With Love & Prayers – Grandpa Thomas Lee

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I just returned from a three day solo retreat spent in a little log cabin located in a remote neck of the western Wisconsin woods.  My purpose was to sequester myself away, free from modern amenities, media distractions and human interaction to seek the face of God.  Years ago that was an annual practice of mine, looking forward to setting aside time apart from the hustle and bustle of the world, to still my soul and listen intently for the voice of God.  Sad to say it had been a number of years since I made that a priority but thankfully my long overdue withdrawal to the wilderness more than met previous expectations.

Spending time in solitude, expressly to delight in God’s presence is a unique experience.  It helps when a person can isolate themselves geographically in a nature scape removed from civilization.  Cloistered in a simple one room cabin with a window to the wooded winter stillness of white and muted grays set against the wash of an azure sky, I could not help but sense that God must surely be in this place. 

I was struck right from the outset how the utter simplicity and austerity of such a setting so readily strips the worldly traveler of every false dependence and diversion.  “What, no internet or cell phone coverage?”  No, only silence and the sounds of nature; and the sounds you create through the motion of everyday activity, all woven intricately with the golden threads of your prayer and worship.

For me, my most faithful companions in times alone with God are my pen, journal and Bible.  I’ve found reading and pouring over the words of Scripture to be like the sun around which all my reflections and prayers and meditations and worship align their orbits.  And then my journaling becomes a natural expression of their reflected light with which God illumines my soul.

It might be said that austerity brings clarity and I have found in such settings that God often poses clarifying questions for reflection and evaluation.  Such questions bid the harried sojourner to slip his heavy knapsack to the ground and sit a spell, so as to take an inventory of its contents.  Not everything we so dutifully carry has been placed there by God and He wants to once again remind us that “His yoke is easy and His burden is light.” 

Here is a list of the clarifying questions I sensed Him bidding me to ask. They enabled me to leave my respite in the woods carrying a much lighter load than when I arrived.

1. When do I feel God’s pleasure?  (ala Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire)  When do I sense His presence and anointing, find myself being joyful, feeling fulfilled and useful for God’s purposes?  

2. What things do I hate doing, have little grace for & find that they drain me?  What do I sense God is not blessing or anointing in my life?

3. What things do I think I have heard God say to me in the past year?  Scriptures, words, dreams and impressions I have received and I believe are from God?

4. What are the major needs I perceive out there in my world?

5. What do I have a burden for?  Things I am concerned about, pray about and would like to do something about.

6.  What questions do I have for God?  What do I believe He is saying to me about them?

7.  Having answered all these questions, upon review, what observations can I make?  What might God be saying as a result of all this?

Time alone with God in a setting of solitude is of inestimable worth.  Why, I am asking myself, do I not do it more?  I can see why many saints through the centuries, like the desert fathers and mothers, hermits, ascetics, monks and anchorites were drawn to such isolated habitats.  Obviously that is a special calling.  It may not be a chosen lifestyle or a place where we daily live, but like a distant, favorite vacation spot, it is definitely a place that we want to make a point of visiting whenever we can.

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It was some thirty years after walking with and serving Jesus that the apostle Paul wrote these words.  Some would think it a bit curious that one as experienced in the things of God as Paul, would still be driven by that one over-arching desire, to know Him better.  But it was the all-encompassing pursuit of his life ever since his Damascus road conversion when Jesus first revealed Himself to him in a blinding vision with the words “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”  The unfathomable grace of this Jesus, who would choose to arrest a man from being a persecutor and call him rather to be an ambassador, forever captured Paul’s heart.  Paul’s life from that moment on was dedicated to getting to know this Jesus better and better, who had intervened and shown him such unmerited grace and mercy. 

