Is Easter Tardy?

   Despite all of the admonitions from mothers everywhere to rise and shine, or that the early bird gets the worm, sometimes great things happen more late than early.  That can be said this year for Easter. Easter 2011 will be celebrated at an unprecedented late date.  Let me explain…

   The date for Easter in Western Churches has been set based on when the full moon crosses the celestial equator since the year 326 AD.  This is the date when day and night are equal in length everywhere.  Easter Sunday can fall from March 22 to April 25.  This year it will be April 24.  Easter has not been celebrated on the 24th since 1859!  What is even more significant is that it will only occur this late on the calendar twice in again in the next 150 years.  
   Since Lent is the season of preparation for Easter that begins 46 days before Easter, we celebrated Ash Wednesday on the 9th of March.  We observe Lent for 40 Days, taking the Sundays off from our sacrificing because the Church believes that every Sunday is like a little Easter, where we worship and proclaim the Risen Christ.
   Which raises a question.  How many of us think about our faith in terms of needing to prepare for something?  Don't most of us think about faith as something we just do, or our belief in Jesus' Resurrection as something from the past? It is true that faith is the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11).  But, Paul also writes that we are to work on our salvation (Philippians 2) as though it was a process of grace and not something attained in a moment.  Faith that leads to salvation is both an unseen reality that cannot be grasped with our hands as well as a destination that we are journeying toward.   
   The further I travel along in life and in ministry, the more I am convinced that God's best desires for us are that we would not stop.  We are encouraged to "press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3)." For some of us, this is news.  We have for too long lived as though our best days with Jesus happened once long ago and will not happen again for some time.  I believe they should be happening right now, too.  I believe we are called to be the church that is seeking after Jesus in the present.  
   May we be those who are preparing for the great days ahead, whether they come sooner or later, and may we continue the Lenten journey toward Easter...  
   Grace and Peace, Scott

Doing Life Together Means Occasionally Going Backward

   What happens when things start going the wrong direction?  Take, for example, conversations. We have a sense of direction when talking with others and can feel them going up or down.  What happens when we feel a conversation going down a path we did not intend because the 'other' wants to go backward and talk about the past?

• How do we respond when things get tense?  Awkward?  Uncomfortable?
• Is it fair for someone to ask about our past?
• How do we respond when someone turns the conversation back onto us?

   This very thing played out in public this week when Chris Brown, a singer and entertainer, sat with Robin Roberts, one of the hosts of ABC News' Good Mornings America. If his name sounds familiar outside of his career, it was probably related to charges against him for domestic violence against his girlfriend back in 2009. 
   Before plugging Brown's latest album and chart-topping song, Roberts wanted to go back there and check in with him on how things were going.  Brown was agitated by the question and sought to avoid the topic all together, saying  "I think I'm past that in my life, and am here to talk about the album."  Unfortunately, the past came crashing into the present when afterward he smashed a window and trashed his dressing room, apparently still upset that Roberts would go there with him while on camera. You can see the interview at this link.
   I offer this not to demonize.  It is a reminder for all of us because we have all been there before.  We have been the one offended when others want to talk openly about topics we'd prefer to get past or keep hidden.  We are fine to talk about the good but the bad is off limits. I highly recommend the book, Crucial Conversations, on this topic.
   Is this Okay?  Is the closed-off life acceptable?  Or is there support in God's Word for living better together? I find a mandate for mutual accountability in a wide collection of verses of the New Testament talking about life with one another.  Colossians 3:16 says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom," and 1 Thessalonians 5:11, "Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing," and finally James 5:16, "Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective."
   I believe we have moved too far inward.  How are we to grow if no one offers direction?  Does all direction come from within?  Are we willing to allow trusted friends to correct and encourage us in order that we might grow? According to the Scriptures, God intends to lead us and shape us with the help of one another.  This is the abundant life. This is life on the journey together.
   Grace and Peace to you, Scott

In the Good and the Bad, Where Do You Turn?

