by jphilo | Dec 13, 2013 | Current Events
Joy Suckers first posted on this blog in early January of 2013. With the first anniversary of the Sandy Hook shootings upon us and Christmas celebrations about to begin, it seems right to post it again.
And the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid;
for behold, I bring you good news of great joy,
for today in the city of David there has been born to you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”
Luke 2: 10–11,14
Joy suckers. During the weeks before Christmas, the news was full of them.
Polio eradication workers in Pakistan killed by terrorists.
Fire fighters in Webster, New York shot when they responded to a house fire call.
Children and teachers gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
“How,” the watching world asks, “could Christians rejoice over the birth of Jesus in times like these? Why did they feast and give gifts as though nothing happened?
“How indeed?” Christians wondered. “How can we celebrating light in the midst of such darkness? Shouldn’t we sit in the dark and grieve instead?” And so our guilty thoughts began, along with doubt and fear and self-loathing.
Joy suckers, all of them.
Waiting to extract every bit of gladness from the hearts of God’s people.
Eager to settle on our shoulders a mantle of gloom and sadness.
Ready to burden our hearts and bow our heads, so we succumb to dark despair.
Two thousand years ago, into a world as black as ours seems today, God sent his Son as a light in the darkness. And the joy suckers could not comprehend it.
They could not comprehend that God would allow a baby born in a manger to become a man who would be killed for doing what was right.
They could not comprehend that God would allow the healer of the sick to die at the hands of terrorists.
They could not comprehend that the Father loved the world so much, He willingly experienced the heart-wrenching death of his own Son.
But two thousand years ago, the Lord of hosts understood it all.
He understood that on Christmas Eve of 2012, the families of two fire fighters in Webster, New York would need the assurance of a God who knew what it felt like to die for doing the right thing.
He understood that on December 19, 2012 the loved ones of nine dead health workers in Pakistan would need the comfort of the Great Physician slain by an angry mob.
He understood that on December 14, 2012 the parents of twenty dead children would need a Savior who, like them, had anguished over the death of a child.
The joy suckers couldn’t comprehend such light, such love. But we, His broken children, can.
The entrance of God’s light and love into our darkness is why we feasted with our families,
why we gave and received gifts, why we joined hands and sang carols.
Silent Night
Joy to the World
Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
Because, when we raised our faces to His light and sang,
the darkness tried to hide.
It trembled at His voice.
How great is our God!
Will you sing with me?
Jolene
photo credit: www.freedigitalphotos.net
by jphilo | Nov 18, 2013 | Family
I’ve never been one of those people with a direct line to God’s voice. I spend most of the time begging him to speak in a without-a-doubt-God-is-speaking voice and waiting for it to happen.
It rarely does.
But this weekend, God spoke loud and clear through, of all things, a song in a hotel lobby. Mom, my brother, and I were checking in the evening before Aunt Lois‘s funeral, and one of my favorite songs was playing.
Matt Redmann’s Blessed Be the Name of the Lord.
I didn’t think much of it at the time. My mind was focused on conversations shared with Lois’s son and daughter. Their descriptions of last visits with their mother and how unexpected they felt her death to be since the doctor had pronounced her heart strong enough to make it to 100. Their stories of how their mother chose to use lessons learned through her losses to minister to hurting friends and family.
Their stories of her faith and faithfulness.
I didn’t think of the song from the hotel lobby again until the end of yesterday’s church service. A service spent rembering Aunt Lois, praying for her children and grandchildren, thinking about her two remaining siblings, Mom and Aunt Donna, wondering what it is like for them to be the last living children from a tightly knit group of eight. I was reaching for another tissue when the worship band played the chords of the last song in the service.
Can you guess what it was?
Yup. It was Blessed Be Your Name. I sorta sang along. But it was hard, what with the lump in my throat and wanting to plug my ears because God was speaking so loud it hurt enough to make me laugh and cry and laugh all at once. Until I ran out of tissues and wished I’d picked up the extra funeral home packets off the pew at the funeral, knowing such frugality would please Aunt Lois and her living siblings to no end. World without end. Amen and amen. While God spoke the life of Lois through the words of this song.
Blessed Be Your Name
Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name
Blessed Be Your name
When I’m found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name
Every blessing You pour out
I’ll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name
Blessed be Your name
When the sun’s shining down on me
When the world’s ‘all as it should be’
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there’s pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name
Every blessing You pour out
I’ll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name
You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name
Photo Source
by jphilo | May 3, 2013 | Church Newsletter Columns
“For thus says the Lord:
Do not enter the house of mourning, or go to lament or grieve for them….
Behold, I will silence in this place…the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness…”
Jeremiah 16:5,8
I love celebrations. Weddings. New babies. Birthdays. Anniversaries. Graduations. Reunions. Housewarmings. Funerals of saints who have entered the promised land. I love them all. So the other day, I was horrified by God’s warning in Jeremiah 16 about what would happen to the kingdom of Judah if the people didn’t shape up in a hurry.
In a nutshell, God said, “Don’t go to funerals and comfort grieving family members. Don’t console hurting people or mourn for the dead. Don’t join in celebrations either. But that won’t be hard, because I’m ending weddings and all other happy events because you have forsaken me and followed after other gods.”
My party-loving heart shriveled at this picture of a world devoid of consolation or celebration. “My God,” I whispered, “You are describing hell on earth.”
