time to go to Bible study or Sunday School or to take part in any events. My Wife Beautiful Becky, our own dear Mollie and her husband Craig are examples of what I call a someone else. I won’t go into what a someone else is here because you can read the obituary of someone at the end of this post.
But I think that Holy Week is the perfect example of the difference between most Christians or Christ’s groupies and the somebody elses of Christ’s friends.
On Easter Sunday families flock to the church who, you may never see the rest if the year. They all line up to take part in the pageantry and tell ypu quite proudly how much they love Jesus.
I have one friend, he’s a great guy and very devoted to Christ. In fact he’ll be the first one to stand up and tell you that you are going to burn in hell if you don’t have Jesus as your personal savior. Now before you laugh you need to know that he has said the same thing to his own mother. And the true measure is that he makes sure you understand that this includes him as much as any. He even facilitates a Sunday School class. But as much as I admire him for these things I am so glad that they never schedule kids sports for Easter. Because if one of his grandkids is playing in a game he will be missing that day.
It’s not that he doesn’t love God. He’s told me many times that his greatest ambition in life is to give up his life for Christ. And I truly believe him.
So while everyone loves the pageantry of Easter, most are more than willing to let someone else do all the work to set it up. Which is why we see so very few people who want to be anywgere bear the church during the time leading up to Easter.
We avoid Lent and Holy Week because it isn’t a happy and uplifting time—but to be honest, neither is most of life. Sometimes we come to church all scrubbed up, dressed nicely, with smiles on our faces, and when people ask how we are, we reply that everything is fine and we even boast how wonderful things are—but it is all a lie. Life is not always uplifting, or wonderful, or pleasant, or joyous—but we have been taught the lie that for spiritual people like us, it must be so. So we become play actors, hypocrites—telling ourselves that by lying, we are having faith, and that if we lie enough, the bad things will fade away, like a dream upon awakening.
But in this we miss the whole point of the incarnation! God became flesh in Jesus Christ. Jesus faced temptation, He suffered hunger and thirst, He suffered the agony of crucifixion. Jesus our God did not face these things so that we would be exempt from them, He faced these things so that we would have dignity in them.
We think ourselves so modern and enlightened when we read of lepers walking through crowds, crying out “Unclean, unclean!” so that others could avoid touching them and thus protect themselves from ritual impurity. We tell ourselves we would do no such thing, but we do the same thing! When a person in our society becomes sad, or depressed, or out of sorts—our modern form of social leprosy—they cry out, “I want to be alone, I want to be alone.” In truth, they want company, but they tell people to go away to avoid rejection and to make it easier to restore relationships when they are feeling chipper again. We laugh when we remember the days when people dressed up for church and stayed home when their attire wasn’t fancy enough, but we stupidly do the same thing with our emotions. We stay away when our emotions aren’t presentable.
Let me tell you about two very good friends of mine. They are both very wonderful men who love the Lord and serve him to the very best of their ability and they both love to help others. They are so similar it can be scarry and yet they are so different.
They are both named Al.
Their last names both start with R.
I have attended church whith both of them in United Methodist churches.
They have both offered me friendship even when I did not ask them for it.
They are both retired pastors from the U.M. denomination.
They both spend extra time still helping in the church on a volunteer basis.
One is an ordained minister or elder.
The other is a licensed local pastor.
They have both worked in large churches and small.
They both had been senior pastors and they both have worked under other pastors.
They both know that I am bipolar.
One advises me to keep it a secret. He says that people will not understand and that they will not accept me if they know.
The other advises me to let people see how I and worked through these problems and yet Christ can still work through me.
They both know about my past, that for most of my life I had been a very poor excuse for a Christian. They both know that I am an alcoholic even though I have not drank for years and that I had used many illegal drugs in the past and even that I have once spent time in prison.
One of them tells me to be careful not to let anyone know about my past. He advises me that not only will it make me look worse to the people I’m trying to help but that it could stop my wife from being ordained by the united Methodist denomination.