Norman Grubb, beloved Christian author of the past century, wrote an autobiography entitled “Once Caught No Escape.”  I have often thought that title aptly encapsulates the story of every follower of Jesus who like Paul has been apprehended by His grace.  It is lifelong quest to seek to comprehend such grace and mercy calling us out of darkness into His marvelous light, even while we were yet sinners, separated from Christ, without hope and without God. (1 Peter 2:9, Romans 5:8 & Ephesians 2:12)

Paul knew from personal experience the preeminence of getting to know Jesus and made it a concerted effort of prayer for the church.  In writing to his beloved Ephesians about the same time he penned “I want to know Him” to the Philippians he said, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better.” (Ephesians 1:17 NIV)  It was likely he had in mind the words of Jesus Himself from His final great prayer for the church before His departure, which emphasized the very same thing, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3 NIV)

It is significant and fitting for me, as I begin a new year and stand poised to enter into a new chapter in my life after 40 years of pastoral ministry that I find myself groaning from within with that selfsame desire, to know Him better.  I am realizing as never before how little I really have begun to grasp the width, the length, the height and the depth of the love of my Savior Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 3:18)  What greater purpose is there than to dedicate ones life to knowing Him?  None!  And there is nothing better that can prepare a person for heaven and eternity with Him!

Although it has been my practice for many years to annually read through the Bible, this year in addition I want to read and reread the Gospels and the accounts of His life and words.  I do so specifically in pursuit of a deeper revelation of the nature and character of Jesus.  All I can say is after all these years of walking with Him and serving Him, like Paul, I only want to know Him better.

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It has been nearly a month since my last blog post.  My prolonged silence has been more lack of motivation than anything else.  It is not as if I have had nothing to write about.  An active thought life and daily experiences continually supply fodder for this writer’s rumination.  And it is not as if I have been too busy, which is a common laundry basket in which we throw all our dirty little excuses.  No, truth be told, I simply have not as the saying goes “gotten around to it.”

It raises an important question.  Why is it often so difficult to overcome inertia, to get something rolling, when that something is the very thing that in the doing causes a person to derive great benefit and satisfaction?  One answer is procrastination.  Procrastination is a ten dollar word describing how we’re duped into replacing high priority, high return tasks with low priority, minimal return actions.  In the financial world, and yours and my world for that matter, such careless investment is a projection for loss.  Loss of progress, benefit to others, self satisfaction and respect. 

Like most people I am confronted by the procrastination huckster on many fronts.  It is not just with my writing.  It coaxes me when it comes to working out, honey-do list items, organizing work and storage space, home and self improvement projects.  I could go on and on.  How to resist its enticing deceitful ways?

Give whatever you’ve been procrastinating ten minutes.  That’s right.  Just ten minutes and likely as with this blog, your engagement with the project will expand beyond ten minutes and you just might get ‘er done!  I did and here it is!

What have you learned about overcoming procrastination?

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Being on the crest of the baby boomer wave, those born between 1946 and 1964, now beginning to break upon the shores of the senior years, gives one a unique perspective.  Despite the fact that we need glasses to read everything within arm’s length, anyone who has survived six decades of the passages of life navigating through both calm and stormy seas, still has the capability of 20/20 hindsight.  As a new member of this fast growing salty-dog club, if you will, I found it insightful to gaze back upon the many stages and phases of life through which I have passed, many of them associated simply with aging.  In the process I have been giving serious consideration to those aspects of inevitable change which are common to everyone and how best with God’s help, to learn to cope with such transitions. 

Recently I gave a sermon at church in which I shared a biblical model for the three major passages of life based on 1 John 2:12-14.  Titling it “Transition Lenses for the Passages of Life” I covered seven different phases of life through which everyone must pass and the purposes of God meant to be instilled along the way.  Using an audience response system to poll everyone I discovered a startling fact.  80% of all those in attendance at both services acknowledged that they felt they were “in some phase of a major transition” in their life right now.  That was true spanning every age, and interestingly enough, particularly for the 46-55 age bracket.

What I have discovered is that there are at least four things which everyone experiences when faced with navigating a transition, be it an inevitable passage of life, or a change of choice for a preferred future.  Recognizing these common responses to change has helped me immensely in appropriating God’s sustaining grace as I learn to adapt.  I pray that they can do the same for you.

