In the 17th century, Brother Lawrence, a weak-though-strong monk, sent an ailing friend some healthy advice on what to do with his burden. The good Brother was well-acquainted with suffering; lame in one leg and saddled with illness, the simple, experiential devotional life of this humble monastery cook became an inspiration to many.

His own discovery into the precious joy of the abiding life is found in the small volume, The Practise of the Presence of God, which I vociferously recommend to you. Brother Lawrence’s sage advice to his sick friend includes this:

• I do not pray that you may be delivered from your pains, but I pray God earnestly that He would give you strength and patience to bear them as long as he pleases…

• I wish you could convince yourself that God is often (in some sense) nearer to us, and more effectually present with us, in sickness than in health…

• He often sends diseases of the body to cure those of the soul…

• I have been often near expiring, but I never was so much satisfied as then. Accordingly, I did not pray for any relief, but I prayed for strength to suffer with courage, humility and love. Ah, how sweet it is to suffer with God!

Brother Lawrence discovered a strength that could re-cast pain as something good. ‘Such prayers,’ he admitted, ‘are a little hard to nature, but most acceptable to God and sweet to those who love Him… I beseech you; comfort yourself with Him, who is the only Physician for our maladies.’

Do you have a sick friend?

These trustworthy words might do them some bit of good in this their hour of opportunity.

I actually post this while my body is battling infection, and I look to my Rapha with joy, and praise God for my “exhaustless Savior” (just read today) who is always nigh.

I wonder if the FBI has ever done a profile on this “man”? I would think the TSA would let him pass through untouched.

I’m especially intrigued by the last line.

He who has love will be a gentleman though he be untaught in social graces. He will be a diplomat out of consideration for others and not for personal advantage. He will labor happily though unremunerated and sacrifice personal comfort without protest or complaint. He will measure happiness by his power to give and weakness by his limitation to bring comfort to those in need.

Frances J. Roberts, Make Haste My Beloved

Matthew 16:18-19
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Revelation 3:7-8
“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.
“‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut…

A long time ago I told my Dad I didn’t want to grow up because all the cars of the future looked so ugly. I was quite fine with his 1960s Catalina and our ’69 LTD, thank you very much.

So now I’ve grown up and – for the most part – every vehicle I’ve owned is not only of the used variety but usually not even in the same decade. To illustrate, the other day it was a bit rainy so I pulled on the light switch to engage my headlights. When I parked at a Barnes & Noble an hour later, I forgot to disengage them, so I went inside the two-story bookstore and meandered and browsed for awhile. Some time later a guy, who obviously had been searching for me for a time, found me and reported to me my lights were on.

“I saw you park and get out,” he said, breathing heavily, “but I assumed your lights would shut off automatically.” He said it like: ‘it’s 2012, why wouldn’t your headlights turn off like everyone else’s in the universe?’

Sorry, it’s just a cross I choose to bear.

So then yesterday I took my eldest sister to lunch for her birthday and she beat me to the restaurant. When I drove up she was standing beside her new-model Prius, so I asked for a peek. The inside looked like the cockpit of the space shuttle! It had everything, even temperature control, radio and Bluetooth – built right into in the steering wheel!

My jalopy looked sad and embarrassed even sharing the same lot with her Toyota. But, oh well. C’est la vie.

After lunch I wanted to walk her to her car and she gratefully accepted her little brother’s old-world chivalry. When she reached out and pulled her door handle, the door made a sweet unfastening sound and glided open, the aroma of new car fumes spilling out.

“What, you left your door unlocked?”

She looked at me, puzzled.

“I never saw you pull out a key…” I injected, but then it hit me: “Oh! Is it your handprint or something on the handle? It recognizes your print?”

I was grasping.

“No, no,” she explained, “I have the key with me but I don’t have to use it. There’s a sensor or something inside the key, so whenever I am close to the car, the door unlocks itself for me.”

I about fainted with disbelief. I recalled what I told my Dad all those years ago and summarily changed my mind. I wanted one of these newfangled futuristic cars!

So all this got me thinking: remember when Jesus blessed Peter for divulging his supernaturally downloaded Truth to the question of “Who am I?” and told the brash fisherman that submitting to His Kingship would give him (and by extension all followers of Messiah) unequivocal authority before all kinds of doors in the kingdom?

That we would carry KEYS inside us?

How cool to think, like my Sis’s perk with her car door, that when we come upon any closed door in the spirit realm the Lord means to be opened, that our submitted walk to His timing and will – just by our walking up to it – would release locks, disengage doors and open passages into other rooms and deeper realms!

