Tag: hope

Snowflakes from Heaven

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Just a ThoughtLeave a comment

snow-covered-road

J.B. Priestley once wrote: “The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?”

Yesterday, Stantonsburg Road was littered with empty Natural Light cans, leftover trash from Bojangles and McDonalds, and the carcass of a possum or two. This morning it is a majestic, untarnished pathway through a winter wonderland.

Yesterday, my lawn was brown, covered with ugly winter weeds and strewn with fallen tree limbs and dog droppings that I have been too lazy to pick up.  This morning it is glistening white, void of a single blemish.

Yesterday, the flaws and faults of this fragmented world were all too apparent. This morning everything seems to be forgiven, blanketed by grace. And although this world is still a very dangerous place to drive and to even walk; this morning, the hopeful wonder and potential beauty of this world is obvious.

Yesterday, my excited facebook friends posted prayers for snowflakes to fall, believing that they somehow come from heaven. This morning there is no doubt that heaven is exactly where they come from.

Keeping It Real at Christmas

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Advent and Christmas, Sermons Year ALeave a comment

keeping-it-realMatthew 2:10-18

There were several wonderful things about our service on Christmas Eve, the night that we celebrated the coming of God into this world through the gift of Jesus Christ:

The number of people that chose to worship here on that night—of course!

Our soloist, Allison Bonner—most certainly!

Sharing Holy Communion with our loved ones—definitely!

The singing of familiar carols and the lighting of our candles—absolutely!

However, whether we realized it or not, I believe the very best thing about our worship on Christmas Eve was the large number of babies and small children present, and especially all of the noise and fuss that they were making.

On the night that we gathered to worship the gift of a new-born baby, born for our salvation, we were reminded of the sheer, untamed, undecorated reality of that gift as babies were crying, children were restless and some adults grew anxious.

As we very sentimentally turned off the lights, lit out candles and sang the sweet verses of Silent Night, the light in the Church Street Narthex continued to burn brightly while a stressed mother bounced her fussy infant in her arms, pacing back and forth.

And while there were anxious parents and grandparents here in this place, there was even more anxiousness, worry and even fear beyond these walls.

As we were listening to the angelic voice of Allison Bonner sing O Holy Night, Joe and Cass Santapolo were with their daughter, Caroline and her sick son Jackson in the children’s hospital at Duke University awaiting surgery.

While we were sharing the bread and the cup, Cora Aycock had just arrived in the emergency room at Vidant with her son James who had a bacterial infection.

While we were listening to the story of Christmas and singing carols, countless other children were suffering—some from all kinds of sickness, from ear infections and stomach viruses to seizures and cancer—some from abuse, others from hunger.

This is Christmas unfiltered. This is real Christmas. This is Christmas reality.

But every year we try to cover it up. We wrap it with colorful paper and tie a bow around it. We string it with artificial lights and decorate it. We try to romanticize it, sentimentalize it. But no matter how hard try, no matter how much energy we expend or how much money we spend, we cannot conceal the real harshness of it, the harsh realness of it.

But every year, for whatever reason, we try. Maybe it is because the story fills us with so much hope and so much peace, we can’t help but to glamourize the scene of that first Noel.

In our minds, the scene is majestic. It is glorious. Angels flying in the night sky singing a heavenly chorus. A brilliant star rising in the East.  A baby worshipped by Shepherds and Kings and even animals.

In our Nativity scene, there is no crying, no fussing, no colic, no ear infections, no stomach viruses, no disease, no restlessness, no dirty diapers, no spit up, no anxiety, no fear.  Our Nativity is a serene, sweet, sanitized scene. It never rains in our Bethlehem.

And then we tend to romanticize the rest of the story.

A glorious baptismal scene with John the Baptist and the Holy Spirit descending like a dove. Jesus calling faithful disciples who drop everything to follow him. Even the cross has become sentimental—a perfect, pretty piece of jewelry to adorn the neck. It looks nice upright or sideways. In our minds, the whole story is a beautiful, perfect fairytale.

But the truth is that was not the reality of Christmas. Christmas reality was not beautiful.  Christmas reality was far from perfect.

Christmas reality, says the prophet Isaiah is “Like, a root out of dry ground,” Jesus was born among animals in a cattle stall and placed in a feeding troth with the stench of wet straw and animal waste in the air.

Yes, Kings, Magi or Wise Men came to worship the baby, but we forget that King Herod was using those eastern visitors to locate the baby so he could run a sword through him. And we forget the holocaust in Ramah, the innocent babies slaughtered, the desperate cries of anguish and despair from parents because there children were “no more.” We forget the escape to Egypt like homeless refugees.

This is Christmas. This is the Christmas reality.

And the rest of the story?

We forget that John Baptist argued with Jesus trying to prevent his baptism. We forget Jesus was tempted by Satan not only in the desert for forty days but his entire life by disciples who never seemed to understand him. We forget he made just a few precious friends, but a mob of enemies. And in the end, those enemies got him.  And his best friends betrayed, denied and abandoned him. And we forget that it was in the most god-forsaken of ways, God, the creator of all that is, was tortured to death.[i]

This is the reality of it. And this is the good news of it!  This is why the story fills us with such hope and peace. The reality, the good news of Christmas is that there is nothing glamorous, glitzy sentimental, or romantic about it. God came into the real world, encountered real evil in the most real of ways, experienced real suffering and pain and died a very real death.

Dr. Ernie White was one of my professors who was stricken with cancer while I was a student at Southern Seminary. I’ll never forget something he shared with us in class one day.  He said, “Although I cannot explain it, somehow, the sicker I am, the more pain I experience, the more hopeful I become, because in the moments of my most immense suffering, God has been and is the most real to me.”