I can imagine nothing worse than a world without God’s compassion and kindness displayed by those who reach out to others in times of great sorrow, by those who gather to rejoice in times of great celebration. Without these simple acts of shared sorrow and joy, we don’t fully experience the presence of God. He is still there, of course, because He is omnipresent. But when we forsake Him and put anything–work, family, material possessions, pleasure, power, reputation, and a host of other idols–ahead of Him, we are not in the place where He chooses to rain down grace through fellowship with His saints.
My faithful heart doesn’t want to be in that place, though my wandering eyes and fickle feet often lead me there. It’s not the place God wanted Judah to be, or He wouldn’t have sent Jeremiah to warn them to change their course. It’s not a place where God wants you, His adopted child in Christ to be, either.
God wants His children to be in right relationship with Him and one another. He made us for relationship with Him. He places an emptiness in each of us only He can fill. Only when it’s filled with Him are we able to share the kindness and compassion of Christ with lost and hurting people. Only then are we able to mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice.
Only then is the power of Christ unleashed in the lives of others. Stony hearts grow soft. The deaf hear Jesus calling to them. Blind eyes open to the presence of God. Thirsty souls drink the elixir of life. The hungry eat everlasting bread. The lame walk in the place where the grace of Christ rains down.
When we mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice from the vantage point of a right relationship with God, we experience the certain presence of God. Our daily offerings of the kindness and compassion of Christ in fellowship with the saints are, most certainly, glimpses of heaven on this earth.
by jphilo | Mar 4, 2013 | Family
Sixteen years ago this day, my father died.
He was born almost 68 years earlier, the long-awaited and only child of his doting parents, Cyril and Fern Stratton. Maybe because he was an only his parents, who raised him on an Iowa farm during the Great Depression, could afford to take so many pictures of their little boy. Maybe caring for only one child gave his mom time to glue the photos on the black pages of an album and label them in her careful handwriting with a white-inked pen–page after page of quaint photos in which little Harlan looks like a member of the Little Rascals gang.
It’s hard to reconcile the blond-haired toddler in the pictures with my dark-haired dad until I see my father’s smile and joyful spirit shining on the child’s face. Then the resemblance is startling, striking, because throughout his life, Dad was a child–even a rascal–at heart.
When we were young, he was our kindred spirit. My brother, sister, and I loved to be near him. We snuggled close to him on the couch, though we learned to keep a wary eye out for his finger pokes and tickles. He taught us silly songs, showed us how to make goofy faces, and laughed until he cried at the television shows that made us laugh until we cried, too.
On summer days, when Dad wheeled his chair outside and parked in the driveway, the neighborhood kids came running. Children swarmed around him as he told jokes, handed out nicknames like candy, and–until Mom put a stop to it–gave wheelchair rides to those daring enough to climb into his lap.
As the years went by and multiple sclerosis stripped away Dad’s physical abilities, his speech, and finally, his memories, when all he could do was lay in a bed or sit propped up in a wheelchair, the presence of little children stirred him to life. His eyes followed the movement of his grandchildren. His head turned to the sound of the high, piping voices of his grand-nieces and nephews. A grin spread across his face and he snorted with laughter.
In the presence of children, his spirit broke through the walls of his ravaged body. For a moment, the man we missed so much returned. For a moment we saw, that despite a long struggle against a cruel and devastating disease, our father was still a child–and even a rascal–at heart.
Oh, Dad, I miss your smile.
In memory of Harlan John Stratton: May 11, 1929–March 4, 1997
by jphilo | May 23, 2011 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
This morning’s walk was as close to perfect as possible this side of heaven. I was out the door before the breeze picked up, so there was no pushing against the wind.
It was early enough to watch the sunrise,
spy on the red fox bounding up the rise beside the stream,
watch the birds fight for their turf,
beat the road traffic and hear the quiet.
I was out the door before the morning news reports. So I didn’t hear about the tornado in Joplin, Missouri until after I arrived home, chalk full of gratitude for our lovely weather and the opportunity to enjoy it. Two minutes into the radio description of the devastation and my heart was sinking. A minute longer, and the joy of my town’s fresh spring morning – perfect for open windows, bird song, and breezes – became a weight on my shoulders.
How can I be happy when so many are hurting?
How can I thank God for beauty instead of rage against his destruction?
Am I devoid of compassion, totally selfish?
Why am I not wearing sack cloth, covered in ashes?
There are children dying in Africa,
people putting their lives back together after last month’s tornadoes,
houses about to be flooded in Louisiana,
families torn apart by terrorists’ bombs,
Afghanistan racked by war,
destruction, doom, gloom, and sadness on all sides.
The burden of calamity presses hard on my shoulders. But what can I do except offer prayers and money while hanging onto the joy of this spring morning?
No, I will do more than just hang onto the joy by my fingertips.
I will bathe in the beauty,
bask in the sunshine,
inhale the perfume of flowers,
store it in every cell of my body.
So I am ready when destruction draws near, wounds friends, even takes them away.
So I have a deep reservoir of joy to share with my neighbors who have none.
As they shared with me when calamity came to our house.
Today, I will store up joy,
joy to spare,
joy to share,
the promise of joy to come,
the joy of this perfect spring morning.
and pass it on to you.