1.  GRIEF – Typically one of the first reactions to transition is grief because most change is triggered by or involves dealing with a loss.  Jesus taught that when it comes to change “no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for He says, ‘The old is better.’” (Luke 5:39 NIV)  The good things of life, the things to which we have become accustomed and enjoy, we hate to see phased out.  And so it is natural to grieve and mourn our losses.  Endings, particularly the death of loved ones, relationships, familiar surroundings, financial security or health are painful and difficult.  But God, who promises to comfort us in all of our afflictions, is always there to shepherd us through the valley of the shadow of death. (2 Corinthians 1:4 & Psalm 23:4)

2.  RELIEF – Ironically with change and loss, a balm of relief often accompanies the pain of grief.  There is a sense of relief that comes with being able to leave behind the difficult, inconvenient or stretching aspects of the old.  Every phase of life has its’ downsides and change affords the opportunity to lay the things aside you were ready to be done with.  I loved watching my children compete in traveling basketball in their elementary school years, but to be honest I hated all the driving, money spent and time eating junk food in stale sweaty gyms.  I was sad to see my children move on to high school but relieved to get my weekends back.  There is a redemptive side to every loss and worth seeking God to discover it.  Relief falls naturally under the category of the “things that work together for good.”  (Romans 8:28)

3. FEAR – Every change inevitably confronts us with our fears.  The big fears in life’s transitions are fear of the unknown or unfamiliar, fear of lack or scarcity, fear of abandonment and being alone, and fear of failure and further loss.  These trigger worry and anxiety and could cause a person, given the choice, to wade back out of the waters of change with cold feet.  A whole generation of Israelites missed out on the Promised Land because of the fear of giants.  Again and again in the scriptures we are assured that we can face our fears because God is with us and will not forsake us. He is the solution to all that we fear.  He is our light and our salvation, whom or what then should we fear?  (Psalm 27:1-2)

4. HOPE – The glorious side of change is a hope in God that there is yet a preferred future in store for those who love Him.  One day, He promises us, things will be better. That hope sustained the Israelites in the wilderness and ultimately helped them triumph over their grief’s and fears and finally carried them across the Jordan.  When a person embraces the God factor in the midst of life’s passages, there is a sustaining grace that helps beat back the downsides of change and temptations to despair.  “What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?”  (Romans 8:31)   Hope, like the oxygen we breathe, is what keeps us alive when endings and death engulf us, and invigorates us to press ahead into our future.

Please share your observations or lessons learned in coping with major transitions in your life.

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As most readers of my blog know, my wife and I recently returned from a month’s vacation in Europe visiting the countries of Turkey, Greece, Italy and France.  Most of our time was spent in the big cities of Istanbul, Rome and Paris but we had opportunity to travel to many smaller hamlets as well.  As an American from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul I was intrigued by a number of distinct differences, and in some cases even stark contrasts, between everyday life as we know it here in the heartland and life there.  But surprisingly, it was a few startling similarities that most garnered my attention and gave me pause.  If Samuel Morse were alive today he would be texting rather than telegraphing but his question would be essentially the same:  “what hath America wrought?”

For simplicities sake, here are my observations and impressions of life across the pond, listed in no particular order, except that I am saving the answer to the Morse question until the end.

1.  Rails – European rail systems are incredible.  Sleek, high tech subways, trams, funiculars and trains provide convenient, quick, inexpensive means of travel almost anywhere in the city or the country.  We know firsthand because we rode the rails more than seventy times, including a delightful all night sleeper train from Milan to Paris. The downside, frequently they are crowded, standing room only and great places for pickpockets to ply their trade.  I know firsthand, oh how painfully I know.

2.  Small – Because European cityscapes have medieval plot plans and buildings hundreds of years old, one immediately notices that in contrast to the New World, many things are small.  Small narrow streets and sidewalks, small vehicles, small shops, small apartments, sinks, showers and appliances, narrow stairways, small lifts (elevators) or none at all.  In Europe, where the ground floor doesn’t count, you learn quickly that carrying your luggage to the 4^th floor is really the 5^th floor – ugh.