Because of Christmas, through the coming of God in Christ into a very real and broken world, we know that God knows something about real human suffering and real human misery. God knows what it feels like to feel forsaken by God. God is therefore able to relate to us in the most intimate of ways in those moments when life is the most real, the most broken.

This is what made our Christmas Eve service so wonderful, so miraculous. As we lit the Christ candle with fussy children in the background, we were reminded that God is truly Emmanuel. God is intimately and empathetically with us in our broken reality. God was not looking down on our worship from glorious streets of gold, but God was right here in these worn, wooden pews beside us.

Beside the one who broke her leg… Beside the one who lost his job… Beside the one whose marriage is ending… Beside the one undergoing treatments for cancer…  Beside the ones whose children are sick… Beside the ones whose children have died.

On this First Sunday after Christmas we bless these sweet children, we promise to surround them with a community of love; however, we also realize that truly loving them means that we cannot always protect them from the broken reality that is this world. However, with faith in Christmas, with faith in the God who knows the reality of this broken world, we know that God will always truly and authentically be Emmanuel, God with them.

Therefore, when we bless James Alexander Aycock and David Grimes Lewis this morning, when we touch them saying to them, “The peace of Christ be with you always,” we are not merely whistling in the dark. We are not simply being sentimental and in no way are we being artificial. But we are being as authentic, as genuine and as true as we can possibly be.

As people with the faith in Christmas, we are keeping it real—as real as that untamed night in an undecorated stable in Bethlehem.

And baby James, who has a tube in one of his kidneys, awaiting surgery on that kidney in a couple of weeks, deserves nothing less.

And baby Grimes, who has been on antibiotics and a nubulizer this week, who has just started teething, who promises, like all babies, that the one thing we can all expect in this world is the unexpected, demands that we keep it real this day!

Let us pray together: O God, we thank you for coming into the real world as a real little baby, thank you for encountering real evil, for experiencing real suffering and pain, for dying a very real death. And we praise you, dear Lord, for resurrecting it all and for giving us a peace that is beyond understanding and a hope that is abundant and eternal. Amen.

 

PRAYERS AND OTHER ELEMENTS OF WORSHIP  FOR THE DEDICATION OF CHILDREN, PARENTS AND CONGREGATION

INVOCATION

Emmanuel, God with us, show us where you may be found today. In each human birth, in the joys of parenthood and in tragedy and loss—in loving homes and in broken homes.

Emmanuel, we rejoice that you are with us—in everything, through everything.

Lord Christ, be born in us today.

Word of God, become flesh in us that we might live your gospel in hope.

Light of the world, shine on us and in us and through us for our sakes and for the sake of your world.

Loving God, help us to see your grace, hear your voice, and follow in your way through Jesus Christ our Savior who taught us to pray…

PASTORAL PRAYER

O God, as we continue to celebrate the good news of Christmas, as we continue to light candles and sing carols, even as we gather around a beautiful tree aglow with lights and Chrismons, we acknowledge the real pain and the real sadness of this broken world.

While we rejoice in hope, we know of others who cry in despair.

While we experience peace, others know strife and injustice.

While we are surrounded by love, others are enveloped by hatred.

While we are filled with joy, others are overcome with grief and fear.

Thank you for being Emmanuel, God with us. Thank you for coming into this world as it is, fragmented, fragile and forlorn. Thank you for knowing what it feels like to be human in the real world—to be tempted, lonely, betrayed, afraid, to die, and to even feel forsaken by God.

And thank you for always working in our world to transform it all, to redeem it all, to resurrect it all, to work all things together for the good.

Come now and work on us, work in us, and work through us, to help us share this good news with all people, especially to the children with which we have been entrusted. Help us to prepare them for the world ahead of them by showing them faith in Christ and teaching them to follow the way of the gospel.

Forgive us when we fall in love with Christmas but neglect to share it with others. But continue to be Emmanuel as we continue to strive to be the church that you are calling us to be in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.

 

INVITATION TO COMMUNION[ii]

This is the table of the Lord.

Come, not because you are strong, but because you are weak.

Come, not because you deserve to come or you have done something to earn the right to come, but because you need mercy and you need grace.

Come because you love the Lord a little, but you like to love him more.

Come, because the Lord loves you and understands what it is like to be you. Come because the Lord has become flesh to dwell among us.

Let this bread and this cup be for you the token and pledge of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit.

 

OFFERTORY SENTENCE (Adapted from Worship Reources #518 Chalice Worship, p.392.)

The amazing gift of God who emptied God’s self, poured God’s self out into the real world to become one of us prompts us to make a grateful response. In Christ we have known a love that will not let us go. Through an offering, let us share this love in our community and to the ends of the earth.

OFFERTORY PRAYER

Gracious God, we now give these offerings that they might herald the good news of Christmas. Accept them as expressions of our response to the gift of your Son and the salvation he brought us.

 

DEDICATION OF CHILDREN[iii]

Hear these words from Deuteronomy 6:4-7

4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.* 5You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.

Charge to Parents

You parents are now to recall your own faith journeys and give yourselves in covenant to lead your children toward full discipleship in Christ.

With gratitude to God;

Josh and Cora, do you receive James Alexander; Billy and Jessica, do you receive David Grimes, as a precious gift of God, and seek God’s grace and this community’s support in nurturing and caring for your child?

Do you covenant to remain faithful in love to your child, whatever the future may bring?

Do you promise before God and this community so to fashion your lives that your child may come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?

If so, please say, “I do.”