   It is now easier than ever to stay connected.  Through the advances of technology, specifically telecommunications and high-speed transmission of data and signals, we are able to see and hear the news from nearly corner of the world and even out into the galaxies.  This new ability to connect has opened up amazing new possibilities that we are just beginning to explore.  We are now able to peer over the fences of the world to see and learn and know even more.

   This new accessibility leads us back into some well-worn ruts, however.  Take happiness, for instance.  We have always been too interested in keeping up with our neighbors.  We have always turned too quickly to measuring against someone else's reality rather than searching our own hearts for answers to how we are doing (think of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4).  Thomas Merton wrote,

Why can we not be content with the secret gift of happiness that God offers us, without consulting the rest of the world?  Why do we insist, rather, on a happiness that is approved by the magazines and TV?  Perhaps because we do not believe in a happiness that is given to us for nothing.  We do not think we can be happy with a happiness that has no price tag on it.” Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, 1966

   We look to others for approval and affirmation of our right place in more than just happiness, though.  We do the same in difficult times, don't we?  

   Our world right now is overrun with sadness.  It comes in cycles, but this cycle seems to be particularly deep and more disturbing.  The earthquake that rocked Japan and the resulting tsunami have shaken every person alive.  The continuing coverage of terror, desolation, and possible nuclear crisis appears to have no end.  Combine with it national debates and bad-behavior in politics, with local stories of taxes, murder, and failing test scores, and we are overcome by a wave of negativity.  

   So where do we turn when things go wrong?  Your answer to that question will shape your whole life.  If you listen to the rest of the world, then our views will naturally follow those of the world.  Right now much of the world is taken by pessimism, dejection, terror, anger, resentment, and despair.  

   The scriptures tell a different story.  In the midst of heartache there is hope.  In the midst of desolation there is promise.  When things arrive at the worst they could be, God is present in amazing ways.  From the days of Noah, to Moses and captives in Egypt, to disciples scared and running for their lives from a hill in Palestine, God is at work saving the world.  This is not the lead story on the news channel, and it probably not what the guy behind you in line is saying, but it is the truth.  It is the Gospel.  It is the Good News that will save the world.  God is present, even in the storm.

   Grace and Peace to you, Scott

Lent is Here

   We begin the Season of Lent next Wednesday on a day known as Ash Wednesday, so significant that one city prepares all year long for the party* that begins the night before.

   What is Lent? Lent is a forty day period, excluding Sundays, during which disciples of Jesus Christ prepare themselves spiritually for the remembrance of Christ's suffering, death and resurrection.  The name is derived from the Old English, lengten, a reference to the lengthening of the days in the spring.

   Beginning in the second century, Christians would undergo a brief period of fasting and prayer in preparation for Good Friday and Easter. By the fourth century the period had been extended to forty days to coincide with the forty days that Jesus fasted and prayed in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry.   The number forty also corresponds to the forty years of the Exodus, during which the people received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. 

   It was common to fast from meat and dairy products during Lent, and many Christian converts made their first professions of faith in Jesus as Lord. It was also a time of repentance for those who had abandoned the faith. The season is a time for more intense and intentional spiritual growth during which we remember the message, the life, the suffering and death of Christ.

   This Wednesday we'll hold our annual Ash Wednesday Service beginning at 7:00 pm in the Sanctuary, where we are marked with ashes as a sign of our desire to repent of our sin and follow Jesus, and offered the chance to write out our prayers of confession and then destroy them following the service. I invite you to attend this special service.  It will begin at 7:00 PM.  It will be brief, but the experience will stay with us. It will be a time spent well in preparation for Easter.

   In the tradition of the ancient church, we're inviting you to do three things this Lent:

1.  Be in worship every weekend you are in town.

2.  Give up something as a fast and expression of your faith and identification with Jesus' suffering.

3.  Join the whole church in reading through the complimentary devotional book, The Exodus to Lent, available at the church this Sunday.

   Join us as we start this journey on Wednesday. Grace and Peace, Scott

* New Orleans is the city, and Mardi Gras is the party.