I have to admit, I am obsessed with speed. I time how fast I can walk, in an attempt to get back to my pre-knee replacement speed. I always time myself. I just bought a new side-by-side, and on the first test run, it would only go 12 miles an hour. I was devastated. I kicked the tires, called it bad names, and then called the dealer to come pick it up. Then I read in the owner’s manual—of course, going too fast to bother with that—that the seat belt had to be fastened before it would go any faster. With shame, I called the dealer and told them I would keep it. (To alleviate some of my shame, they hadn’t known that either!) I drive my wife crazy on trips. I time restaurant and bathroom breaks to keep us on track in order to beat our previous record time to the beach. All my long cooks and short cooks on my grill are timed, as well. 

It is totally ironic to me then that a God who is timeless would make his creatures such that we are bound by time. But I take great comfort in the fact that the same God would enter into our time-bound reality to save us. Jesus, the full radiance of the Godhead, was bound by time and place. He walked everywhere. Though he had just three years to save the world, he was totally inefficient with his methods and use of time, at least by our reckoning. He was always “wasting” time being alone with his Father. He got large crowds, yet shied away from going “viral”. He didn’t seem as interested in getting “followers” and “likes” as he did with connecting with twelve guys—guys who didn’t believe he would be resurrected, even after he told them repeatedly he would suffer, die, and come back to life. 

As we consider the post-resurrection Jesus, it seems he didn’t wise up in his use of time. I mean, a dead man walking and preaching—well, what could a good publicist do with that? Talk about getting a crowd! And yet, we find Jesus, with forty days to make a splash and get his eternal kingdom off the ground, walking at three miles an hour with two guys—one so insignificant he is not even named—on a dirt road to a town only remembered because of this seven-mile walk. 

What is God saying? A whole lot, especially to us caught up in a cultural moment obsessed with speed and efficiency. I hope you will join us as we talk about it this Sunday. There is so much to celebrate this week, it is astonishing. We have seniors to celebrate, kids to baptize, members to receive, and lots of good news to share with a world obsessed with shock and bad news—all ordinary, all glorious, all at the heart of what it means to be human. 

Glory!

As we enter a new series this week, we’re going to consider what it means to slow down a bit, to Godspeed. In our zeal for the Kingdom, we often run ahead of the gentle pace of Jesus, or else, we resign to sit the bench and pout. But life with Jesus is a lot like taking a walk with a child. It’s taking the scenic route, with a lot of maddening side quests to consider the lilies. 

When I was first beginning in full time ministry, I found myself partnered with a very charismatic and thoughtful pastor who was in charge of our young adults’ ministry. He was thirty, so I of course supposed that he was in the very prime of his wisdom: he was experienced and educated but still knew all the cool music. Youthful naiveté aside, it truly was a great gift for me to have access to him and I took advantage of every opportunity to annoy him with all the robust curiosity and angst of my 24-year-old self. 

If you think I’m an idealist now, you should have met that kid. I was constantly feeling frustrated by the immense gap between the vision I was convinced the Bible had for gospel-centered church life and the realities of parish ministry in the suburban south. Probably the greatest gift Robbyn gave me was to insist on a distinction that I still live by today. He told me I had to figure out how to lower my expectations while maintaining and even increasing my longings. This, he knew, would do three things: lowering expectations would keep me from discouragement; increased longing would keep me hopeful for the future, and the internal tension of that widening gap would keep me on my knees. 

- js

P.S. This Sunday, Aida from Take Heart will be with us. She will give a brief update during the worship service but will also be sharing about their ministry to persecuted Christians during the Sunday School hour in the Youth Room. Everyone is invited!

A great weekend is before us! Whether you are Christian or not, it is incredibly human to mark days that are significant to us. We celebrate days that are monumental to us, both as individuals and as communities (large and small). Often the celebrations are about people and events that are dear to us like birthdays, anniversaries or deaths. They are reminders of how important these people are to us. Sometimes we set aside days to remember what story we are in: Israel had seven such times of the year that told their unique story as the people of God. Why? LEST WE FORGET! The watershed of Christianity is what we celebrate this Easter weekend. A dead man got up out of the grave and defeated death! 

