A Life Insurance Alternative

The first funeral I ever officiated was for a young dad, 32 years old who left behind a pregnant wife and two small children. His death was sudden and the result of a sporting accident. No one would have anticipated that this healthy, active guy would be snatched from his family without warning. One of the first questions that always gets asked in these circumstances, "Did he have life insurance?" He did not.

The deceased man's best friend took it upon himself to help this struggling family. He made sure that their house stayed in good repair, he made sure he was a presence in the children's lives, he did what any good friend would do. What he didn't count on happening was falling in love with his friend's widow. 

Eventually a wedding was announced and where there had been sorrow and mourning there was now joy and hope. 

The moral of this story: Unless you have a best friend who is willing to marry your widow and raise your children, get life insurance. We should talk! 

Music ... mylife ... and the Master Conductor

In a world where most of the music we hear is over produced and painstakingly processed for digital streaming it is a wonderful experience to go to a concert of live music and hear a band or symphony play with a full and glorious range of sound. It’s strangely compelling to hear the wispy sounds of the piccolo or to allow one’s self to be assaulted by the power of a brass section. It’s thrilling to hear an ensemble feel the takt of the music, not driven by a metronome but by the sheer emotion of the composer. The “legitimate” interpretation of the music gives way to the heart and soul of the performers. The notes on the page serve as a guide for the conductor but as he interacts with the music on a level that is impossible to notate the tempos vary and the timbre of the phrases intensify. And when the performance is done we, the audience, erupt in spontaneous applause. We leave the concert venue trying to savor in our minds ear all that we have just heard. To turn on the radio for the drive home would be a sacrilege. We want to allow those sounds to linger as long as possible.

It is a wonderful thing to have an audience with the Master Creator of the universe and have him gently lead our souls in the score that he has predetermined for us. To watch for his cues as he increases the tempo and leads us into the sweet discovery of what our life was meant to be. If only the score could soar like this forever, but the passage that follows is a quiet and pensive adagio that seems to plod even slower under the Great Conductor’s baton until the sense of the beat is almost lost. The phrases seem too long to sustain – the weight of the wait seems to crush the spirit. But just when hope has been all but lost the score takes an upward turn – the notes come more quickly, their range more extreme and their expression richer.

And in that moment, we recognize that the sweet song that we sang at the beginning means nothing if it is not tempered with the melancholy. The fast and thrilling passages mean little without their slow and deliberate counterpart. And when our concert for One is complete we wait for the acknowledgement of his approval. And in a stage whisper that is barely audible he speaks, “Well done, good and faithful performer. In responding to me you have beautifully played out the score that I have composed for your life.”  

The Worship of Heaven - Here and Now

There are times when I let my imagination run wild and speculate what the worship of heaven will be like. When all those created beings, human and celestial - some redeemed from sin and some who have never known sin - gather around the throne of God it will be truly awe inspiring. I’m quite sure it will be different than anything that any of us have ever experienced. Will we sing in one language or will we sing in the language of the nation and tribe from which we come? Will we stand and raise our hands in overwhelming joy, or sit in stunned silence? Perhaps we will be so overwhelmed that we will just lie prostrate on the ground – as low as we can in front of the one who redeemed us.

A quick perusal of the Old Testament gives us a few instructions as to how the ancient Hebrews were to worship.

Psalm 100:2 Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.

Psalm 29:2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor              of his holiness.

Psalm 95:6 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;

Psalm 109:30 With my mouth I will greatly extol the Lord; in the great throng of worshipers I will praise him.

The New Testament gives us less specific instruction for worship in the church of Jesus. One of the most profound is when Jesus instructs the woman at the well in Sychar.

John 4:23-24 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

It is the reveled truth of God, found in his Word, that should frame our thoughts and inform our expressions of worship; and it is from our spirits – the inner core of who we are – that our worship comes to the Father who created us and redeemed us.

Have you ever seen unrestrained worship? Look at a stadium full of fans as they cheer on their team. Hands in the air; voice shouting at the top of their lungs; expressions of adulation for the one who just made the scoring play. Or look at a little child who instinctively claps his hands when he is happy or dances when she is moved by joy.