3. Piazzas and Palaces– Every neighborhood and town has a picturesque piazza, plaza or park adjoining grand historic buildings, landmarks, churches, or mosques if you’re in Turkey.  Cobblestones, columns, sculptures and fountains abound.  Each city also touts at least one ancient ancestor of the modern shopping mall, a public market or Grand Bazaar consisting of a century’s old labyrinthian maze of covered narrow alleys and small shops often grouped by product.   And then there is the incomparable Versailles, where the shear scale and beauty of its palace and surrounding grounds takes ones breath away, and fittingly expresses the ego of its creator Louis the XIV.

4.  Doors – Susan and I fell in love with the unique, quaint, ornate, colorful doors of Europe.  What one immediately notices is that big or small, they are substantial, thick, solid wood or metal and the knob is often in the middle rather than the edge.  We encountered no flimsy, veneer coated, hollow core, punch-your-fist-through doors our entire trip.  The doors there actually are designed and constructed to keep unwanted elements out.  What a relief.  When you compare the quality of European residential construction to ours you quickly realize that a huffing, puffing big bad wolf is much more of a threat here than there.

5. Cigarette Smoke – Speaking of huffing and puffing, I swear the tobacco companies in Europe must be thriving.  As a pansy non-smoker accustomed to a sheltered smoke-free environment I don’t think I’ve inhaled as much second hand smoke since I was a kid living in a mobile home with two smoking parents. 

6. Sidewalk Café’s – One of the delights of Europe with its pedestrian friendly ambiance is that everywhere you go you find people strolling the streets and sharing life together at small tables outside storefront cafes.  It made us wonder if anyone drinks or dines at home.  One quickly comes to appreciate that life somehow seems easier to put on pause at a sidewalk café.  Time stands still while the rest of the world goes by.  No wonder old men while the day away sipping coffee and playing board games, couples linger over lunch, the work crowd unwinds over late afternoon drinks and everyone dines around flickering candlelight in the evening (8 or 9 pm.)

7. Multilingual – In addition to one’s native tongue, we found many who spoke at least one or more other languages, most commonly English.   It made us realize how provincial we must seem, speaking but one language, as if conceited that the whole world need kowtow to us in order to communicate. In that regard, I think Europeans in general are more urbane and worldly wise than most Americans, myself included.

Which brings me to my final observation regarding our similarities and the question: “what hath America wrought?”

8. iPhones – One of the first things we noticed from the moment we landed in Istanbul, and throughout our journeys, was the ubiquitous iPhone.  Seemingly everyone young or old, on the street or on public transportation, is talking, texting or reading something on their iPhone or smartphone.  At first it caused a double take.  For an instant I thought the plane had done a u-turn and landed back in the US.  It convinced me in a New York minute that we are indeed a global society, connected by technology with very little, other than geography, really differentiating us anymore. 

No matter where we went we saw Turks, Greeks, Italians et al in Gap shirts and Nikes sipping Coke, or fondling a Starbucks, savoring a Big Mac, a Whopper or a Subway, and watching TV’s dubbing the likes of Eastwood’s “Go ahead, make my day” and Scharzenegger’s “I’ll be back” ad nauseam.  Beiber, Gaga, Timberlake, Rihanna, and Obama are all as recognizable in Monterosa, Italy as in Monterey, California.

US tech firms, multinational corporations and media moguls are fervent, unabashed evangelists out to supersize, standardize, shrink wrap and blister pack our world into their image. 

My question is where are the fervent, unabashed Christian evangelists?  What is God “wroughting”?  We ran into some precious saints passing out bibles at the Sorbonne in Paris.  It moved our pastor’s hearts to see God loving Christians getting the Word out.  But obviously it is going to take much more than that to turn an entire continent around where most churches are empty or have been replaced by mosques.  May God help the Church of Jesus Christ to rise up under the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit to seize the unparalleled day in which we are living.