The other would advise many to use my past to show other people that if Jesus Christ could reach me then he can reach them as well. He tells me that if the board of ordaining Elders would refuse some one ordination on those grounds that he would prefer not to work under them anyhow.
One tells me that at times such as holy week that I should simply set back, enjoy the pageantry and be glad that our savior is risen.
The other tells me that I should try to take part in as much of the pageantry as I can so that I could help show others that Christ is indeed risen.
I love both of these men dearly and consider them both to be great friends. But, due to my bipolar problem I admit that I am often sad even at the happiest of times. So as black friend Al right, or is it my friend Al who is right? I don’t want to cause trouble and yet…
Yet when Jesus came in the flesh and dwelt among us, and suffered hunger and thirst and heat and cold and betrayal and loneliness, and finally also pain and agony and death upon the cross, He gave dignity to His little ones who suffer. He gave dignity to us! Everyone avoids a sad person, except Jesus Himself who is much acquainted with sorrow. Jesus was the only person who gave the demoniac of the Gadarenes his dignity, the only one who could exorcise him. Jesus faced the man who lived in a cemetery, naked and screaming all day and night and calmed his spirit and healed his soul. How can you think that this same Jesus would be repelled by your pessimism or your cynicism or your sadness or your grief? How could a man who seeks the company of demoniacs be repelled by you?
The people of this world believe in the power of positive thinking and in happiness, and in believing these things, they are very shrewd. For people of this world have only the present moment, and if they are unhappy in it, they have lost something. But we who are Christians can endure unhappiness and sadness and loneliness and backstabbing and betrayal and friendlessness and poverty and hunger and thirst; we can face mourning and grief and even death, because Jesus faced all those things. As Christians, we know that Jesus’ suffering was His way to glory, and his Crucifixion was the door to His Resurrection. We know that He ascended on high and sits, alive and well, at the right hand of His Father, where He rules over all things. We can face our own crucifixions in life, because we know that we will share in His Resurrection on the Last Day!
So I think that no matter what my mood may be, whether by depression makes me sad or my mania makes me ecstatic, that I will follow the advice that tells me that my job is to be a true friend to my Lord Jesus Christ.
On Palm Sunday, there were crowds who cheered Jesus as the King, but where were all those fair-weather friends when Jesus prayed in agony on Gethsemane, and where were they when He hung upon the cross?
Therefore, let us show that we as Christians are not just Jesus’ groupies, we are His friends. Let us be bold to join Him, fasting in the wilderness for forty days during Lent; let us be bold to pray with Him in the garden on Maundy Thursday, let us fearlessly stand at the foot of His cross on Good Friday, so that we may witness His Resurrection and His Ascension, and join in His triumphant reign. And on that Last Day, when Jesus brushes away the groupies, let us be among His true friends, whom He welcomes into His glory.
And one last note about friendship, thank you Al and thank you Al.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Obituary
Our church was saddened to learn this week of the death of one of our most valued members, Someone Else. Someone's passing creates a vacancy that will be difficult to fill.
Else has been with us for many years and for every one of those years,
Someone did far more than a normal person's share of the work.
Whenever there was a job to do, a class to teach, or a meeting to attend,
one name was on everyone's list,
"Let Someone Else do it." Whenever leadership was mentioned, this wonderful person
was looked to for inspiration as well as results; "Someone Else can work with that group."
It was common knowledge that Someone Else was among the most liberal givers in our church.
Whenever there was a financial need, everyone just assumed Someone Else would make up the difference.
Someone Else was a wonderful person; sometimes appearing superhuman.
Were the truth known, everybody expected too much of Someone Else.
Now Someone Else is gone! We wonder what we are going to do.
Someone Else left a wonderful example to follow, but who is going to follow it?
Who is going to do the things Someone Else did?
When you are asked to help this year, remember -- we can't depend on Someone Else anymore.
Author is Unknown
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