At Calvary this summer we are diving into the psalms for a bit of refreshment.  Few things refresh our hearts like hope.  Psalm 39:7 reads… “And so, Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you.”  (NLT)

I’ve been thinking a lot about that word this week… Hope.  I’ve talked to so many people lately who are searching for hope, hanging on to hope.  Some have even given up hope.  Last week a young man in our community — a graduating senior with my son Jake — gave up hope.  Somehow he came to the conclusion that the best answer was to quit living.  I’ve talked with a number of couples lately who are inches away from giving up hope that their marriage could ever again be healthy, whole and vital.

The Hebrew word, the word in the Old Testament most frequently translated as hope is the word qawvaw.  The word literally means “Cord.”  Hope is a cord.  Hope is a connection.  Hope is a rope.  Which means that hope as an object.  The object of our hope is whatever we find at the end of our rope.  Some of us are tying ourselves to things that can leave us shaken.  Strong hope requires that we tie ourselves to something solid, something immovable.

Ask yourself, “Where is my hope?”  “For what am I hoping?”  “To what am I attaching myself for strength and security?”   “What cords am I grabbing?”

The world doesn’t give us very solid connections does it?  Some of us are struggling with that right now, aren’t we?  You tied your cord to the economy and your nest egg, but then the stock-market fell and you’ve been shaken.  You tied your cord to the future you had all planned out but something happened recently and you’ve been reminded that you aren’t in control, that life ends, and you’ve been shaken.  You tied your cord to your marriage, your children, or a friend, and even though God has created us for community, if we put our hope in people, hearts get shaken.

So where will you put your hope? A higher power isn’t high enough. We don’t need a watered-down feel-good “Chicken-Soup-for-the-Soul” God. We need to anchor, we need to harness our lives to an unmovable, unshakable, rock of a refuge-giving God.

Psalm 62:5-6 reads,

I wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken.

If my cord is connected; if my heart is harnessed; if my life is tied into God.  I will not be shaken.  That’s hope.

Psalm 133 is one of my favorite passages on unity. The psalmist writes,

How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe. It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion.

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 For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.

Now the symbolism of oil and dew is significant — it has meaning — but for the moment let me just connect the beginning with the end.  “It is good and pleasant when God’s people live together in unity for there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.”

Far too often Jesus-followers are willing to set aside unity for something “more important.”  Sometimes our denominations are “more important.”  Sometimes our music is “more important.”  Sometimes building our own congregations is “more important.”

But it seems like most often, we find that doctrinal differences are “more important.”  Am I saying that doctrine is not important?  Of course not.  What we believe about Christ; about salvation by faith; about the Bible; these things matter.  But should every doctrinal difference divide us?  Jesus commanded us to love each other and even went so far as to say that “love” would be our brand.  If we break a specific command in the pursuit of truth — aren’t we still disobedient?

Anyway, if you have the time — about 90 minutes — watch this video.  About a year ago John Piper stirred up the unity pot by inviting Rick Warren to speak at his conference.  For those of you, unaware of the controversy, those who follow Piper are not ardent supports of Warren.  They weren’t really living together in unity.  But this video gives me hope, and increases my respect for both of them.  I believe that God is and will pour our life through their unity.

Last week, too many days rang up temps in the 90’s. One 90+ day I drove by Welch Pool and saw a line of people stretching back to the parking lot. Everyone was looking for a refreshing dip in the pool. I would like to declare this summer a time of refreshment at Calvary.

For the next 10 weeks of summer, we are going to take a small look at a big book; the Old Testament collection of Psalms. Psalms is a collection of 150 prayers and songs of worship. They are prayers and songs that started in the heart of an individual – a moment where someone like you or me cried out to God, or pondered God, or connected with God – but since that moment these prayers and songs have been prayed and sung by millions of people for thousands of years.

And they are words of refreshment…

They are refreshingly authentic. The psalms give us permission to be honest and real with God in our prayers and with others in our worship, our doubts, our joys and our struggles.

They are refreshingly spiritual. The psalms are the language of prayer. When we don’t know how to pray, we can refresh our prayers with the language of the Psalms. We may find ourselves praying words that connect us to the heart of God.

They are refreshingly uplifting. I can’t tell you how many times I have gone to the psalms when my heart was dry, my spirit was down and the words I read gave me new hope, inspired gratitude, or lifted my faith.