Charge to the Church

The church, as a family of God, gladly joins you in holy covenant for the care and the nurture of these children.

Congregation, will you please stand.

Do you promise as a community of faith:

To surround these families with your love for the strengthening of their life together;

To be for these parents and children a family in Christ whose love for them cannot be broken;

To accept these children into your loving care for shared responsibility in their growth toward fullness in the life of Christ.

To keep it real with these children, by telling they the good news of Christ, to help them learn the ways of Christ and to lead them in service to God and neighbor?

If so, please indicate so, by saying “We do.”

James Alexander Aycock, I am not merely whistling in the dark when I say to you, “May the peace of Christ always be with you.”

David Grimes Lewis, I am not glibly gushing when I say to you, “May the peace of Christ always be with you.”

Prayer of Dedication

Great and gracious God,

We celebrate these young lives that you have given us, and ask your  blessing upon them.

Lay upon them your hands of love, that they may always know how precious they are to you—and to us.

Lay upon them your hands of grace, so that when they fall for falter, they will know that you are there to help pick them up again.

Lay upon them your hands of hope, that they will grow up to dream bold dreams, and lay upon them your hands of courage so that they might bring those dreams to life.

Lay upon them your hands of Light, so that your light might shine through them.

Lay upon them your hands of joy, so that their lives might be filled with laughter.

Bless these children, O God, for we dedicate them to you. And in so doing, we renew our own dedication to you so that your lives might be a word of blessing upon the lives of our children. As family and friends, as their family of faith, help us to be good stewards of the lives with which we have been entrusted. In the name of Jesus Christ, who welcomed the children, we pray. Amen.[iv]

COMMISSIONING AND BENEDICTION

Go now into the real world and keep it real.

Go into the real world and share your faith in a real God who became a real little baby, who encountered real evil, experienced real suffering and pain, and died a very real death.

As you have blessed James and Grimes this day, go and in a very real way, share the peace of Christ with all people.

And may the real love of God, the real grace of Jesus Christ and the real communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all.

[i] Inspired from a sermon by Frederick Buechner entitled “Two Stories,” from Secrets in the Dark  (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), 86-87.

[ii] Adapted from Colbert S. Cartwright, O.I. Cricken Harrison, eds. Chalice Worship (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1997), 21, 22.

[iii] Adapted from Chalice Worship, 21, 22.

[iv] Haymes, Peggy. Be Thou Present: Prayers, Litanies, and Hymns for Christian Worship (Macon, Georgia: Smyth and Helwys Pubishing, 1994), 69.

We Do Not Light Our Candles on Christmas Eve with Optimism

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Advent and Christmas, Short ArticlesLeave a comment

candlelight-services

I was listening to MPR a while back and heard an interview with a psychologist who said that, according to her research, the single, biggest key to living a healthy life is staying optimistic.   In one of those voices that was so pleasant and friendly and sugary sweet that it got on your nerves, she said:

“Optimists have less stress, better marriages, and healthier diets. They tend to have a sunnier outlook on the world, which translates to positive self-esteem and self-confidence. Optimists generally believe that things are getting better, that humanity is improving, the world’s problems are being solved.”

And then, to clinch her point, she said: “We also discovered that optimists live longer than other people.”

As a Christian minister I thought: “If that statement about optimists is really true, then there is no way that Jesus could have been an optimist.  For he was dead at 33.”

While some Christians are always  a delight to be around, always cheerful and positive, Christmas hope is fundamentally different from optimism.

Christian hope has very wide and focused eyes on the devastation of the world, and Christmas hope readily acknowledges that things may not get better.  Christmas hope does not bury its head in yuletide cheer and artificial lights, but like an Advent wreath glowing stronger and brighter each week, Christmas hope pushes its way into the brokenness of this world, clearing a path in the darkness so that the true light might shine.

Christian hope has the courage to work for the Biblical vision of justice, healing and liberation, trusting that such working is a testimony, a witness to the Light: The light that came through Jesus to teach us that God loves us and God is with us and God will never leave us and never forsake us;  The Light that reveals God will stay by our side and resurrect all of our sorrow into joy, our despair into hope and our deaths into life.

Tom Long tells a story about rabbi Hugo Grynn who was sent to Aushwitz as a little boy.  In the concentration camp, in the midst of death and immense suffering, many Jews held on to whatever shreds of religious observance they could without drawing the attention of the guards.  One cold winter’s evening, Hugo’s father gathered the family in the barracks.  It was the first night of Chanukah, the Feast of Lights.  The young child watched in horror as his father took the family’s last stick of butter and made a makeshift candle using a string from his ragged clothes.  He then took a match and lit the candle.

“Father, no!” Hugo cried.  “That butter is our last bit of food!  How will we survive?”

“We can live for many days without food,” his father said. “But we cannot live a single minute without hope.  This is the fire of hope.  Never let it go out.   Not here.  Not anywhere.”

It is Christmas Eve.  These days are darker, both literally and figuratively.  We are surrounded by never-ending questions of pain and sadness—a world groaning for salvation. Tonight we light our candles, hear the Christmas story and say our prayers, and wait for the coming Christ.  We wait for the Light that will never go out.

We are not being merely optimistic.  But in Christ, we possess an abundance of faith, trust and confidence that God is Emmanuel, God with us and God for us, and the day is coming when God’s Light will come and rid this world of darkness forever bringing forth a new and glorious creation!

Finding Hope in the Holidays

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Advent and Christmas, Short Articles4 Comments

christmas-hope

Jingle Bells and sleigh rides and chestnuts roasting on an open fire—a Jewish people oppressed by the Romans; living in captivity, traveling great distances to pay taxes to another nation.