Most of us have been told that in church you are to sit still and be quiet. But Jesus said, “Let your worship come from a knowledge of the truth about God and from that deep, inner place of who you really are.” (A loose paraphrase of Jn 4:22-23) Now some of you reading this will say, “Oh no – Steve wants us to become some wild crazy dancing church.” Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I’m not asking for anything or expecting anything. I’m just saying that our worship needs to flow from a place of release in our spirit and our expression should be overwhelmed with the truth of God’s divine revelation to us. And when someone near you folds their hands and lets a tear role down their cheek or raises their hand toward God or does a little side step in the pew next to you, smile with the recognition that just maybe God is receiving exactly what he has been looking for – a true worshipper. So when I think about the worship before the throne in heaven I sure hope my soul won’t be surprised but will rather find a brighter, sharper experience of what I have already known in His presence here on earth.

Unsanitized Christmas

Many people live a sanitized life. They go through life selectively choosing what experiences they will permit themselves to experience close up and which ones they will only view through a television camera or the pages of a glossy magazine. I heard of a person from the city that had decided they wanted to look for land in the country where they might build a house. But they only got a couple miles from town when they caught a whiff of cow manure being spread on a farmer’s field. At the first opportunity, they turned the car around and headed for the city. The picture-perfect calendar of life in the country had failed to prepare them for the reality that country living sometimes has an aroma all its own.

I think the same is true of the Christmas story. We somehow have created this warm and glowing picture of the holy family happily hunkered down in a livestock lean-to. I think that we forget that these were real people whose lives had been interrupted by multiple crisis and they were being forced to make the best of it. And while the baby Jesus is sleeping serenely on clean straw in the manger, the reality of his ultimate destiny is lost on many who simply gaze at a holiday crèche so artfully displayed on the fireplace mantle. The destiny of Jesus was to provide himself as a sacrifice for the sin of all mankind.

I learned a long time ago that people do not like to see mangers and crosses displayed in the same image. In a Christmas musical that I directed several years ago there was a song where Mary held Jesus and softly sang that she knew he would be a king. And as the soloist sang, “I know they’ll crown you a king” the choir, portraying an angry crowd, began to sing “crucify him”. It was meant to unsettle the audience and help them understand that Jesus came with a purpose and a destiny already determined. But not everyone in the audience received the message as we had intended. One lady filled out a comment card with these words – “There is no room for the Easter story at Christmas.”

She wanted a sanitized Christmas, free from the reality of the gospel and the mission on which Jesus had been sent. She wanted the sweet smell of the straw but was unwilling to recognize the stench of the sin of mankind. We all need to remember that what God initiated at Christmas he finalized at Easter. 

So as you celebrate the birth of the Savior this year feel free to leave it “unsanitized”. Remember that a Savior was only required because we were sinners. The little baby in the manger came with the express purpose of giving his life as a ransom for many. The cross can never be far from the manger.

The Real Thing

When our son, Shane, was a teenager he decided to decorate his room with a Coca-Cola theme. It’s surprising how many decorator items can found or made to fit the motif. And soon friends got in on the fun and the collection grew to even include bottles of coke from Korea, Poland, and England.

One of the things that he and I had always talked about was visiting The World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta.  Well, before we took him to the plane to end his most recent visit, we experienced The World of Coca-Cola. Ruth, under protest, came along also. We were amazed at all of the collectables that have been created over the years, all of the advertising that has been produced and all of the luck and good management it has taken to make the Coca-Cola brand a worldwide phenomenon. 

Although not stated overtly, the entire tour was a celebration of the mission of Coca-Cola. Their mission is: To refresh the world in mind, body and spirit. To inspire moments of optimism and happiness through our brands and actions. To create value and make a difference. Wow! What a noble and lofty sounding mission!

But at the end of the day, when the party’s over and the friends have gone home it’s really just a bottle of soda pop. Don’t get me wrong, they have done an amazing job at convincing us that “things go better with Coke” and that it’s “the real thing”. As a Christian worship leader “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony…” but it’s not to come about just because I’d “… like to buy the world a coke …”

It occurred to me that the mission of the church of Jesus and the mission of Coca-Cola are remarkably similar. We are to refresh our world in mind, body and spirit; we are to inspire people with the optimistic hope that God has a plan for their life now and their future beyond this world; and we are to add value to people’s lives and make a difference in how they live.

But the difference is this: Jesus is the one who brings true significance to people’s lives. It is his atoning work on Calvary’s cross that brings about true change in the lives of individuals and communities throughout our world. And his advertising campaign is not created by cameras and slick print media, but rather by the reality of his presence in our lives – lived before a needy and desperate world.

So, the next time you reach for a coke ask yourself, “How am I doing at being a reflection in this world of ‘the really thing’?”