Through the years the psalms have been a treasure to many who are seekers of God. For example listen to these words…

I read the Psalms every day, as I have done for years; I know them and love them more than any other book. Dietrich Bonheoffer in a letter to his parents, while he was in a Nazi prison.

(When I read the psalms) I am reminded that God never dozes off, even when for a time the air is smooth and the way is clear. He doesn’t jolt awake when the earth rumbles beneath your feet. He is in perfect attendance to your every step. Beth Moore

The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express the same delight in God which made David dance.  C.S. Lewis

I am glad that the Psalmist is honest and lets us know there are times he was afraid. That is one reason I find the Psalms so comforting – he experienced life as I do with all its’ up and downs, fears, doubts, joys, heartaches. Ruth Graham

David’s life was a torrent of spiritual desire, and his psalms ring with the cry of the seeker and the glad shout of the finder.  A.W. Tozer

I am looking forward to joining my voice to the cries of the seekers and the glad shouts of the finders.  We start this weekend — June 4/5.

Lynn and I took a drive yesterday.  A day off, and beautiful weather deserve a good drive through the green hills of PA.  The driving plan had us going through Belleville on the way home, with a stop at Peachey’s greenhouse.  Don’t ask me why we need more plants, flowers or mulch of any kind, but we do.

Only problem?  Everything Amish was closed for the day and in Belleville everything Amish is most everything.  Ascension Day.  That’s right the Amish close shop for Ascension Day.  Ascension Day is a work-holiday.  My first thought?  “Ah come on, can’t you come up with a better way to take a day off?”  My second thought?  “But the Amish aren’t known for their lazy ways, so Ascension Day must carry weight with them.  My third thought?  “I need to think about Ascension Day.”

Then I remembered a seminar put on by David Bryant.  He said something like this,

We live in an age of crises, but one crisis trumps them all. It’s engulfing the American church.  It’s a crisis of Christology.  I sometimes call it a crisis of supremacy.  But there is hope.  A cure exists.  It can be found in a fresh revelation among God’s people of the profound Biblical teaching on the ascension our Lord Jesus.

See here’s the deal.  We focus much on the incarnation at Christmas.  The cross and resurrection get our attention at Easter.  But incarnation and resurrection encircling the cross is only part of the story — 2/3’s at best.  There is also the ascension.  Jesus ascended into heaven.

The ascension tells us who Jesus is today.  The ascension tells us where Jesus is today.  The ascension tells us what Jesus is doing today.  Who is he?  Jesus is the Lord of Heaven and earth, the Ruler of all nations, the King of the Universe, and the Head of the Church.  Where is he?  Jesus is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, a position of authority and power.  What is he doing?  Besides ruling, Jesus is interceding, praying, speaking to the Father on our behalf.  David Bryant writes,

Jesus — ascended — holds the answer to all our prayers and the fulfillment of all God’s promises — whether for an individual, a church, a nation, or ultimately all of creation.

Jesus.  King.  Christ.  Messiah.  All power and authority has been given to him.  He has the name that is above all other names.  Right now at this very moment Jesus is King over all of the earth’s president’s, prime ministers, kings, military leaders, and tribal chiefs.  And in his time, through his means, by his strategies, he is leading not just the events of my life, but the events of the world toward his glorious purposes.

Now that’s worth a day off.

Last night, Jake played his last high school lacrosse game. His last high school lacrosse game was also the first “State Championship” play-off lacrosse game for State High. So that’s pretty cool. Unfortunately they lost, and it was a tough game.  They played Sewickley Academy — which happens to be where my daughter Sarah currently lives — and the Academy prevailed. In fact it was 8-0 at the end of the first half.

Having been on the downside of some athletic conquests in my day, I could relate. But to be honest it’s often on the downside of life’s events that we find some of our greatest moments. I don’t know that Jake would say that last night was one of his greatest moments, but I was proud of him. Why? Because he finished well.  He didn’t quit.  He played hard till the end and he led well to the end.

Good starts are great. We value good starts, first impressions, first kiss, first day on the job…it’s all about getting a good start. And the reality is that often a good start leads to a good finish, but one of the most important life-truths we can learn is…

In the race of life God is far more interested in how you finish than how you begin.