Now that’s what I’m talking about.

Back to my old clunker (forgive me Jesus, You blessed me with it and it is special!): it does give me an incredible perk in its own right. It happens to sport a very coveted plate on its rear end that unlocks great possibilities that afford me the luxury of parking in extremely convenient slots right beside the mall and restaurants that are marked with painted blue signs with stick figure wheelchair persons on them.

Jealous?

My last five public sermons have dealt with the virtue of endurance. This is the crying need of the hour for the saints of God, to be sure. Fortunately, God knows we can’t do it alone, so He has given us a surefire solution to our getting out of this thing alive.

Christian community.

While the main text for the quintuplet of sermons was Hebrews 10:36, well, here, I’ll just let you read it for yourself:

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.

That’s way toward the end of Hebrews, but earlier – and throughout the letter – the inspired words let us in on a little secret: we need each other to make it home.

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. Hebrews 3:12-14

Read it again.

One another.

We have come to share in Christ.

We. Us.

Brotherz. Plural.

And Sisterz.

Like Mallory and Liz.

I have a story you just HAVE to hear:

As players on Central Washington University’s softball team, Mallory Holtman and Liz Wallace lost a game of baseball. And won the game of life.

Western Oregon University senior Sara Tucholsky had never hit a home run before – not in high school, not in college, not ever in her twenty-one years of playing softball. But at this double-header, with hecklers yelling at her, Tucholsky smashed the ball over the center-field fence.
Amazed at her home run, Tucholsky forgot to touch first base.
As she quickly turned to correct the mistake, her knee blew out.
She had a torn ligament—her ACL.
Tucholsky was on the ground, crawling back to first.

Here’s the key: If anyone from her team tried to help her, Tucholsky would be called out.
The umpires said that if she couldn’t continue beyond first base, and a pinch-runner was put in, her over-the-fence hit would count only as a two-run single.

That’s when the opposing team’s firstbaseman, Mallory Holtman, said to an umpire, “Excuse me, would it be okay if we carried her around and she touched each bag?”
The umpires looked at each other.
What?
But as they discussed it, they realized there were no rules preventing the opposing side from helping.

So that’s what Mallory and a teammate did.

Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace literally carried Tucholsky – an opposing player – around the bases, making sure she tagged every base with her good left foot.
In the end, that home run contributed to Holtman and Wallace’s team losing the game.
It also meant that Holtman, a senior, would never make it into the NCAA playoffs.
Soon after, her softball career was over.

- from Heroes For My Daughter, Brad Meltzer

A wise sage once said a “three-fold cord cannot be broken” and it would seem that a simple “fireman carry” is a pretty strong force to be reckoned with too.

“To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionists, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart…

“Come near to the holy men and the holy women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God…

“David’s life was a torrent of spiritual desire, and His Psalms ring with the cry of the seeker and the glad shout of the finder…

“We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him, we need no more seek Him…In the midst of this great chill, there are some, I rejoice to acknowledge, who will NOT be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, “O God, show me Thy glory!” They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God.”

A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, pp. 15-17

I settled a long time ago the matter of Christ’s resurrection from absolute death. I’m so convinced that King Jesus is alive forevermore that I don’t really need any more proof, but I did take note of a sideways or backhanded confirmation the other day. Maybe it was upside down. Or catawampus.

It was, nonetheless profanely convincing.

I was at the theater, cozied in for a Disney-produced movie, mind you, and as I settled in and got lost in the narrative, my reverie was suddenly capsized by the main character’s graphic expletive.

“Jesus Christ!”

There was no middle initial, so I knew the actor was cursing the one and only Jesus Christ of heaven, with whom his character obviously had an issue.

A few moments later, he cussed Him again.

That’s it. That’s all the evidence I need. I know that Jesus is not long-buried in some Middle Eastern grave somewhere. Otherwise, Hollywood wouldn’t give Him the time of day much less all the free advertisement.

Off-track Question: should Hollywood have to pay royalties to Jesus for each reference to Him…or is He public domain? Oh yeah, just remembered: they’ll each pay retribution when they have to face Him on the Day of Reckoning and the books are opened…

Back to the point: Sure we have the scriptural record that testifies to His risenness, the historical record, the testimonies of numerous reliable witnesses, and bookoos of forensic evidence, but I submit into evidence ‘Exhibit E’: the incessant and pervasive taking of our Lord’s Name in vain in every culture, every language, and in every era of human history since He left His footprint on planet earth.

