Mom

Yesterday (January 11), as I was preparing for my small group, I broke out my guitar and started playing “In Christ Alone,” the brilliant song from Keith Getty and Stuart Townend. It’s simple enough to play on guitar. The chords are easy. But it’s the words that always get to me.  And yesterday I more deeply realized the elegance of this musical statement of faith; in fact, I’m thinking of using it as our corporate “Confession of Faith” in an upcoming worship service.

“In Christ alone my hope is found; He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground, Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace, 

When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all— Here in the love of Christ I stand.”

A few minutes after I was done working on the song, my phone rang. It was my brother, and he delivered the news that Susie and I had known was imminent. My mother, at age 93, had died.

Patricia Enoch was one tough woman. Not tough with other people, but just tough when it came to her personal circumstances. Maybe it was her upbringing of struggling through the deep poverty of Spokane during the depression that set her resolve, but the years since my father’s death in 2004 were not kind to her physically. She sacrificed her knees caring for dad, and her general health after his passing did not allow her to have the replacements she had needed for years.   Add a broken hip into the mix and her mobility became difficult, but that rarely stopped her. 

           

Deafness and blindness eventually took their toll, although I was still able to hold a brief conversation with her a week and a half ago over the phone.  She had been terribly ill for several months, and under hospice care since August. And heartbroken since Sept.1 when my sister died. I’m indebted to my brother Steve and his wife Kris, for all the care and help they have been to her, first in Sacramento, and in recent years, Bozeman.

Needless to say, I have many, many memories flowing through my brain at this time.  But one keeps floating to the top. After my father died, my mother approached me about being baptized. She never had been, and she decided it was time.

We had some deep talks about Jesus first; I made her join a church near where she was living in Beaumont, CA, and in June 2004 I was invited to preach…and baptize her in a service at her church. At age 80.

She is not the oldest person I have baptized, but she was the only one that was my mother. And I had that privilege.

When I last saw my mother at the end of October, we talked more about Jesus. Deep…and trusting. I can say that I believe she is with him now….

When I led our small group in singing “In Christ Alone” last night, the words became even more poignant for me….

“No guilt in life, no fear in death— This is the pow’r of Christ in me;

From life’s first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny.

No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man, Can ever pluck me from His hand;

            Till He returns or calls me home— Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand.”

Amen.

Bye mom.  I love you.

-Chris

Click here to listen to "In Christ Alone"

"In Christ Alone" Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend Copyright © 2001 Kingsway Thankyou Music

Refreshing

“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord….” Acts 3:19

            I received this short Scripture verse in the email the other day.  And a kept drifting back to this one partial sentence.  While it starts out with a warning (which many Scripture passages do), it ends with a great abiding promise.  That there will be times of refreshing. Times of refreshing.  I love that phrase.

            What is refreshing to you?

            An ice-cold drink of water on a hot summer day?  Maybe a much needed nap (yah, I know that one.).  The shade of a large oak tree.  Maybe a cup of hot chocolate in January (or even in March when it is cool outside, as it is as I write this).  Maybe a hot cup of coffee - such as I am sipping on now while sitting at the airport waiting for a flight. Maybe you find refreshment in listening to your favorite musical artist, or maybe engaging in your favorite hobby. Maybe it is found in being with your favorite people.

            My hope for you is that you would find refreshment…ultimately…in our Lord.  Through prayer and meditation, through Bible reading and study; through Christ centered fellowship.  Perhaps through serving Christ and his people.  Maybe in times of holy worship?

            Peter, in the passage above links “times of refreshing” with repentance and forgiveness. If we repent (regret our sin)…our sins are wiped out…. then there are times of refreshing….   I love that order.  I pray you do also.  It is the order of Christian life.  It is what Christ alone offers. 

            I pray you have accepted that offer.  And enjoy the refreshing.

Slippy

“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison….” 2 Corinthians 4:17

Two weeks ago, I got stuck in the snow.  Well, my car did anyway. I was in my neighborhood on a cold and snowy afternoon, and my car, a 2007 Dodger-blue five speed Pontiac Vibe that I dearly love, a  car that doesn’t handle ‘slippy’ conditions real well, was laboring to climb up the small hill to our house, and once over the crest, was equally laboring to stop.  I convinced it to halt, put it in reverse to turn and back up into my gravel driveway; but the road was slick, and the turn was delayed, and instead of  turning into my spot where I wanted it to be, it ventured into a small snow bank.  I proceeded to put the car into first gear, and tried to will the vehicle out of the snow, but the wheels on the car went round and round…but the car did not nudge.

I got out of the car…whispered a few choice (but not really bad) words regarding my ability to guide that car in the snow…and went into the house to warm up and have a short lunch.

After lunch I went out to the car and looked it over carefully.  What had happened was that the snow was so high (well, not that high, my little car is just so low) that the car had sunk down to the frame in it, and the rear wheels had no chance to overcome that disadvantage.