We’ve seen what happens when great starts lead to poor finishes.  In every generation greatness is more often determined by the ability to persevere and overcome obstacles, than it is by the blazing start.  The initial scoop on Vince Lombardi was that he had minimal football knowledge.  Walt Disney was once fired by a newspaper for a lack of ideas.  Thomas Edison’s teachers gave up on him. Their evaluation read, “He is too stupid to accomplish anything.”  Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and his teacher called him hopeless as a composer.

In the race of life, God is far more interested in how we finish than how we begin. I don’t agree with many things that Frederick Neitsche wrote, but I do agree with one quote.  He wrote, The essential thing in heaven and earth is that there is a long obedience in the same direction.

Yesterday was Jake’s last lacrosse game.  Today is Jake’s last day of high school.  In many ways the summer will be full of last-things.  But it’s not just last things — it’s commencing.  I love that graduation is also called commencement.  Commencing is all about beginning…and it’s so often the case that finishing well leads to a new beginning.  I know I’m his dad — so I’ a bit biased — but I would say that if last night’s game is any indication, he is going to commence well.

You might wonder what a blog post on Jim Tressel is doing on the Dancing Cripples blog.  Three reasons.

• – I grew up playing football, played division 3 for a university in Minnesota.  
• – Even as a pastor if there is one title I covet it’s that of coach.  Coaching is my best model for pastoring.
• – It’s near impossible to live in State College for 17 years and not be a Penn State football fan.  Which in turn means Ohio State is the team you love to hate — in a purely sports-hate-way.

So when I got the news this morning — from a facebook status update — I felt strangely torn between two citizenships.  I have a Penn State football citizenship that smiles — at least inwardly — for Tressell resignation.  I have a Kingdom of God citizenship that is heartbroken for a Christian leader that has taken a fall.  So let me just share a few thoughts from my KoG citizenship.

1) I do not doubt that I share KoG citizenship with Jim Tressel.  In 2002, in the midst of their national title drive, Jim was asked, “What is the most important question you have ever been asked?”  In response he shared about a question asked of him at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes event.  “If you died tonight, do you think you would go to heaven?”  That question led him to do some soul searching which led him in the direction of Jesus.  You can find article after article that details Jim’s faith in action as a coach at Ohio State.  You can find interview after interview with young men who were helped in their journey toward Christ by Jim Tressel.

2)  I can’t even begin to imagine the pressure of being a division one football coach.  Like two tectonic plates buckling up, the stress between Kingdom of God citizenship and the expectations of Division One Football success are prime ground for spiritual earthquakes.  It’s difficult to judge if you can’t put on a man’s shoes and walk in his life.  I can’t.  And I can’t say that it would never have happened to me.

3) Christians leaders fail.  Simplify and broaden that statement.  Christians screw up.  Sometimes it’s a one time mess, that leaves you thinking, “Where in the world did that come from?”  Sometimes it comes from our own character defects.  Even little ones multiplied by time can appear huge in a moment.   In fact so often the failures are small decisions magnified over time.

4) I don’t know the whole story, but perhaps one of Tressel’s most damaging mistakes was the lack of transparency.  We all screw up, but redemption seems to run quicker and deeper when we own it, and apologize for it.  What really angers the world is when we pretend that we never fail.

5) We shouldn’t be so surprised when Christian leaders fall, that’s the nature of war.  Is Jim responsible for whatever decisions he made that contributed to this mess?  Yes.  But the Bible makes it incredibly clear — the spiritual life involves spiritual battle.  It’s a real battle with real casualties and our spiritual enemy is wise enough to go after high profile leaders.

6) Jim Tressel’s story isn’t over.  He isn’t the author of his story.  The news media isn’t authoring his story.  God is.  I don’t know his whole story but I know that this resignation need not be “the story of his life.”  If he is a follower of Jesus, the gospel is the story of his life and the story of the gospel is a story of forgiveness and redemption and grace which gives us the freedom to change our paths.

7) There are people right now thinking, “I had hoped that he was different.”  It’s my hope that citizens of the Kingdom of God will show their “difference” by giving grace and praying with all our might that Jim’s story will ultimately be an exhibition of the grace of God.  There are consequences to sin, neither extending grace, nor embracing grace will erase all the consequences.  But I’m confident that God’s not done with Jim yet.  In fact I’m going to go out and buy his book.  I’ll keep it on my desktop to remind me to pray for him…and the rest of his story.