Easter Vigil: On Saturday night, we will have our first ever Easter Vigil. We have never done this before as a congregation, but we have added it this year for a specific reason—a better remembering, you might say. As Will has pointed out to our staff over and over in our discussions about this, there is no service where we sit as a congregation in the moment of, not just the death of Christ, but also the resurrection. Here is what I mean…Usually on Maundy Thursday, we witness the death of Christ and see it symbolized by the Christ candle being snuffed out and placed behind the pulpit. Then we come on Sunday morning and we hear the glorious liturgy—He is risen! He is risen indeed!  Yet we missed the miracle of the actual moment in time when “air became breath.” A corpse actually breathed again. That is what the term Easter Vigil means—we are waiting for the resurrection. 

In an Easter Vigil, the story of redemption is told from key texts with music and prayers, much like our Tenebrae Service, but this time we not only see Jesus’ life snuffed out and the light of the world darkened, as the candle departs the sanctuary and all is darkness and gloom, but—wonder of wonders—we will also see, through sign and symbol, the darkened sanctuary again become illuminated with light as the Light of the World turns darkness into light. I do hope you will join us on Saturday evening at 7:00pm for this special event. 

Easter Morning:  On Sunday morning, we will gather at 9:00am and 11:00am to celebrate Easter and ponder what it means to be “People of the Resurrection.” Nothing can account for the sudden rise of Christianity across Israel and beyond, throughout the whole Roman Empire, unless a singular event happened that had never happened before—Resurrection. This Easter we will consider what this means and why resurrection is not just a concept but a power that came into the world, and also why resurrection is not just a distant hope for when we die but a living reality within the people of God—a hope for today. 

I hope you will join us for each of these celebrations because, as Anne Lamott says, "Christians are Easter people living in a Good Friday world.” We await resurrection, true; but it is equally true that we have experienced it already and without that power in us we have no hope of living well in this broken world.

Tonight, my wife closes her production of Shakespeare’s, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Westminster Academy. It’s been a whirlwind of late nights, spilled paint, and teen tears, to produce a couple of hours of magic that will be almost completely erased by the time we worship together on Sunday. In some ways, it feels like an extravagant waste! All those hours and all that effort for something that happens so gloriously yet so briefly before it vanishes. There are traces and artifacts that litter our lives with nostalgia long after the events – a creature, or structure, or set-piece haunting the halls or garage – but as for the magical thing itself, it’s here today, and gone tomorrow. 

Allie calls most of her art “ephemera,” things like parade floats and VBS hallways and, yes, lots of plays. As she points out in the program for this piece, it’s a good reminder of what Isaiah 40 declares to those who listen for voices in the wilderness: 

  All flesh is grass,

    and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

 The grass withers, the flower fades

    when the breath of the Lord blows on it;

    surely the people are grass.

 The grass withers, the flower fades,

    but the word of our God will stand forever.

That’s the very word Isaiah tells the people to declare from Mount Zion, where we find Israel in our text this week at the absolute pinnacle of their own glory and power and beauty. The Kingdom will never again be this united and formidable. And yet, in just forty short years they will be torn in two, and after a couple of centuries of languishing, ultimately exiled. Basically wiped off the planet.

So, how do we delight fully in the fleeting glory of our lives, with our eyes fixed on eternity and our feet planted firmly in the present? 1 Chronicles is here to speak encouragement to all of us exiles, as we also celebrate together the triumphal entry of the King of Exiles back into the capitol city! 

As Americans, we don’t often think about the fact that it is practically a miracle the United States even exists. As children, we were born into a story of stability and prosperity, the likes of which the world has never seen. As we grew older and read history, we began to wonder that it actually did happen. Thirteen colonies, each with their own ideas of what government should look like, and also vastly different perspectives on slavery, taxation, and states’ rights (verses a more centralized form of government). There was a lot of fear, if you were in the middle of it. I suppose the old saying is true, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Then, to overcome a superpower in battlefields drenched with blood to form a new nation—amazing.

It really gets fun then: how do we now live in solidarity together? Lot of fear there, as well. If you wonder why chapter 22 in I Chronicles (which we looked at last week) and chapters 28 and 29 (which we will look at this week and next) keep repeating the same things, with variations along the way, it is because there must be a lot of fear. Israel has no experience at nationhood. They have a king that has brought stability, unity, and economic and social stability like never before, but he is about to die. The heir, his son, is young and inexperienced (the words of his own dad). What could possibly go wrong? 