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During our month long journey in Europe my wife and I had the opportunity to explore literally dozens of historic cathedrals and churches, both large and small, grand and humble, crowded and empty.  Some of them like the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel in Rome, The Duomo in Florence and Notre Dame in Paris are among the world’s most famous.  Each church had a unique story to tell of its origin and conveyed incredible devotion and ingenuity by its design and artistic embellishment.  Each took scores if not hundreds of years to build and had stood the test of time by their very existence up to a millennium or more after their completion.   That for an American, where one celebrates any building older than 100 and venerates anything over 200 years old is mind boggling. 

When I discovered that the Duomo, begun in 1296 took 140 years to build and that one artist, Lorenzo Ghiberti, took 27 years to craft just one set of doors for the Baptistery I was literally blown away.  It is hard for me to imagine that kind of enduring devotion being poured into creating a building or work of art.  One presumes or at least hopes that ultimately the motivation had to be God’s glory, but consider the impact of a similar commitment and devotion today, especially if it were translated into building the church of Jesus Christ which is His body and spreading the gospel.  Bottom line, like so many things in Europe, an extravagant price was paid to build edifices of enduring value.  The Duomo, by the way, with its external geometric designs in white, green and red marble is absolutely stunning to behold.

Sadly most of the churches we visited apart from being overrun by tourists were bereft of worshippers.  At best, places for expressions of prayer and worship in the cavernous spaces, were typically reserved for a few devotees by cordoning off or curtaining a side chapel.  That stark act of partitioning such small places for spiritual matters in the midst of a great cathedral originally designed to glorify God was heart rending.  But the indictment is that the space allotted was all the space that was needed.   One could not help but acknowledge that the glory of the true church had long since departed. 

There were of course exceptions, and one of the most remarkable was Sacré-Cœur Basilica in Paris.  Outside the church hangs a banner which declares that for 125 years there has been a non-stop, 24/7 prayer meeting.  That church, a relative late comer by European standards, was built in the 1870s with the express desire to foster spiritual renewal declaring “the hour of the Church has come.”

But the one thing that most impacted me about nearly all the churches we visited were the ceilings.  Ah the ceilings.  My initial impression was that an almost inordinate amount of time, creativity, energy and effort were invested in the ceilings.  Coupled with the amazing domes and vaults, the ceilings, in frescoes or mosaics, invariably glittered with vibrant colors often accented with gold.  Everyone far below on the floor are forced quickly to become accustomed to arching the back, craning the neck and duck waddling in a circle all the while gazing heavenward in an attempt to take it all in.  Michelangelo’s iconic ceiling in the Sistine Chapel is a case in point.  How does one even begin to comprehend the vastness, the intricacy, the meaning of it all?

But in my surmising there was a critical message at the heart of their magnificent obsession with ceiling design.   Throughout the Scripture we find a recurring exhortation and the words of Christ Himself, telling us to lift up our heads, to look up.  There is in that posture a positioning of one self, when looking heavenward to God, to be in a place to see and hear the message of redemption.   Humankind in its lostness and separation from God, in its doubt and unbelief, in its depravity and self-centeredness ultimately can find help and hope only by looking heavenward.  Jesus said “stand and look up for your redemption is drawing nigh.” (Luke 21:28)

As we gaze at the mundane world around us and the clay upon which we stand we are easily distracted from the things of God, and are tempted or confronted with our own limitations.  What genius the builders and adorners of the cathedrals of old had to design a place where God is preeminent that beckons people to focus heavenward.  There is a timeless principle in that for every Christ follower.  Hope and faith rise as we look up, up to God from which our help comes.

And ceilings themselves were more than mere adornment, they were all intentionally meant to convey a message, through the themes of their art, of God’s redemption plan.  In my observation church by church, each ceiling had one or more of the salient facts of that plan such as His original intention for man in creation, the fall, Old Testament themes leading up to and pointing to the coming and death of Christ, His glorious resurrection, the end of the age and the final judgment.  It is a fact that the creators and designers of these ceilings wanted to portray for and communicate to the earthbound commoners in attendance, who were often illiterate, God’s redemptive plan for them and their eternal accountability for what they did with it.