So I grew up on a farm.  Spent my days feeding pigs and cleaning pig pens. Even gathered an egg or two from the chickens.  Cats lived outside, dogs too — but you didn’t name the cats.  Okay so that’s not true — I didn’t spend all my days, all day with pigs — unless you count my brothers, their table manners left a bit to be desired.

But here’s the thing, seems like, best I can remember, most of my outside chores were farm chores, not yard chores.  We didn’t rake leaves… why rake what would disintegrate next year?  We didn’t worry about the fertilizing the grass, except for whatever came off our boots as walked from the pig pens to the house.  When it came to the year for the most part if it was green, it was good.

And we didn’t mulch.  We didn’t mulch.  Now I’ve carried over most of my yard habits from youth to maturity, much to the chagrin of my dear wife Lynn.  Or at least I should say, that I’ve carried over most of my attitudes about yard work from youth to maturity.  But Lynn loves mulch and she knows that I know how to mulch.  Whereas she’s pretty sure that I have absolutely no idea how to grow a nice thick plush yard, she knows that I know who to mulch… and she loves mulch.  This year we mulched about 5 cubic yards of mulch.

The Pile In Front of Our House

Which if you don’t know the volume of 5 cubic yards, it’s a lot.  It’s a pile about the size of a month’s worth of stuff you clean off the floor of a pig pen, that has a lot of pigs in it — which might be the reason I don’t like to mulch, it brings back memories.

Mulch — I mean think about that word, it sounds disgusting.  If it was a verb, I think it would be associated with the word cud… as in “A cow mulches it’s cud.”   When you say the word, if you sound out the “ul” syllable for two long, you will get stares.

So what I was wondering, was who in the world invented mulch?  So I googled, “who invented mulch.”  It actually started with the Clean Air Act of 1970.  The sawmills were creating too much air pollution when they burnt the saw dust and wood chips from the mill.  So the National Forest Service did a study and came up with a plan.  We’ll ask homeowners to pay to take our sawdust and put it on their yards…and we’ll call it…  Mulch.

Now here’s the deal.  I’m all for clean air.  But what about “save a tree?”  Oh for the days when life was simple.

I guess the bottom line is that, if it wasn’t for the fact that my wife likes how our yard looks when it has huge amounts of mulch covering it, I wouldn’t do it.

But I love her, so we have mulch.  5 cubit yards of love.

Stephen Hawking finds no room for heaven in his vision of the cosmos. In an interview with The Guardian Newspaper, the famous theoretical physicist says that the human brain is like a computer — he doesn’t indicate if it’s a mac or a pc — that will stop working when its components fail. He says: “There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” This isn’t a new thought from Hawking, in his book “Grand Design,” he declared that it was “not necessary to invoke God … to get the universe going.”

Hawking’s views on religion and heaven appear to be somewhat consistent with that of Europeans in general, but according to research from the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, Americans have a different perspective.

According to a 2007 Pew study of religious beliefs across the country, 92 percent of Americans said they believe in a god or universal spirit, and 74 percent said they believe that there is a heaven. “The first thing to know about the U.S. is that the U.S. is a nation of believers,” said Greg Smith, a senior researcher at Pew. When asked about their views on an afterlife, 74 percent of Americans affirmed their belief, with 50 percent saying they believed with “absolute certainty.” 50% of us are absolutely certain about heaven.

That point of view has turned the book “Heaven Is for Real” — the account of a 4-year-old son of a pastor who enters heaven during emergency surgery and survives to tell the story — into a national bestseller. The book is written by the boy’s father Todd Burpo, and recently held the #1 on The New York Times’ list of bestselling combined print and e-book NONFICTION.

• – 74% of us believe that heaven is real.
• – 50% of us are absolutely certain it is real.
• – Harold Camping believes that all Christians are bound for heaven on October 21st.
• – Stephen Hawking believes that heaven is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark.

Now I know that the reality of heaven is not dependent upon a Pew Research vote. Just because a lot of us believe it’s real, doesn’t make it real. And, if I had to choose between Camping or Hawking for a night of stimulating conversation, it would be Hawking all the way.

But here’s what I think — the day will come when Stephen Hawking’s views are seen to be even crazier than Harold Camping’s views. How’s that for ironic?