So here we are, and King David confronts this fear as he assembles all the leaders of Israel together with his son and gives them a commission to build the temple. He is, in essence, securing the throne and temple. As we come to the conclusion of this epic portion of scripture, it all comes together.

I hope you will join us. It will be a great Sunday of celebration, as we receive new members to our family and also put the sign of God’s covenant love and membership on our children. If that is not a recipe for joy unspeakable, then it is all lost on me!

I love Steven Pressfield. Years ago, I read his book, Gates of Fire about the Spartans who, with just three hundred men and their battle slaves, held the Gates of Thermopylae against an overwhelming Persian army. Not one man survived, but their sacrifice gave time for Greece to prepare for the coming invasion. Pressfield wrote several other books about antiquity, but later he turned his attention to books on writing, work, art, etc. One of his books, called Do the Work, is about overcoming what Pressfield calls resistance—that is, the thing we face when launching a business, starting a diet, overcoming an addiction, planting a church, or doing anything that entails passion and commitment from the heart. 

This thought didn't occur to me until I was finished with my sermon and thinking about writing this blog. Sometimes creative thoughts come easy but other times one does face resistance, when nothing is obvious to write, and it easier to just scroll through emails or engage in some other time-wasting endeavor. I was thinking about David and Solomon, as preparations were being made to build the temple. I mean, David has set the table for his son by assembling artisans and materials, and even organizing the elaborate liturgical elements that will be the heartbeat of Israel’s life of worship and make them a joy and delight to the nations. I mean, what can go wrong? Everything is laid out for him.

And yet, David, knowing his own heart, specifically prays that his son would have God’s presence and, specifically, the virtue of courage. Here is why: In any endeavor of the heart that requires sacrifice and effort—like writing, parenting, marriage, helping others, living in community, etc.—you will face resistance, both internally and externally, and all the virtue you think you have will begin to crumble under these onslaughts. 

Arise and work! It’s a nice sentiment, easy to say, but without God’s help and courage you will be lost. Hope to see you Sunday as we talk about it. 

One would think that once all the external adversaries are put to rest, things would get easier for the Israelites, but as we see in our text this week (and in other texts throughout the Bible), the real adversary is usually not out there—some external threat—but rather the real threat is internal. I tell people all the time that I sleep with the devil, and I don’t mean Teri! As G. K. Chesterton said years ago in response to a question posed by a newspaper, What is wrong with the world?, Chesterton wrote back, "Dear Sir, 'I am.' Yours, G. K Chesterton.” While that might be an apocryphal story, the sentiment rings true. Woe be unto anyone who thinks differently.

We really see that in our text this week. David seems to do quite well when the threats are around him, external and obvious—a lion, a giant, a deranged king hunting him, large armies seeking to devour his people. Yet the real threat to David (and to us) is not the giants he (or we) must face, but dealing with the desires and motivations of our own heart. 

David takes a census of his fighting men. We might ask, what is wrong with that? I mean, there is precedent for such actions in other places in the Bible. Some might consider it a move of wisdom at some new provocation by an adversary, but here it kindles God’s wrath against David. David is even warned by Joab, who is himself no paragon of virtue, not to do this. So while David’s sin with Bathsheba doesn’t get press in I Chronicles (leading some to accuse the writer of whitewashing David’s sin), here we see the man after God’s own heart with his own heart laid bare.

There is a lot here, in this rather dramatic passage: sin, grace, angels, devils. It reads like a dramatic movie; and yet, at the end of the day, if we can see ourselves in the story, it is an amazing story of grace that is greater than all our sins and the God who uses even our sin to make a dance floor for his own glory.

I can’t wait to talk about this with you, but first, I must go cheer on the Tigers (and also ponder my smashed bracket!).

I love it when I get a passage like this week’s sermon text. Chapter 20 is by far the shortest in 1 Chronicles, (only 8 verses), and we sort of covered the first three last week already! What remains is a sparse rundown of three battles with giants, in what feels at first like a sort of wild side quest to the main narrative. But with some study, I think this little list becomes a hyperlink to a whole area of misunderstood Biblical theology, which in turn has the power to unlock the whole book for us.