Candy Canes and Christmas Trees and toys for every child—an anxious and agonizing night of labor without a doctor; the painful birth of a child who did not belong to either parent.

Jolly O St. Nicholas and cute little elves and eight flying reindeer—Poor, toothless, smelly, unshaven shepherds huddled around a wrinkled baby in a barn behind an inn with no vacancy.

The sweet fragrance of candles and the pleasing aroma of pine and fir—the foul stench of animal waste and the raw odor of wet straw.

Coming home to Christmas caroling on the lawn, stockings on the mantle and wreaths on the windows—the desperate escape to Egypt like homeless refuges; the slaughter of innocent children by Herod’s sword.

Pumpkin and Pecan pies, smoked ham and deviled eggs, the exchange of gifts wrapped with brightly colored paper and a bow—the disciple’s betrayal and denial, the arrest and the persecution, the crucifixion and the death and the tomb.

Have you ever wondered why we’ve reduced the realness and the harshness of true Christmas into an occasion to feel at home with—a sentimental time of warmth and coziness?   Perhaps it is because true Christmas frightens us.  Perhaps we are afraid of who it calls us to be and where it calls us to go.  So, maybe without realizing it, we conceal it.  We string it with lights or put a bow on it.

We take the cold, harsh, simple manger scene, and we decorate it.  Although there is no mention of three kings in the Bible, only Magi, foreign astrologers, who appear in Jesus’ house months after his birth, we insist on embellishing our nativity scene with kings.  We want majesty.  We want glory.

Although there was no star hovering over that stable (the star appeared later with the Magi) we hang it there anyway.  We want splendor, so our nativity scene, by golly, is going to have a star!

Our nativity scene is quite unlike that cold night in Bethlehem.  Our nativity scenes have royalty, a star, beaming halos on everyone.  Our Nativity Scenes have shepherds who bear little or no resemblance to poor rural farmers who work and live in fields.  Our shepherds look more like church choir members preparing for a cantata.  In our scene, the animals, why, the animals are smiling!  Our scene has a little drummer boy!

Because of our fear of it, our Christmas looks nothing like the harsh reality of that night in Bethlehem.  The night God came.  The night God was born homeless in a stable with animals and poor shepherds to later be crucified with loathsome criminals.

True Christmas scares us for who it calls us to be and where it calls us to go.  For true Christmas looks more like the make-shift houses of card board boxes in dark alleys for the destitute homeless.  True Christmas smells more like a nursing home or perhaps a prison cell. True Christmas feels more like the cold, wilted hand of a dying AIDS victim, or the confused, wearied face on an Alzheimer’s patient.  True Christmas tastes more like the bitterness of loneliness—it is as sour as cancer, it is as bland as death.

During the last few Christmases before my maternal grandmother died, Nana stopped purchasing a live Christmas tree.  She would go into the attic and bring a very small, two-foot tall, artificial, plastic tree that was already decorated, place it on the top of her television set and just plug it in.  It was the only decoration in the house.

As grandchildren, we thought we understood.  We thought that as Nana got older, no longer possessed the energy or the strength to decorate her homes as she once did.

However, as I have grown older and as I have experienced more than my share of the harsh reality of living in a fallen and broken world, I have decided that my grandmother’s meager Christmas decoration was not a consequence of someone becoming tired and weak, but the outcome someone of grasping the genuine hope of Christmas.

Maybe, just maybe, Nana had grown to a point in her life when trying to cover up the true story of Christmas ran counter to what she actually needed.  Maybe, in recognizing her own brokenness, her own limitations, and her own frailties, the story which we all fear and try every year to conceal became her only source of hope.

On that night in Bethlehem, in that meager stable, God came into a broken world of suffering and pain.  God came to an oppressed people living in captivity.  God came and experienced the pain and the heartache and heart break that we all experience in life.  In the words of the prophet, God was “despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity.”

In her own suffering and in her own infirmities, perhaps my grandmother grew to no longer fear the true Christmas story.  She no longer felt the need to try to conceal it, to cover it up with lights and ornaments, but only felt the need to embrace it.

I’ll never forget what my grandfather said a couple of weeks before he passed away.  It was around the first week of December—a year and a half after Nana died.  Like her, he had been suffering for a year with lung cancer.

I asked, “What do you want for Christmas this year?”  Granddaddy responded, “You don’t have to get me anything this year.  Because I’m afraid I won’t be here this Christmas.”

“Granddaddy, don’t talk like that!”  I said.

“No, son, Look at my house.  I didn’t even bring Nana’s tree down this year.  The only thing that matters to me this Christmas is that God came to this earth and lived and died for me.  That’s the only gift I need.”

Granddaddy died on the 21st of December.

That year Nana’s tree stayed in the attic.  Not because he was too old and too weak to bring it down.  But because to Granddaddy, that year, that year without his wife, that year fighting his cancer and facing his death, that year recognizing who he truly was as a fallen, broken, human being, that year, if he was to have any hope in the holidays, he needed to remember the true story of Christmas. He needed to recognize the unembellished simplicity of it.  He needed to see the unadorned grace of it.  For Granddaddy, and perhaps for you and me, if we are to find any hope in the holidays, the true story of Christmas is best left undecorated.

Seeing the World Through the Eyes of Christmas

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Advent and Christmas, Short ArticlesLeave a comment

christmas eye chartMy graying hair is not the only thing that tells my age. If there is not a considerable amount of light in a room, my vision is significantly impaired. And trying to read something in the dark? Forget about it! Eating out the other night, I picked up a lighted candle that was on my table and nearly burned down the restaurant trying to read the menu! I charred part of the menu, but thankfully, there were no flames.