Also there was in the soaring majesty of the architecture a call to a nobler, more hope-filled life where spirit triumphs over flesh, Christ vanquishes sin and death, and the glories of heaven transcend hell. 

What worldly troubles are weighing you down today?  Where are your eyes focused?   Imagine yourself in a beautiful cathedral, bathed in a kaleidoscope of light streaming through the stained glass and beckoning you to look up at an even more glorious ceiling.  Lift up your head, lift up your eyes, and behold your redeemer, your King of Glory coming in.  All else pales in comparison and the things of the earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

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Having just returned from a month of travel and sightseeing in Europe it is a challenge for me to sit down and write a blog on just one focused subject.  My habit and commitment on this website have been to bring a scriptural perspective to the everyday challenges of life.  But to be honest there are a number of things about which I would like to write which are beyond that self imposed parameter.  There are so many things stirring in my heart right now, both secular and sacred, puny and ponderous, even ridiculous to the sublime that I don’t know where to begin nor what would be truly helpful or of interest to my reader.  It might be best to start with a brief recap of our trip.

We spent a week and a half in Western Turkey visiting our daughter Anne who teaches at a large private school in Izmir (Smyrna of the Bible) located on the Adriatic Sea, just a ferry ride from the Islands of Greece.  While there we spent a number of days seeing the sights in ancient Istanbul, formerly Byzantium and Constantinople, which straddles the Straits of the Bosphorus, linking East to West, both geographically, historically and religiously.  We also visited the stunning and unparalleled ruins of Ephesus, the Apostle Paul’s stomping grounds for nearly three years and cradle of first century gentile Christianity. (Acts 19)  Not many people realize that a major part of Paul’s and the Apostle John’s ministries were focused upon this part of Turkey where all seven churches of the Book of Revelation, are located within a 50 mile radius of one another.  Of course, nothing remains of any of those churches and ironically Turkey is now 99% Islamic.

Taking advantage of Izmir’s proximity to Greece we stole away for a couple of days to the Island of Chios, where Paul, bound for Jerusalem by ship, spent a night (Acts 20:15) and we visited the ancient medieval walled city of Mesta.

From Turkey we flew to Rome where we viewed many of the famous vestiges of the ancient Roman Empire including the Catacombs.  Again we could not help but imagine ourselves walking in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul who was there for more than two years or living as the early Christians who were so heavily persecuted in the first three centuries after Christ’s death.  When we walked along the famed, cobble stone Appian Way or crossed the Tiber River on the Ponte Fabricio, the oldest bridge in Rome dating to 62 AD, it was amazing to think that Paul himself, bound in his Spirit to be a witness for Christ traversed upon the self same path. 

No visit to Rome of course is complete without also exploring the Vatican, seat of Roman Catholicism, claimant to the home of the early church fathers.  It was an educational time there exploring St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel all the while marveling at the incredible artwork including Michelangelo’s Pieta and ceiling frescoes.

After five days in the Eternal City, or should I say the “Infernal” City where I got pick pocketed, we took a train north to Florence, the heart and seedbed of the Renaissance in the 14^th to 16^th centuries.  It was hard for me to get my mind around the fact that from this one city, so small and compact in comparison to Rome, could emanate such a burst of brilliance that would revolutionize the world of science, art, sculpture, architecture, politics, literature, poetry and even religion.  Just think this one city spawned, Galileo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Machiavelli, the Medici’s and Dante. 

Florence was even home to the religious reformer, preacher and prophet, Savanarola, who defied the Pope and was excommunicated in 1495.  Leading a religious youth movement in Florence he sought to establish the city under godly rule, but ended up being martyred in 1498.  His heroic life and writings influenced the likes of Martin Luther and provided kindling for the reformation.

After Florence we spent several days in the remote, picturesque Cinque Terra region, also known as the Italian Rivera.  Cinque Terra, translated five lands, are five small medieval towns built precipitously on the steep mountainous Mediterranean coast, linked by rail and footpaths.  From there we took a train to Milan and then an overnight sleeper train to Paris.