You never hear anyone cursing Buddha or Mohammed or Santa or the Easter Bunny. Have you ever heard “MLK!” or “Mary Baker Eddy!” or “Joseph H. Smith!”? To get that much (sole) attention, Jesus, the Christ of God has got to be a credible, indelible contemporary influence. And with all that cussing and derision…

…how could He be out of sight and gone from public purview?

How, do tell, could He be gone from the context of our lives if He’s dead and buried? Every time someone shouts an invective built around that Blessed Name, I just hang on it the truth that my Jesus is alive and well.

And, conversely, since there’s no censuring of those other guys and gals, I know they’re cold dead. Unless they’re with Jesus, that is. If they’re not, then they’re hot dead. Only Santa and the E.B. get a pass.

Just like today, 2000 years ago angry people shook their fists at Innocence Himself and cursed Him. They wanted Him out of their lives for good. Their insults took on moisture as they spat upon His Holiness. Then they cussed Him some more.

Within hours His lifeless body was BOUND in grave clothes, SEALED behind a rock that weighed a ton, and GUARDED by soldiers who were trained to keep watch. Presumably, they were there to keep others out, and, just in case, to keep the dead Rabbi in.

Enter lightning, thunder and an earthquake. A moved stone. An empty tomb. A humiliated satan. A worshipping woman. Puzzled disciples. An angry prefect. Horrified Sadducees. An ascended Lord. A poured-out Spirit. A Church triumphant. A Coming King.

And you still want to curse Him?

First off, go ahead and feed your kiddies all the chocolate bunnies and jelly beans their tummies can, um, stomach.

Color those eggs with the wee ones. Hide them in the tall grasses. The eggs, not the children.

I’m not here to pull the plug on all peeps, cadburies and patent leather shoes. If your kids know that all of it is just a side-show to the Main Attraction, have at it.

For me, I don’t much care for the word “Easter” anymore. I’ve dug through some pretty distasteful records of history that show how that celebration came to us and, frankly, it gives me pause. Or a heartache.

I stopped saying “Happy Easter!” years ago. And now I must tell you why. Excuse me while I pull on my history professor’s tweed jacket, complete with those trendy elbow patches. And now while I make my voice sound more professorial.

(clearing throat)

Ok, then.

Our story begins not long after the dawn of human history. Nimrod, evil grandson of Noah, built a temple-tower called Babel in the plains of Shinar, the birthplace of Babylon. Ancient texts tell us he married his female counterpart, a vile woman named Semerimus. Together, they bore a son, Tammuz, whom they claimed to be the divine Child of God.

Semerimus instituted the first in a long line of “mother-child” religions where she was worshipped as the “Queen of Heaven” and son as the “Divine One.” You see, Satan was already setting the stage to obscure the arrival of the True Divine King, Messiah. In Phoenicia, it was Ashteroth and Tammuz. In Egypt, Isis and Horus. In Greece, Aphrodite and Eros. In Rome, Venus and Cupid.

Fact soon gave way to fantasy and, as the story goes, Tammuz went hunting one day and was horrifically killed by a bear. Forty days later, he miraculously rose from the dead! To commemorate this event, temple virgins would fast and weep 40 days (see Ezekiel 8:14) which led to a great feast called ‘Ishtar’ where colored eggs were exchanged as a symbol of fertility.

A risen-from-the-dead deity.

Colored eggs.

Ishtar. Eas-ter.

This little history lesson is not intended to be a rant against Christians who do the dog and pony show of Easter, but a reminder that it was prodigals who thought the whole idea up, and God came to save prodigals. Prodigals mythologized a faux immaculate conception, a would-be heavenly son and fabled a resurrection, but we have all the factual nothing-made-up reality in Christ, hallelujah!

Satan wanted one-upmanship. He thought he’d do an endaround on the Godhead (remember the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world) and get the world to fall at the feet of an antithesis Christ – one who wouldn’t crush his head! (Gen 3:14,15)

Ah, but that’s not what old slewfoot got. What he got was humiliated, trounced, crushed and defeated!

