Grief and the Resurrection

One of the most rewarding things I do as a pastor is to lead grief support groups. Our recent group here at New Hope has been especially meaningful. We found that spending time together trying to understand grief helped us all. We were able to love and encourage each other. We will start another grief support group soon.

At Easter we celebrate God’s resurrection power. It is about much more than our positive thinking. It opens us to a power and grace beyond us. Since God raised Jesus from the dead, we know that there is life beyond death for our loved ones.

God’s power breaks into our world to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Whenever we trust in God’s care for us and share it with each other, as in a grief support group, His resurrection power breaks into our lives. In the peace God brings to us in the midst of our grief, we receive resurrection power. God brings healing to our aching emotions.

Thank God for giving us this family of faith we call New Hope. In it we have the privilege of sharing each other’s sorrows and joys. As we care for each other, we experience God’s resurrection power at work among us.

Easter Season

I’m glad we are getting close to Easter for spiritual reasons and for earthly reasons. First, the more personal, earthly reasons: I am glad Fleda is getting a Spring Break from school so that we will have some time together with family. I am glad the warmth of spring is arriving. My Florida blood craves it. I have already enjoyed seeing downy Sand Hill Crane chicks, Tom turkeys fanning out their tail feathers for their harem of females, and hearing owls hooting in the night, calling for a mate. My spiritual reasons for being glad to welcome the Easter season include that we are preparing ourselves to experience the power of the Resurrection of Jesus. Before we get to the day of resurrection, we focus on examining our own hearts. Some Christians observe Lent, the forty days before Easter as a time to fast or to “give up” something for Lent. I, like most Baptists, did not grow up in that tradition and just don’t “do Lent.” During this season of preparation for Easter, I have been studying the images of God that are in the Bible. I’ve been trying to teach some things about those images on Wednesday nights to help us have a clearer awareness of who God is and what God does for us.

I am thankful to new member Shane Gaster for introducing us to a service of darkness for Good Friday. Dennis Bucher and I had been talking about just such a service. It will help us experience something of the suffering, the fear, and the mystery of Jesus’ agony as Judas betrayed him, Peter denied him, the other disciples deserted him, and Roman soldiers nailed him to the cross.

Writer Ron Rolheiser points out, “Interestingly, the gospels do not focus on his physical sufferings (which must have been horrific). What they highlight instead is his emotional suffering and his humiliation. He is presented as lonely, betrayed, alone, helpless to explain himself, a victim of jealousy, morally isolated, mocked, misunderstood, stripped naked so as to have to feel embarrassment and shame, and yet, inside of all this, as clinging to warmth, goodness, and forgiveness. Good Friday, in Luke's words, is when darkness has its hour.”

On Good Friday night, April 2 at 7:30 we will gather in our sanctuary to worship God using scripture readings, music, poetry, light, and darkness.

May our Good Friday Service of Darkness bring us the consolation of having Jesus identify with our own emotional suffering. May his being with us and his sacrifice for us bind us to God, so that His warmth, goodness, and forgiveness flow out of us.

Living One Day at a Time

As I talked the other day in the hospital with our member Ben Bailey about the diagnosis of cancer he had just received, we talked about how he accepts that, as he said, “It is what it is.” I admired Ben’s attitude and determination to accept and make the best of his days. Then I ran across this piece on seeking to live right each day. It is from a much-loved pope.

Do you remember when the Romans Catholic Church began to change after Vatican II back in the 60s and 70s? The Pope who led the change was Pope John XXIII. He put together what he called his Ten Commandments for Today. They are what he wanted for himself in his daily life:

1) Only for today, I will seek to live the livelong day positively without wishing to solve the problems of my life all at once.

2) Only for today, I will take the greatest care of my appearance: I will dress modestly; I will not raise my voice; I will be courteous in my behavior; I will not criticize anyone; I will not claim to improve or to discipline anyone except myself.

3) Only for today, I will be happy in the certainty that I was created to be happy, not only in the other world buy also in this one.

4) Only for today, I will adapt to circumstances, without requiring all circumstances to be adapted to my own wishes.

5) Only for today, I will devote 10 minutes of my time to some good reading, remembering that just as food is necessary to the life of the body, so good reading is necessary to the life of the soul.

6) Only for today, I will do one good deed and not tell anyone about it.

7) Only for today, I will do at least one thing I do not like doing; and if my feelings are hurt, I will make sure that no one notices.

8) Only for today, I will make a plan for myself: I may not follow it to the letter, but I will make it. And I will be on guard against two evils: hastiness and indecision.

9) Only for today, I will firmly believe, despite appearances, that the good Providence of God cares for me as no one else who exists in this world

10) Only for today, I will have no fears. In particular, I will not be afraid to enjoy what is beautiful and to believe in goodness. Indeed, for 12 hours, I can certainly do what might cause me consternation were I to believe I had to do it all my life.

I think this list will help anyone who wants to live life with love, joy, and peace one day at a time.