Our time in Paris was a fitting capstone to our journey through the history of Christianity and the ancient, medieval and renaissance Mediterranean world.  The beauty of Paris with it many landmarks, gracious streets and open spaces, spanning the medieval world to the 18^th and 19^th centuries gave us a unique perspective on both Christianity’s impact and eventual decline in Europe.  I could say so much about this but let me leave you with a simple picture which I think sums up the state of the church in that part of the world.

The last day of our trip we were wandering the Montmartre hill area of Paris and stumbled upon a very unusual statue in a small park.  It is the sculpture of a man holding his head in his hands. We discovered that it is a memorial to Saint Denis, a third century martyr and former Bishop of Paris.  Denis, obviously an evangelist at heart, was beheaded by sword because so many were being converted to Christianity through his ministry.  But even a beheading could not stop him.  Legend has it that Denis then picked up his head and walked ten kilometers preaching a sermon the entire way.  There he finally expired and was buried, in the place of his choosing.

To me that is a graphic picture that sums up state of the historic church visited in all of our travels.  Basically it is a headless church, a cadaver.  No one or nothing has ever been able silence Jesus, who is the head of His church, nor the proclamation of His gospel.  But the church needs to once again be raised up and become connected to the Him, under His headship, in order to fulfill its mission on earth.

More observations and lessons learned to follow. . .

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I don’t know about you, but I’ve been going through Olympic withdrawal.  Doubtless when Paul was writing to the believers who lived in Corinth, one of the chief cities in Greece at the time, he was making reference to what we now know as the Ancient Olympic Games.  The Olympic Games began in Greece seven centuries before Christ’s birth and took place every four years for over a millennium until the Romans finally put an end to them around 400 AD. 

Paul’s readers would have understood, just as we do, that Olympic glory can be a great motivator to embrace self discipline and the sacrifices required to get there.  If you are anything like me, having spent way too many hours watching the plethora of London Olympic coverage available on smart phones, iPads, computers and TV, you would doubtless agree.   So many of the competitions and gold medal stories were in a word – inspirational.  It makes you want to get off the couch, get out there and actually start doing some training yourself.  The harsh realization for me however is that the only sport I would even have an outside chance of competing in at my age in Rio de Janeiro is dressage, since the oldest person at this Olympics was a 71 year old Japanese dressage rider.  Unfortunately I do not have a horse and besides I am allergic to them. And so goes my Olympic dream and I can only say with Shakespeare’s King Richard “a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.” 

My eight year old grandson was so inspired by the amazing feats of sprinter Usain Bolt that he wanted to get out on the track himself.  His dad found an all-comers meet in a distant suburb and drove Sam there to run in his first 100 and 200 meter competitions just like his hero.  Gladly I was there to witness it and celebrate vicariously with Sam as his Olympic dream begins to unfold.

The point of Paul’s writing is of course that there are ultimately much more important crowns in life for which to train and sacrifice than Olympic ones.  And make no mistake about it when Paul says that we should “run in such a way to get the prize” he is talking about being willing to do whatever it takes to win. (vs. 24)  The context of this discussion is about winning people to Christ.  Just before using the Olympic analogy, Paul writes “I have become all things to all people, so that by all possible means I might save some.” (vs. 22)

The crowns of which Paul speaks here are people.  In both Philippians 4:1 and 1 Thessalonians 2:19 Paul refers to those to whom he is writing, people who through his ministry came to know Christ, as his joy and his crown.  People are always incomparably more valuable than things. And the picture here is that taking people to heaven with us and presenting them before the Father makes touting laurel wreaths and gold medals pale in comparison.

The very best investment of our one and only life is to present Christ to people so that we might one day present them to Christ.  Just as Olympic athletes are laser focused on winning the gold, Paul urges us to be similarly focused on winning people to Christ. “I do not run like someone running aimlessly, I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.” (vs. 26)

Imagine what the great reunion of all believers will be like in heaven when we have the delight of meeting people who are there because of us.  Imagine the surprise of discovering people there you had no idea were influenced by your life and witness.  Imagine the unadulterated joy of having those you love and care about there with you for all eternity.  That is what Paul is talking about when he refers to striving to win “a crown that will last forever.”  God help us to be spiritual Olympians for your glory and win crowns we can take with us into eternity.