Giants are a favorite feature of mythology for many, even today. The conspiracy theorists have covered the internet with rare sightings and archeological discoveries (and cover-ups!). Our Genesis Sunday School class had a blast with chapter 6, which features those mysterious Nephilim. Aside from being an element in nearly every ancient literary canon, they also make major appearances in Disney films, the Lord of the Rings, and the Harry Potter series. Heck, I’ve seen enough of the NBA height statistics to be somewhat of a believer myself. 

But is there a reason they loom so large in the shadows of a book given to us to reveal the ways of God to man? Most certainly there is. It’s not hard to see how giants are a representation of the kinds of overpowering darkness humanity faces in a fallen world. If giants are less than one percent of the population, then the rest of us are in the vast majority of people standing on the sidelines, cowering before their taunts. Surely, you know what it feels like to be outmatched with high stakes on the line. It brings out the child in us, surrounded by big people and big problems. 

Fortunately, the purpose of 1 Chronicles, like all the rest of the Old Testament, is to open our eyes to the power of Christ. I look forward to seeing Him among you this Sunday! 

We are really suspicious of grace these days. And kindness and forgiveness. Maybe in a more civil world these would not be outliers. But then again, people have always had a hard time with grace. Centuries before Jesus came, we see this play out when one king (David) offers an overture of kindness and condolence to the son of an old king who had shown him love when he was an outlaw and outcast.

The son, being aided by his echo chamber of fools and sycophants, can’t even conceive of this act of kindness. Instead, he assumes (looking at his own heart, I suspect) that David’s men are spies and David is preparing to level them. To add to the humiliation, he shames David’s men by shaving them and cutting off their robes. 

What is interesting to me, and you might miss it, is that David does nothing. He doesn’t render insult for insult, he doesn’t seek revenge or to give it back with interest. He forbears. If we read the Bible correctly, this story (and all stories in the Old Testament) Jesus says is about him. How, you ask? Well, we will talk about it this Sunday!

Remember to “spring forward” and set your clocks ahead one hour. It is that time of year again when the time changes, and I can’t wait. The weeds in my yard and garden are calling for order, and the Lenten season comes alive for me when I start the hard task of weeding and digging out the old dead stuff to make way for new growth and new life!!

I can still remember the realization that settled on me, as I sat in my study in Greenville, Mississippi, three months after moving my family there to plant a church. I was in a miserable office with no windows in the top floor of a bank building. My second child had just been born, so I was sleep deprived, and it was dawning on me that I had no idea what I was doing. It was not for lack of prayer, I assure you. Church planters are desperate people. I was praying for revival, for a moment of God’s grace; they were lofty prayers, good prayers. Church planting is a precarious vocation—you are only guaranteed a job for a short period, and, if things don’t work out, you polish up the resume. 

At that time, I didn’t have the theological categories, as I do now, to articulate what I was wrestling with, but I did know a few true things. I knew I couldn’t save anyone—that was God’s business. I also knew that, if all I did was pray like a monk in a monastery of silence, it would not move the needle, at least for my calling. I was paralyzed and scared to death. Then I realized another thing, and it was from both an observation in the Bible and also from reading church history: God blesses effort. In other words, I couldn’t achieve the promise of seeing the gospel spread and people thrive by sheer force of will and personality, but nor could I plant a church by passively praying for God to convert sinners.

This Sunday we walk into another mystery—how God moves the Kingdom forward, both in small places like our homes or in larger places like a church that is seeking to bless a town. We see a glorious model of this as we see David’s response to God negating his will and instead giving him a bigger promise that He will build David a house. David prays in humble thanksgiving, and then he moves out to participate in the promise God has given him. 

Most of Christianity involves learning to pray and seek God’s face, but that is not all; we are then called to participate in our frail flesh with the promises God has made. As one man put it, “…it’s impossible to know God through private prayer without equally participating with God in public mercy.” (Tyler Staton, “Praying like Monks, Living Like Fools,” YouVersion, 10 Day Bible Reading Plan) Simple, but hard and risky. That, or something like that, is where we find ourselves in our text in I Chronicles. I can’t wait to explore it together on Sunday.