The good news is that after I went to the garage and got out a flat shovel, and spent about 15 minutes reaching under the car and digging out the snow, I was able to get back in and convince my little vehicle to bolt out of the bank and onto the road…and back to the church I went.

And the apostle Paul writes… “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”

In the overall scheme of things, my little misadventure in the snow was nothing.  But. At the time, I was fairly well irritated with myself.  For a moment anyway.

I know that the apostle was speaking of things far worse than a temporary wedged-in-the-snow situation, that he had more permanent and eternal blessings in mind. Still, I think we need to be very thankful when our ‘light momentary afflictions’ easily go away so we can continue in the here and now.  Because I know that our Lord is concerned about how things are in the here and now as well as how things are going to be in ‘eternal glory’ to come. It is all covered in His love.

And in all these things, major and minor, temporary or permanent, we need to trust in the grace and love of Jesus. His way is not ‘slippy.’ And the small snow banks become simple distractions when the big picture is considered.

I still love my car. The snow has long melted away….

And I’m grateful that He will always love me.   

Chocolate

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Psalm 51:17

In recent years I started giving up a certain thing for Lent. I didn’t use to, as I tended to see such actions as a semi-prideful, almost self-serving exercise in futility. I don’t know what has changed in me; maybe it’s just that I’m getting old.  So be it.

Every Lent over the past few years then I have given something up. I will again this year. 

Chocolate.

Oh, there is still the self-serving element to my sacrifice. Very much so. If I am diligent, I will shed about 5-10 excess pounds. Please don’t feel bad for those pounds; they will not be lost forever however, as they seem to routinely rally back into place by early summer.

The best part of this self-serving exercise is this.  I do, when the chocolate pangs hit, remember what Christ went through for me, the road to the cross, the brutal execution on the tree.  I think back on rather gory scenes from the movie “The Passion of the Christ,” and suddenly my pangs seem rather silly.  I also use those panging times to stop what I am doing, and pray – usually about the first thing or person that comes to mind.

I hope and pray that is actually why I give up chocolate each year.   It’s just that sometimes it still feels that what I am doing is rather hollow.  Psalm 51 has this great line in it that says “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

And…I don’t think David was writing about chocolate.  But he was addressing a much deeper yearning that believers and trusters in Jesus Christ feel somewhere deep in their souls.  We may not know always how to address those yearnings, but they are there. Somewhere in my past I heard this yearning described as “A God-shaped hole” that we all have.

And chocolate will never fill the hole.

As we move into Lent my prayer for us all is that that God shaped hole that we’ve been filling up with (fill in the blank), will be left open for the Holy Spirit to inhabit; a sacrifice that God will not despise.

May your Lenten observance draw you close and closer to the One that ultimately fills all our yearnings.

Home

Our home yesterday (Feb 1), with tree cutting in progress.

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. - 2 Corinthians 5:1

I attended a well-known worship conference last week, and while there, four or five times I was asked, “Where are you from?”  It’s a common question whenever pastors gather together, and in this case, the same when pastors and church musicians gather from around the country.

But these days when I get asked the question, more often than not, I answer by first saying, “That’s a complicated question.”

Where are you from?

Susie and I have been in western Pennsylvania almost a decade; we are now in our second community since moving east.  Before then we lived in three locations together in Southern California, and a couple of locations each elsewhere in California before we married.

But. 

Susie is originally from the farm belt of Iowa; I am originally from a small town in eastern Washington State.

Where are you from? 

Of course, the correct answer at the moment would be that I am from Rayne Township in Indiana County, Pennsylvania.  That is the answer that is being fished for when I am at conferences. But the question itself stirs up emotions in me these days that surprise me.  Because I really don’t know anymore where am I am from; let me put it this way. If you ask me where home is…I would not know what to answer. Is it Clarkston Washington? Is it La Verne or Lytle Creek or Riverside, California? Is it Uniontown or Rayne Township in Pennsylvania? Honestly, I have no idea anymore, and it bothers me.  

We all have a yearning for home.  And it is a tough proposition when you don’t know where home is.

The short passage above is about a concept that rises up frequently in the Bible. It is about home.  I suppose it  is both metaphor and reality.  The home (whatever or wherever it is) we have on this earth is ultimately temporary.  But God has a permanent home for us, “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Jesus put it like this: “In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (visit John 14:2)  Metaphor? No, far more than that. It’s more likely a literal reality that he wanted his disciples then, and you and I now, to trust in.  There is a place waiting for those who trust in Jesus, it is ultimately our home.

Yes, pastors tend to be a bit transient; but the reality is that we all are just sort of traveling through this thing called life.  And God wants us to consider where our real home is.  It’s not so much about where we are from after all. It’s all about where we are going.

‘Where are you from’ simply becomes, ‘where are you going?’

And that is what is important.

P.S.

Susie and I have been so grateful for the warm ‘home’ receptions we have received at whatever congregation I have served; we feel especially blessed by the Presbyterian Church of Marion Center, PA.  It makes this transient existence far more bearable.  I may not know where I am from, but I am very grateful for where I am.