When I was a kid growing up, Anna was just crazy Aunt Anna. She seemed ancient to us. She was never married, lived with her brother, equally odd Oscar. (He was a scary driver.) When winter blizzards would force me to spend the night in town, so I could get to school the next day, I would stay in a bedroom that had piles of junk from floor to ceiling with just a path from the door to the bed. She made the best rice mush, played a mean game of whist, and frequently said uffda.

When my great Aunt Anna died about twenty years ago, my father was the estate executor. So we had this amazing opportunity to go through her house; go through all her stuff. They were collectors of all sorts of stuff; stacks of magazines all over the house, cupboards full of old tv dinner aluminum foil plates, right next to antique china that we would find was worth a small fortune.

But I think I found something even more valuable than her china. That summer we sorted through her stuff — I heard her story. A scrapbook brimming with memories of WWII, letters to young men fighting the battle, obituaries of friends who never came back. Gas ration stamps, war bonds, food ration stamps. Letters to family left behind in Norway. Certificate of Baptism and confirmation.

She was a woman who faced great loss. A woman who made great sacrifices for her friends, her community and her country. I wonder if she ever struggled with a lifetime of singleness? She was a person of deep Lutheran faith and often someone who was the life of the party.

But you know I never knew that because I couldn’t see her whole life-story. I just saw a portion. I didn’t know the high’s or the low’s, the victory’s or the struggles. I wasn’t there in the moments when God used her or shaped her. I didn’t know her whole life-story. I just saw a portion.

Can I tell you something, you don’t know the whole story, anyone’s whole story. We only see a portion. When you brush shoulders with people in the grocery story, jog past someone on the street, glance at the person stopped beside you at the light, just realize — you don’t know the whole story. You only see a portion. But let me turn it around to your story — listen to this — you still don’t know the whole story. You only see a portion.

Sometimes we look at chapters in our lives and we begin to think that’s my whole story. Did you ever hear someone say, “That’s the story of my life?” Did you ever say it?  We usually say it after a failure or when circumstances are less than we had hoped.  We say it in the midst of the hard chapters. Sometimes it’s said in despair.  But you don’t know the whole story, not even your own. Because you aren’t the author God is.

If that’s true — God is your author — all I can say is this, “It’s going to end well.”  That is, of course, if Jesus is the story of your life.

In a typical day (24 hour period from dateline to dateline) the earth sees about 50 earthquakes as of an hour or so ago, there had been 12.  None of them at 6pm.  None greater than 5.1 magnitude.  If they can call an election before people have stopped voting, I’m fairly certain we can call this one.  Harold Camping is 0 for 2.  0 for 2 won’t kill your career if you are a baseball player — but in the “prophet of the end-times” category it’s most likely an 0-fer that you can’t overcome.  Harold is 89.  He probably won’t live long enough for this one to be forgotten.

So some closing thoughts on this “Judgement Day” series —

1) I’ll be honest, I’m a bit disappointed.  I like change.  Hard to imagine one bigger than the return of Christ.  I stayed up till 1am just to see if anything would happen at 6pm on Christmas Island.  On the other hand, I’m a bit disappointed that I was a bit disappointed.  The apostle Peter said,  (2 Peter 3)

8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

I need to have more of God’s patient heart when it comes to the people around me.  There is only one reason Jesus didn’t come back on May 21st, he wants everyone to become part of God’s family.

2)  At the same time, the last few days have caused me to evaluate the depth of my longing to see Jesus.  Can I say like the apostle Paul that I eagerly “long for his appearing.”  I want the heart of God but I also want a heart that longs to see Jesus.  I think the two go together.

3)  I guess you could say that Harold Camping has once again made Christians the hope of comedians all over the world.  I know I’ve laughed.  But according to Peter (2 Peter 3), if we live our lives in the hope of the return of Jesus, we will have scoffers poking fun.  In other words you don’t have to set a date to attract scoffers.  Sometimes I wonder if our lack of scoffer’s is a warning sign rather than a goal.

4)  At the same time, I don’t think that Mr. Camping has lifted up Jesus in all his glory so that He (Jesus) could draw people to himself.  How can we overcome any bad reputation Mr. Camping has given to our Jesus?  Keep our eyes on Jesus.  It’s even more about being connected to him, than it is about living like him.  Spur one another on to love and good deeds — all the more as you see the day approaching.  Hebrews 10:23-25

That’s our assignment for May 22 and following.