Christ has utterly wiped out the damning evidence of broken laws and commandments which always hung over our heads, and has completely annulled it by nailing it over his own head on the cross. And then having drawn the sting of all the powers ranged against us, he exposed them, shattered, empty and defeated, in his final glorious triumphant act!
- Paul, Colossians 2, JBP

The evil one’s lair was raided by the Stronger Man, Jesus, and the grave’s captives, long held despairingly and hopelessly in chains and leg irons, became a long procession of gloriously redeemed souls, the most awe-inspiring parade you ever saw! Far more beautiful, even, than a field of colored eggs or a church filled with frilly dresses!

Thanks be to God who leads us, wherever we are, on his own triumphant way and makes our knowledge of him spread throughout the world like a lovely perfume! We Christians have the unmistakeable “scent” of Christ, discernible alike to those who are being saved and to those who are heading for death. To the latter it seems like the very smell of doom, to the former it has the fresh fragrance of life itself.
- Paul, 2 Corinthians 2, JBP

Easter came to us via prodigal lore, all wrapped and dyed to keep our focus on things that lead to death, but Jesus came to set the record straight. Which version will your celebration reflect?

Happy Resurrection Day! (The real one.)

Then shrink our sun from 865,00 miles in diameter to only two feet … and place the ball on the pavement to represent the sun.

Step off 83 paces (about two feet per pace) and to represent proportionately the first planet, Mercury, put down a tiny mustard seed.

Take 60 steps more and for Venus, put an ordinary BB. Mark 78 more steps … put down a green pea representing Earth.

Step off 108 paces from there, and for Mars put down a pinhead. Sprinkle around some fine dust for the asteroids, then take 788 steps more. For Jupiter, place an orange on the glass at that spot.

After 934 more steps, put down a golf ball for Saturn. Now it gets really involved.

Mark 2,086 steps, and for Uranus … a marble.

Another 2,322 steps from there you arrive at Neptune. Let a cherry represent Neptune. This will take 2 1/2 miles, and we haven’t even discussed Pluto!

If we swing completely around, we have a smooth, glass surface five miles in diameter, yet just a tiny fraction of the heavens—excluding Pluto. On this surface, five miles across, we have only a seed, BB, pea, pinhead, some dust, an orange, golf ball, a marble and a cherry.

Guess how far we’d have to go on the same scale before we could put down another two-foot ball to represent the nearest star.

Come on, guess.

Seven hundred paces?

Two thousand steps more?

Forty-four hundred feet?

No, you’re way off.

We’d have to go 6,720 miles before we could arrive at that star!

Miles, not feet. And that’s just the first star among millions.

In one galaxy among perhaps hundreds, maybe thousands. And all of it in perpetual motion, perfectly synchronized, the most accurate timepiece known to man.*

If that steals your breath, just consider:

from across all that expanse,

all that vastness,

all that eternity,

King Jesus, Creator God

ventured into our realm that we might join Him in His.

Forever.

I have come into the world as light, so that no one who believes in me need remain in the dark.

- Jesus

_____________________________________________

*Chuck Swindoll, Mind Under Matter. (Publication of the First Evangelical Free Church, Fullerton, CA)
** John 12:46, New Testament in Modern English, J.B. Phillips

My friend said, “I’m probably on the third verse.”

Then explained, “The first verse usually gives the overall concept of the song’s meaning. The second verse will give more meaning, makes it more personal, and the last verse pretty much wraps it all up.”

“The third verse,” I said, intrigued. “Huh.”

And then a thought popped into my head. In the denomination I belonged to growing up, we didn’t have worship leaders, we had “song leaders” or “music directors”.

Invariably – perhaps because they were trained at the same music schools? – each would have the audience – sorry, congregation – stand at different intervals, these usually being the opening two hymns (that’s with a ‘ymn’ for the young crowd – these were lines of songs with strange symbols above and below) and the song right after announcements, then once more after the offering. Then lastly, during the invitation. This could last as long as the sermon, only ending when someone finally came forward.

As though it were a canonized statement, each song leader would announce the ‘standing’ hymn with the words, “Please rise and sing the first, second, and last stanzas (not verses) of song number 362 in your hymnals (hardback books containing numbered hymns)…”

Never the third verse. That one got skipped.

Who knows why?

Back to my friend: I was hearing that they were at an unsung, forgotten season of their life. What their life was saying was just not important enough for others to notice. Though they had a lot to offer, they just weren’t getting their just due.

At least that’s what I heard.

It’s been my joy to preach a mini-series at my home fellowship on “endurance” these three weeks. It came as no surprise that the passage God gave me is the scripture that got me through my nine weeks of hospitalization, three surgeries, two separate trips to ICU, and coding on my hospital bed. Through everything, God supplied my own third verse

Hebrews 10:36
For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.