So to prevent the pastor of First Christian Church from one day being arrested for arson, I have decided to keep a little pocket-light on my key chain at all times. Because looking at the dark world through 47 year-old eyes is becoming more difficult by the day, and especially by the night.

Figuratively speaking, looking at our dark world with frail, finite eyes can sometimes be even more difficult. Some days, everywhere we look, we only see darkness and despair.

On Christmas Eve churches all over the world will gather together to celebrate Christmas by lighting candles to celebrate the Light of the World who has come to shine light into our darkness. This Light has changed the way we see ourselves and this world forever. Instead of looking at the world with frail, finite eyes, with faith we are able to look at the world with the eyes of Christmas.

Looking at the world with the eyes of Christmas means believing God is here with us and has identified with us. God knows what it is like to be a human being. God shares in our joy, but God also shares in our suffering. God doesn’t cause our misery; God feels our misery.

Looking at the world with the eyes of Christmas also means believing that God is working in the world bringing order out of the chaos, triumph out of defeat, and life out of death.

Looking at the world with the eyes of Christmas means believing that God is very much a part of our world and our lives, shining light in the darkness, giving joy where there is sorrow, bringing peace where there is confusion, granting forgiveness where there are mistakes, sharing love where there is hate, and giving hope where there is despair.

Like a 47 year-old turning on a pocket light to read a menu, Christmas adjusts our focus and sharpens our vision, and we begin to see the whole creation in a brand new Light. Misery becomes opportunity. Strangers become family. Enemies become friends. Everyday becomes gift.

Reigning from the Cross

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year CLeave a comment

world_in_handsLuke 23:33-43 NRSV

Today is the last Sunday of the Christian Year.  It is called “Christ the King Sunday” or “The Reign of Christ Sunday.”  It signifies that at the end of it all, Jesus Christ has the last and final word.  And in this world of so much suffering and pain, oh how we need a day like today!  Oh how we need to be reminded that when it all boils down, when it all pans out, Jesus Christ is our ruler and our king. When it is all said and done, Jesus the Christ is ultimately in charge. Today is the day that we reassure ourselves that no matter how bad life gets, no matter how distressed, fragmented and chaotic life becomes, Christ is always in complete control.  “He’s got the whole world in his hands,” as we all like to sing.

Now, in this world of heart ache and heart break, the truth that Christ is the king and ruler of it all is always supposed to bring us great assurance and peace.  However; although none of us good God-fearing, church-going folks like to admit it, this truth of God’s complete reign over this world usually brings us the exact opposite.

Think about those times you were reminded by someone, albeit with good intentions, that “God is in control.”  When Lori and I lost our first child two months before the due date, people came up to us and said, “Don’t let this get you down.  Just remember that God doesn’t make any mistakes.”

After the doctor gave you the news that the tumor was malignant, people came up to you and said, “Don’t worry, God knows what God is doing.”

When people learned that you were going to lose your job, they reminded you, “It is going to be alright, for God is in control.”

At the graveside of a loved one, your friends and family lined up between you and the casket and whispered: “God has a reason for this.”

And very politely, we nodded. We even thanked them for their words with a hug or a handshake.  But then, a short time later, after we dried our tears, after we came to our senses, while we were sitting quietly at home or while we were out on a long drive, or maybe sitting in church, we began to reflect and to ponder those well-intended words. We began to think to ourselves: “If God is really sitting on some providential throne in complete control of this fragmented fiasco called life, this disastrous debacle called the world, then what type of ruler is this God? What type of king sits back and allows so much evil to occur in their kingdom?

Christ the King—what is supposed to bring us great strength, peace and comfort, instead brings us frustration, anger and doubt.  Christ the King—what is supposed to bring us assurance and hope brings us utter misery and despair.  And we are very much tempted to join all those who laughed and ridiculed Jesus: “Umphh!  King of the Jews! Some King!”

I have said it before, and I do not mind saying it again—If  God is the one who willed our first baby’s death, causes tumors to be malignant, gets us fired from our jobs, and takes our loved ones from us, then I really do not believe I want anything to do with a god like that!  I think I would rather join the millions of people who have chosen not to be in church on this Sunday before Thanksgiving.

The good news is that I am here. And I am here to thank God that God is not the type of King who decrees the death of babies, pronounces malignancies, commands layoffs and orders our loved ones to be suddenly taken from us. There is no doubt about it, Christ is King.  But thank God, Christ does not reign the way the kings of this world reign.

The reason I believe we allow ourselves to be tempted to give up on God in the face of evil is because we often forget that our God reigns not from some heavenly throne in some blissful castle in the sky. Our God reigns from an old rugged cross, on a hill outside of Jerusalem, between sinners like you and me. I believe we oftentimes become despairing and cynical about God, because we forget that our God does not rule like the rulers of this world.

The rulers of this world rule with violence and coercion and force.  Earthly rulers rule with an iron fist: militarily and legislatively and with executive orders. The kings of the world rule with raw power: controlling, dominating, taking, and imposing.

But Christ is a King who rules through suffering, self-giving, self-expending, sacrificial love.  Christ the King rules, not from a distance at the capital city, not from the halls of power and prestige, but in little, insignificant, out-of-the-way places like Bethlehem and Nazareth, and Fountain and Farmville.

Christ the King doesn’t rule with an iron fist, but rules instead with outstretched arms. Christ the King doesn’t cause human suffering from a far, but is right here beside us sharing in our suffering.

God possess what the late theologian Arthur McGill called a “peculiar” kind of power.

