Bits and Pieces

 

And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table. For the Son of Man goes pas it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!” (Luke 22:14-22 ESV).

 

The stained-glass window we have hanging in our home was a gift from the last church I pastored, Santa Fe Baptist Church, in Tennessee. It is identical to the windows we placed in the transoms of our sanctuary. It is a cherished reminder of the incredible years we spent there with wonderful folks. When we visited with the artisan who would craft it, he asked that we pick out the glass for the window. There were scores of choices both in colors and texture of glass. As I looked at the variety, I wondered how he could make that into a window. He said, “It’s a bit like putting a jigsaw puzzle together.

 

I understood that image. I have often enjoyed spreading out a puzzle on the table and watching it come together. Of course, my artistry is minimal, but the patience is the same, and the reward is beautiful. Someone has said that the fine cathedral windows of Notre Dame were fashioned out of discarded glass fragments. The stained-glass artist had greater skill and worked harder than we do, but the principle is the same—turning fragments into beauty.

 

The Bible mirrors the continuous fragmentation of life and relationships—Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and his sons, Abraham and Lot, Sarah and Hagar, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers (all these in Genesis!), and then Miriam and Moses, David and Absalom, Jew and Gentile, and even Paul and Barnabas. Today we know such fragmentation on a much more personal level. However, Jesus puts us together creating beauty. Lent is a good time to mourn our brokenness and find our wholeness in Christ.

 

Serving with Humility

 

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that phis hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” (John 13:1-7 ESV).

 

Jesus personified serving with humility. When Jesus was transfigured, Peter wanted to build three shelters. Luke comments, “He did not know what he was saying.” Though the disciples spent time with Jesus, witnessed many miracles, and heard his amazing teaching, they often did not grasp what it meant to follow him. Later in that same chapter, for example, Luke writes, “They did not understand” (cf. Luke 9:45). Humanly speaking, Jesus would have had good reason to impatiently “throw in the towel” as he worked with these disciples. Throughout his entire teaching and preaching ministry they often showed that they had barely learned anything.

 

But it’s a cynic who throws in the towel, not a servant. The Savior, on the night before his death, wrapped a towel around his waist and proceeded to show his disciples that life in the kingdom of God is about humbly serving others. “I have set you an example,” Jesus says (John 13:15). This is also the path meant for us.

 

Serving others in Jesus’ name can be uncomfortable, humbling, and even painful. It can be costly. Bringing glory to God can be inglorious to ourselves. Lent is a good time to lay down our pride and serve others for Jesus’ sake.

 

Are You Grumbling?

 

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ sI may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. (Philippians 2:12-16 ESV).

 

Grumbling is the antithesis to gratitude. Yet, we all fall into that pattern from time to time. I can grumble at the gas station (high prices), at the grocery store (not enough checkout lanes open), at the doctor’s office (it takes so long to get in), watching television (the commercials are so long), in the kitchen (emptying the dishwasher), on the driveway (the inside of the windshield smears when I clean it). My tent of discontent can be huge! No wonder Jeremiah Burroughs’ 1648 classic is titled The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. And what he wrote in the book is true: “Murmuring is below the spirit of a Christian.”

 

I am often reminded of my grumpiness when Mary will say, “You must not feel well. You sure are grumpy.” It is a great reminder that regardless of my inconvenience, no one deserves my grumbling. No wonder Jesus had to die on the cross—our sins include even our grumbling, murmuring, complaining, and discontent. And he died without grumbling about our grumbling!

 

We have the perfect example in Jesus. He didn’t grumble; in fact, “he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (cf. Philippians 2). We, then, should “have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.”

 

Lent is a good time to work on our attitude and give up our grumbling.

 

Kindness

 

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins In which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—  and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:1-10 ESV).

 

There is no shortage of the contrast between kindness and not. In fact, just in the last week we were given a full dose of both the kindness of men and the unkindness of men. I heard one media personality quote the well-known comment from Plato, as she said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” I have often read of playwright Douglas Jerrold (1803-1857) as he was described as a man so kind that “he would have held an umbrella over a duck in a shower of rain.” Our reading today describes the ultimate kindness which has been shown toward man.

 

In the midst of his letter, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness … not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” We have all lost hard battles with sin. But Christ’s umbrella is cross-shaped, protecting us from a deluge of God’s just wrath. God, our Father, is kind beyond measure so that “…he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”

 

Lent is a good time to reflect on God’s kindness as well as being very intention about showing kindness toward others.

 

Promises Made and Kept

 

For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. (1 Corinthians 1:20-22 ESV).