That’s what Hebrews has to say: stand fast, hold your ground, and progress pilgrim, because going back is not worth it. What is worth everything is when your life sings the lyric that was written just for you, that no one else knows, but needs to learn.

So no one sings your verse? You sing it, beloved. Lean back, tip your chin and just belt it out. It’s your story, it’s your song. It’s about praising your Savior all the day long! Make your verse the one the conductor modulates on. Even if it’s in the minor key, that’s okay, because it can raise the hair on the back of people’s necks like you wouldn’t believe!

Fannie Crosby, blinded in infancy by a quack, used her third verse to sing the message of her life: “If I had a choice, I would still choose to remain blind … for when I die; the first face I will ever see will be the face of my blessed Saviour.” All she did was write 8000 songs and a lot of third verses.

Here’s one:

Perfect submission, all is at rest;
I in my Savior am happy and blest.
Watching and waiting, looking above -
Filled with His goodness…lost in His love!

A woman I know well has been a quadriplegic since 1967. Her own ‘third verse’ is: “God’s greatest miracle to me has been His sustaining power in my life.” Amen, Joni.

Yeah, we’re not gonna skip verse three. It has a LOT to say and just as much to offer. That’s what I think Hebrews 10:36 is supposed to be: the missing verse that puts it ALL together, giving better perspective to this beautiful, hard, fulfilling and frustrating thing we call discipleship.

It’s beautiful music indeed.

Not far from our house is a small clutch of retail establishments with only three or four eateries. And one of those is a McDonald’s.

Sigh.

We’re not much for fast-food, but when we’re tired and hungry and don’t want to drive very far, we’ll give in and drive up the road and grab a bite. No, not at Mickey D’s – that’s pretty much never in our GPS. Except for their morning coffee. It’s pretty good, I’d have to say. Better than, even.

But I digress.

We’ll invariably choose another joint that at least has some good salad choices and better-than-average chicken plates. Anything with a pretentious ‘Z’ in its name has promise. We’d prefer to add to Truitt Cathy’s bulging wallet, but his place is way over four miles from us; plus it’s only got a drive-thru. And, we like the whimsical, warm-glow atmosphere of the primarily southern restaurant’s (could it be called that?) dining room.

Being the marvelous husband that I am, I gallantly offer to make a run up to the place and pick something up for us both. I know how Sandy likes her tea, how many yellow-pack sweeteners she likes, how she prefers her fries without its strangling seasoning, how she takes her sauce, etc.

I tell you, I’ve got this husband thing down pat.

But, invariably, my love will tell me she’d rather us go together so we can enjoy the full benefits of dining inside. Long ago she explained that you can get free refills, take the time to season or sweeten to your heart’s content, and, who knows, but being extra nice to the girl at the register might cause her to whisper “give ‘em extra fries” through the window to the food prepare’s side.

In short, the drive-thru limits you. What you drive away with, you’re stuck with. Ah, but when you sit and dine – hello – if the food’s not quite to your liking, all you have to do is walk ten feet to the counter and inform them (nicely! Extra fries or chicken pieces in your salad, remember?) that your palate, while titillated, is not yet sated.

A lot of His followers treat Jesus like a drive-thru. A quick convenience. In and out…or, up to the small impersonal window and gone, lickety-split. In a snap. A forty-second encounter. Little fuss. Little wait.

But remember…

When you drive away, you’re stuck with what you got, that is, unless you’re willing to go to inconvenient lengths to get your demands met.

When Jesus said He wanted a chance to “sup” with us (Rev 3:20), he used the word that means to sit and dine, not looking at the clock, not squeezing Him in, not ‘fast-fooding’ it. It’s the meal of the day that Martha was preparing for, bless her heart. She wanted it just right. Little did she realize, the feast was already happening in the other room.

Oh, the rich benefits of spending a lot of time over a meal with Jesus – not allotted time. It’s not “on-the-go”. The ancients had a meal-time like that – we call it lunch. This is a two to three hour meal where time is taken and life is exchanged. Five, six courses.

Conversation.

Savoring.

Embellishment.

Transformation.

Such ‘supping’ offers all the little extras. There’s the atmosphere – the ambience – of being inside, not “out there” choking on the fumes of the world. Complete with all the accessible a la cart perks!

The “better part.”

You may not get a daily time like this, I know, but carve times and seasons throughout the year – weekly, monthly – when you shut off the motor, venture inside…

…and sup at His table.