God’s power is not a power that takes, but is a power that gives.

God’s power is not a power that rules, but is a power that serves.

God’s power is not a power that imposes, but is a power that loves.

God’s power is not a power that dominates, but a power that dies.

And as Arthur McGill has written, this is the reason that it is “no accident that Jesus undertakes his mission to the poor and to the weak and not to the strong, to the dying and not to those full of life.  For with these vessels of need God most decisively vindicates his peculiar kind of power, [a] power of service whereby the poor are fed, the sinful are forgiven, the weak are strengthened, and the dying are made alive.”[i]

Christ the King did not take our first child.  The day our baby died, God cried with us in that hospital room.

God did not cause the tumor. The day the doctor said the word “cancer” was a day of anguish for God as it was for us.

God did not create the layoff.  The day you were told that your job was ending, God stayed up with you and worried with you all night long.

And God did not take your loved one.  When they died, something inside of God died too.

What we all need to learn are very different definitions of “king,” “rule,” “reign” and “power”—very different because they define the ways of the only true and living God rather than defining our false gods and their ways.

So when life gets us down (and if we live any length of time at all in this world, it most certainly will), we need to remember the great truth of this day—Christ is the King. And this King is reigning, suffering, sacrificing and giving all that God has to give from the cross.

crown of thornsGod does not make mistakes.  God knows what God is doing.  God is in control.  But God’s throne is not made of silver and gold. God’s throne is made of wood and nails. God wears not a crown of jewels but a crown of thorns.

This past week I visited a lovely lady in the hospital who is dying with cancer. Doctors have given her about three months to live. With great faith and assurance and peace, she told me that everything was going to be all right. No, she is not delusional. Her mind is not clouded with morphine. She is at peace because her King reigns from a cross. Her King is not far away from her sitting a throne removed from her agony. Her King is at her side suffering with her. Her King is not above her pain.  Her King is experiencing her every pain. Her King is not slowly taking her life away from her. Her King is giving the King’s very life to her, pouring out the King’s very self into her, and promises her every minute of every day to see her through.

Because of this, she told me that she has never known a time in her life when she more close to her Lord. All of her despair has been transformed into hope. And she is absolutely convinced that her death will be transformed into life everlasting.

After she described the intensified intimacy she now shares with her Lord, she then said something miraculous. With a hopeful joy in her smile and eternity in her eyes, she told me that she is really looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving this year.  Think about that for a moment.

A woman, dying with cancer, told me that she has a lot for which to be thankful.

Don’t we all?

[i] Arthur McGill, Suffering: A Test of Theological Method, 61-63.

We Cannot Imagine

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year CLeave a comment

HeavenLuke 20:27-38 NRSV

One day in the sweet by and by, when we all get to heaven, in the resurrection of the dead, Jesus says we will “neither marry nor be given in marriage.” And today, some of us on this earth who are married, or have been married, sing or shout with a loud voice: “What a day of rejoicing that will be!”

Yes, for some of us with bad marriages, or have Exes that we don’t even want to talk about, this is some very good news! However, for those of us who love our spouses, and cannot imagine life without them, this news is rather disconcerting.

I am thinking specifically about those couples where you never see one without the other. I am thinking about those who have lived together so long that they not only begin to act alike and talk alike, but they actually begin to look alike. Couples who have been married 50, 60 or even 70 years. And when one passes away, the other usually follows very soon after—sometimes just months later; sometimes just days. And none of us are surprised! Not only could they not imagine life without one another, neither could we.

But there lies our real problem! We simply cannot imagine any life beyond this life. A few years ago, the group called Mercy Me, sang a very popular song about heaven entitled I Can Only Imagine. However, the truth is, that when it comes to the resurrection, when it comes to eternity, there is no way we can imagine. Even that popular song that says that we can has more questions in it than answers.

One of the reasons that we cannot imagine it is that eternal life is not something that happens because there is something intrinsic in our nature that makes it happen. It happens only because there something intrinsic in God’s nature that makes it happen. We cannot imagine it, because it is not of us. It is of God.

Some of the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, but many in the religious community did believe in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. There was widespread belief that there is something within every human being that is eternal. When we die, our soul simply leaves our body and continues living in another realm. Heaven then is understood as a continuance of our present existence. So if we marry in this life, and our first spouse dies and we remarry, it makes sense to question who our spouse will be when we get to heaven. And if we remarry and our second spouse dies, and we remarry again, and that spouse also dies, and then we marry again, well, we’re going to have a real problem in the hereafter! You think you have problems now?

However, Jesus never talked about the immortality of the soul. Jesus talked about mortality and death and about the resurrection of the dead. As I said last week, when we face our deaths, because it is not God’s will for anyone to perish, it is in the very nature of God to resurrect and transform our deaths into a brand new life. It is just what God does.  It is who God is.

Therefore, in Revelation 21 we these hopeful words:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’

And with our finite, mortal minds, we cannot imagine it.

The biblical revelation is clear:  Newness, a brand new beginning, a fresh start, a new life can come, but it comes only as a gift from the God of life, the God of the living, the creator of all that is. It cannot and does not come from those who cannot even begin to imagine it.

A very literal translation of the first line of Genesis is “In the beginning God began creating…”  William Willimon puts it this way: “Creation is not something that God did once and for all, but rather something that God continues to do in this world. God keeps making all things new. Day in and day out, God is actively involved with creation, intervening, interfering, renewing and doing battle the primordial chaos that threatens to undo creation. Creation continues as God keeps making something out of nothing.”[i]  This is just who our God is.