 

Perhaps you are one of those folks who have never broken a promise. It may be you have much more restraint than I do and simply don’t make promises that you can’t keep. Unfortunately, I’m not nearly that disciplined. When our oldest son was very young, we bought him a peddle-driven firetruck, much like the one I’ve pictured here. One afternoon after I arrived home I was greeted by a downcast little boy whose world had obviously come perilously close to ending. Getting the story, it seemed that he had left his firetruck in the garage and Mary didn’t see it until she ran over it with our suburban. Needless to say it was in great need of repair. I assured my son that I could repair it and promised to get to it quickly. A week turned to a month, a month to a year, and finally I did repair it, though five years had passed since it was damaged. He was no longer small enough to use it, neither was his next youngest brother, though our youngest son was (I suppose there’s some good in that).

 

Was my promise sincere… of course it was. Was I trustworthy… my actions certainly didn’t support such a claim. I had lots of excuses. After all, I was very busy, delays just seemed to crowd the repair further and further away. Yet, it was an unfulfilled promise. We still laugh about that firetruck, but it is a memory that serves as a reminder how important promises are to keep.

 

God needs no reminders. He has never failed to keep His promises. The apostle Paul says that every question is answered with a definite “Yes.” With God, there’s not a single “hopefully,” “maybe,” “probably,” or “I don’t know.” And the result always matches his promise. We celebrate Lent because God makes reliable promises and keeps them. He promised to send the Messiah for our salvation, and he delivered. If God kept his greatest promise to us at the cost of his Son, will he not keep every other promise he has made? Lent is a good time to renew our hope in the promises of God.

 

The Ox Is in a Ditch!

 

One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” And they could not reply to these things. (Luke 14:1-6 ESV).

 

I have heard and used the phrase “my ox is in a ditch.” You may not be familiar with that common idiom. It is chiefly used in the southern United States, though as our culture has become more mobile it can be heard all over the states. It means that there is a pressing problem, an emergency, that has developed that must be dealt with immediately. I have had a number of those moments in my life.

 

One in particular stands out in my memory. One Sunday afternoon during the years I was the pastor of Southern Oaks Baptist Church in Tyler, Texas, one of my friends called and somewhat panicky asked me if I could come help. It was explained that he and another friend had gone to a local catfish farm where we had been given permission to hunt the feral hogs that were damaging the holding ponds. The problem with that was the reticence my wife had to “working on the Sabbath.” “Work” meant anything other than church related activity or relaxing at home. In our discussion while I was grabbing my rifle and rushing to their aid, I simply said, “Sugar, they’ve got their ox in a ditch and really need my help.” The short version of the ending was I did go out to the fish farm and found them standing over an abandoned well with no hog in sight. Curious, I asked, “Where’s the hog?” One of them pointed to the well and said, “Down there.” Well, we did manage to get the hog out of the well and to the butcher, but we were all sweaty, dirty, and muddy. Arriving at home, I was greeted with a skeptical look that said, “I told you not to go.” I did clean up and make it to church on time, but barely. (By the way… for my Tyler friends who may doubt the veracity of this story… talk to Ron Skinner or Jerry Billups)

 

The comparison to our spiritual lives was inescapable. We are severely mired in sin and troubles. Some of us may seem upright; others are obviously bent; still others seem irreparably damaged. Our sin has different faces, yet we all need help. I could have declined to help, though that seemed the worst decision at that moment. Notice the reaction of Jesus in our story. There was no hesitation. He took the greatest risk and plunged into the deepest ditch to rescue us. He did not merely extend a long arm that we could grab on to. He came down, slipped underneath us, lifted us up, carried us to safety, and sent us on our (his) way.

 

Lent is a good time to thank Jesus for coming to our aid even when we find ourselves in the worst of circumstances!

 

Always Present!

 

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:35-41 ESV).

 

It is very easy to feel alone in a crisis. Even if we are surrounded by people, it can feel like we have no one who understands and is willing to walk with us through our difficulty. Well, Jesus both knows what it is like and is always present to walk with us, sometimes even carrying us through it. Our reading shows this truth with great clarity. After a busy day, Jesus suggested an evening boat trip across the lake. Soon he was napping while the disciples handled the oars. But then a sudden squall came upon them. The Scripture says that “Jesus was in the stern”—that is, in the back of the boat—and during this squall he was “sleeping on a cushion” (v. 37).

 

This startling story reminds us that Jesus is present in the stormy times of our lives—the severe, harsh, hard times. And when he rebukes the storm—“Quiet! Be still!”—the disciples know that he cares for them in their times of severe struggle and even fear and terror. Later the disciples were alone in a boat on that same lake, “straining at the oars, because the wind was against them.” Jesus “went out to them, walking on the lake” (cf. Mark 6:48). Again, he was present in a severe time.

 

I’ve grown old enough that I have experienced a few difficulties. In every case Jesus has proven Himself to be ever-present as He calms the storms of life and works all of it to my good. Lent helps us remember that Jesus endured the most difficult suffering of all so that we might live in hope under his mercy. Trust in Him!