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As the school year comes to an end, another annual round of commencement addresses is being given.  Sadly, most of them are forgettable.  Ironically, I do not even remember my own high school or college commencement addresses.  Having raised five children, I have sat through my share.  Of all the graduation speeches that I have heard I remember only one.  It was a message given at the college graduation of my eldest daughter.  The speaker was the late John Osteen, founder of Houston’s Lakewood Church and father of Joel Osteen.  Rev Osteen exhorted the graduates to make it their goal to always depend upon and be filled with the Holy Spirit.  That message for some reason stuck with me.

The purpose of a graduation speech hopefully is that it will strike a chord of truth deep within the soul that will continue to resonate at critical junctures throughout a person’s life. 

When Winston Churchill, speaking at the Harrow graduation in 1941, said “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never …” he struck a chord that reverberated way beyond the ear shot of those in attendance.  It galvanized a nation caught in the grip of the Second World War and throughout the decades since has continued to inspire embattled souls whenever it is read or recalled.

This year, a high school English teacher named David McCollough Jr gave one of those rare memorable commencement addresses.  When he told the graduates at Wellesley High School (Massachusetts) the following it went viral.  “None of you are special. You are not special. You are not exceptional.”  In an age when children have grown up being “pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble-wrapped . . . feted and fawned over” it needed to be said.  The ultimate point that he was making is that exulting in being special is a self-indulgent deceit.  “The great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special.”  That is a message which may discomfit the soul but can motivate those who hear it to noble action.

Graduation ceremonies as a rite of passage are fraught with both emotion and expectation.  There is the celebration of accomplishment with all the accompanying memories, bitter and sweet, sacrificial and gratuitous that will be left behind.  And there is the anticipation of the future burgeoning with hopes and dreams yet waiting, albeit with trepidation, to be fulfilled.

That is how the disciples must have felt as Jesus was speaking to them at their commencement, right before His ascension into heaven.  It was the summum bonum of all graduation speeches.  Given in an unparalleled setting atop the Mount of Olives with Jerusalem in full view across the Kidron Valley His words would go viral in a way that would reverberate with increasing cadence century by century down to the present time.  What the disciples heard would mark out a purposeful course of service and inspire them to run it for the rest of their lives.  These powerful commencement words of Jesus would have the same effect upon everyone who read them thereafter.

Here, in summary, are the key points drawn from the greatest commencement address ever given.  It was faithfully transcribed by Luke the physician, from the eyewitness accounts of the graduates themselves. (Acts 1:4-9)

1.  Congratulations, but wait!  Don’t even think about venturing out without being filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit.  “Do not leave Jerusalem,” Jesus said, “but wait for the gift my Father promised…” (Acts 1:4)  “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” (Acts 1:8)  Jesus was simply reinforcing what He had taught His disciples earlier “without me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)  Where God guides, He provides and those whom He appoints, He anoints.  Graduates dare not go forth without wholly depending upon Him – John Osteen’s point exactly!

2.  Live in the moment and leave the future to God.  Jesus told the disciples “It’s not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by His own authority.” (vs. 7)  You do not need to figure everything out ahead of time.  Leave the timing and results to Him.  Don’t let what you don’t know keep you from doing what you know.  Venture out in obedience of faith, trusting Him.

3.  Be a witness.  What you’ve been given is too precious and too powerful to be kept to yourself.  Be alert to what I am doing in your life and faithfully share what you see and hear with others.  “You shall be my witnesses…”  (Acts 1:8)

4. Think big but start small.  You were created to be a world changer, so set your heart accordingly.  But keep in mind that the journey to big always starts at home with the small. You must start in Jerusalem before moving into “all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) 

What is the most memorable thing you remember from a commencement address you’ve heard?

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