The key for us as people of faith in this ever-creating God is to come to understand that much of the pain and brokenness that we experience in this life is not the end, but only the beginning—the beginning of something wonderful that we cannot even imagine it.

We say we cannot imagine spending eternity without our spouses, without our children, without our friends. No we can’t. No more than a small child can imagine some of the pleasures of adulthood.[ii]

Try to explain to a child the immense joy that you receive sitting in front of your fireplace on cold mornings sipping a hot cup of coffee, listening only to sounds of sound of a soft blaze.  Try to explain to a youngster that has boundless energy the sheer gratification you experience rocking in a chair on your front porch at dusk, watching fireflies dance in your backyard.

“But mama, but grandma, but Nana, let’s go out there and try to catch some of them, put them in a jar.”

Think about the look you receive when you say, “No, honey, let’s just sit right here on this porch and quietly rock, breathe in the fresh air and just watch.”

No, just as a child cannot imagine what is pure heaven for adults, neither can we imagine the heaven God has prepared for us. The Apostle Paul put it this way,

But when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known (1 Cor 13).

But right now, we cannot imagine.  We can only trust that the God whose nature is to create and recreate and restore and resurrect will be faithful to God’s very nature.

And although I do not believe there is any way that we can fully imagine eternity, I do believe that we are privy here in our finiteness to glimpses of it. And I am not just talking about fireflies, coffee and fireplaces.

As a pastor, I have seen these glimpses, and though those glimpses might be like looking through a mirror, dimly, I have seen these glimpses often.  Someone loses a job.  They are overcome by depression and despair.  They think their world is coming to an end. They believe that life for them is over.  And I, as a pastor, try to minister to them the best way that I can.  I tell them that God will help them make something out of this mess.  God will make something good come from it.  They will be able to move on.  Things will get better.  And they, of course, cannot even imagine.

Then I check back with them in a few months, after they have landed a new job. And I hear them say things like: “Getting fired from that old job was the best thing that ever happened to me. I absolutely love my new job, and I have never been more happy!”

Someone else comes to me saying that their marriage was suddenly ending. They are completely devastated. They tell me that they feel like their life is over. Their marriage was the most important thing in the world to them, and now it was ending. They have no more reason to get up in the morning, no more reason to try to do a decent day’s work. They’re in utter despair.  Again, I try to reassure them. God will somehow, someway, work it out, help you get through this difficult time. God will work and wring whatever good can be wrung out of this horrible situation!”

“Preacher,” they say, “I cannot imagine.”

And then, a couple of years later, they fall in love again and remarry.  And I hear them say something like, “What I thought was the end of my life was only the beginning. And though I may never be able to go back to the good old days, I realize now that I have plenty of good new days ahead!”

Another comes to me and shares their doctor’s grim diagnosis. They use words like “terminal,” “inoperable,” and “untreatable.”  They say that life is over. Death is the only thing in their future. However, a short time later, as I visit them in the Hospice House, they let me know in a miraculous way that being fully alive and fully whole have absolutely nothing to do with physical well-being.

Who would have imagined?

A child dies. Then God steps in and miraculously begins working and creating and recreating and resurrecting. And untold dollars are raised in that child’s memory to fight a dreadful disease. And countless other children are saved.

Who could have imagined?

And the good news is that one day, when we face our final hours, with faith in the God of the living, the God of resurrection and restoration, that there is nothing final at all about them!

[i] Willimon, William. A quote found in some of my old sermon notes. Source uncertain.

[ii] Culpepper, Alan. Luke. The New Interpreters Bible, Volume 9 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 390.

Faith in the God of the Living

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Just a ThoughtLeave a comment

obx_sunriseExcerpt from We Cannot Imagine

Luke 20:27-38 NRSV

What does having faith in the God of the living mean for you?

When he lost his job, he thought it was the end of the world. But a year later, working a new job, he now knows that losing that job was the very best thing that could have happened to him.

When her marriage fell apart, she thought that her life was over. But a few months later, she is beginning realize that although she cannot go back to the good old days, she has plenty of good new days ahead.

When the doctor gave him the grim diagnosis, he thought he had received a death sentence. But a short time later, he is beginning to understand that being alive and whole has very little to do with physical well-being.

And one day, when you face your final hours, you will become aware that, with faith in the God of the living, there is nothing “final” at all about them.

How God Always Responds to Death

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Just a ThoughtLeave a comment

Sermon Excerpt from Death at a Funeral

Luke 7:11-15

840-casket-before-burial

This is how I believe our God always responds to death: God does not will death. God does not ordain death. God is not sitting on a throne pushing buttons calling people home. Luke teaches us that when someone dies, God is moved very deeply.  It is a visceral reaction.  God is flooded with compassion for both the deceased and the living. God does not ignore death or accept death as a natural part of life, but on the contrary, God confronts death, recognizes the harsh reality of it, the sheer evil of it, and God is moved from the very depths of who God is.

Therefore, it is very inaccurate to ever say that in death: “God takes people home.” I have said many times that God is a giver not a taker. It is the very nature of who our loving God is. It is far more accurate to say that when any death occurs, no matter the age, no matter the circumstance, God confronts it. God is moved with compassion. And God doesn’t take, but gives God’s self completely, fully and finally to the one who dies and his or her grieving family.

God does not ignore death, or demean death, or simplify death saying, “This is all part of my purpose driven plan.”  Through Jesus, God does not let any death at a funeral simply pass by like it is somehow meant to be.  Through Christ, God is moved with compassion and sees death as a force contrary to God’s will and acts to overcome it. God always acts to transform death at a funeral into life at a funeral.

Why Me, Lord?

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Farmville Enterprise, Memorials4 Comments

HospicePlace_lgEarly one summer morning, a very sick mother was on the patio enjoying the outdoors with her daughter at a hospice house for the terminally ill. Morphine has a way of erasing the memory, so the daughter was helping her mother recall some of the names of the friends and family members who had been so faithful coming to visit her.

Then they sat quietly on the patio listening to and watching nature wake up all around them: the birds singing, butterflies dancing and flowers bursting with color. After a few moments the daughter looked at her mother. Her heart broke. This one who had always been so strong, so vibrant and so active was quickly slipping away. Her body had never been more weak or more frail.

The mother looked at her daughter with eyes that began to fill with tears. And as tears began to stream down her cheeks, the dying mother asked a familiar question. It is a question that every human being living in this broken world asks at some time or another. Sometimes we ask it about others and sometimes we ask it about ourselves.  When life is difficult, when life is unfair we ask it. Sometimes silently, sometimes shouting, we ask it: “Why me?” “Lord, Why me? Why!”

After her mother asked the familiar question, the daughter, in her thoughts that were shaded with grief, understandably joined her mother.

“Yes, mother, why!  Why you!  Why do you have to have this stupid disease? Why do you have to leave all of your wonderful friends and family? And why do you have to leave us when you are still so young?  It just does not make any sense. You are such a good mother, such a sweet person. Why? Why do bad things happen to good people?”

She was a very good person. She was a compassionate mother, a very involved grandmother, a faithful sister and a devoted friend. She was the selfless type who lived to help others. Even after her terminal diagnosis she continued to put the needs and interests of others before her own.

In recent weeks, she made it a priority to spend time with her grandchildren. She told them not to worry because she knew Heaven was real. She said, “One day, you might feel a faint nudge on your shoulder. It will be me.” She told them if they found a penny, then they should always pick it up, because it was from her.

She possessed a special gift to love all people unconditionally regardless of what they looked like or where they were from. She could always see the good in others as she could in all circumstances. And as generous as she was with her love, she was also generous with grace and forgiveness.

This generosity spilled over everywhere she went. It is hard to count how many regarded her as a second mom. Even during these last difficult months, her generous spirit established instant relationships with all sorts of people. She made friends with her doctors, her nurses, with every caregiver, and even with those working in housekeeping at the hospital or hospice house.

It was said that the mother lived her life the way she cooked her meals. Her daughter would often tease her about her cooking. She would taste her food and say, “Mama, I think I know what your secret ingredient is! It’s sugar! Mama, you add sugar to everything, don’t you?!”

That is just what she did. It is who she was. Wherever she was and whomever she was with, she added a little bit of sweetness to everything she touched.

So, O Lord, why? Why do some of the sweetest, most pleasant, most loving and forgiving people we know suffer and die at an early age? Why her? Why my mother? Why, Lord, why?

As they sat outside on that patio, the daughter understood her mother’s question, “Why me?” It is just so unfair! It is so unjust and so unbelievable!  The wave of enormous grief was overwhelming. It hit her all at once: pain and sadness and anger and despair. “Yes,” the daughter thought, “Why you, Mama!  Why you!  Why!”

In that moment, the daughter wanted to say something to comfort her mother; however, before she could say anything, her mother had a big surprise for her.

Her mother simply finished her question.

As tears rolled down her face, the mother began to smile and continued to ask: “Why me? Why am I so lucky? Why have I been so blessed? Why me? Why do I have so many friends? What have I done to deserve such a wonderful family?” Sitting outside enjoying God’s beautiful creation, she was asking the creator of all that is: “Why have I been blessed with such a wonderful life?”

She understood the sheer grace that is in all of it, in all of this miraculous mystery we call “life.” And she was grateful for it.

And thinking about how grateful her mother had always been, the way she lived her life, the daughter smiled, for she knew that she should not have been surprised when her mother completed her question.

The daughter knew that there are basically two kinds of people in the world. There are people, like her mother, who are sweet and kind, generous with love and forgiveness. And then there are others are bitter and mean, stingy and selfish.

She now understood why, as she thought: “Mama was sweet because of gratitude. And folks who are bitter are usually ungrateful. They think that others and the world owe them something. Sweet people like mama have an understanding that all of life is but a gift.”

She was the mother, the sister, the grandmother and the friend she was because she understood all of life is but a free gift of God’s amazing grace. So, on that patio, when she asked: “Why me? Why am I so lucky?” none of us should have been surprised.

But that is what God’s grace does. It surprises us.

A few days later, the mother, who was at perfect peace, died.

Time passed, but the grief the daughter experienced did not. The immense grief that came in waves and overwhelmed her came less frequently. However, every time it came, if she was paying attention, she could feel a faint nudge on her shoulder, or she might look down and find a penny, and be reminded to pause and give thanks.

Instead of being bitter over the years the disease took from her mother, she became grateful for the sacred years she had with her. Thus, in what seemed very strange at first, each time the waves of grief would come, the daughter would stop and thank God for her grief. For grieving only meant that she lost someone wonderful–someone she did not deserve to have.

And although thanking God for grief seemed strange, instead of being surprised and shocked that she was being grateful to God for the pain, she would ask God, sometimes in silence and sometimes in a shout, but always with a smile:

“Why me, Lord? Why me! What did I do to deserve to be loved by and to love someone as special as my mother, a true gift of God’s amazing grace!”

And like her mother, the daughter discovered a perfect peace.

A re-telling of Ashley and Mandy’s  remembrances of their mother,

Nadine Petroff Martin, July 5, 1949 – September 17, 2013