Some Kid!

And all those who heard them

kept them in their hearts, saying,

"What kind of child will this be?"

And the hand of the Lord was with him.

Luke 1:66, NKJV

There is likely not a single a child born who is expected to fail. Someone, be it mother or father, grandmother or sister, friends of the family, sure someone has hopeful expectations about that child's future. A mother might hold a baby and wish great things for him, a father might look into the sleeping face of his newborn child and anticipate significant feats and great accomplishments. Academic achievement. Financial success. Maybe he'll be a great doctor or brilliant scientist. Maybe he'll have the best pitching arm the major leagues have ever seen. Maybe he'll come up with the next big idea that changes the world. Maybe...

Everything about John's birth indicated he was a special child from whom people should expect great things. Certainly, he would follow his father in the priesthood. But these were the days of the coming of Messiah. Anyone paying attention to the signs of the times would have realized it. And the portents of this child's birth were significant. The miracle of his conception in old age, the sign of his father's muteness and the wonder of sudden speech. All of these things pointed to an importance assigned to this baby's life.

For miles and miles around, everyone who heard the story talked about it. They discussed it and debated it. But most of all, anyone who heard it filed the information away in a corner of their soul and waited. They waited for John to grow up and do whatever it was he was destined to do, to become whatever it was God had put him on this earth to do. I'm not sure they got what they were expecting, but John did indeed change his world. John prepared the way for the One who would come after him, the One much greater than he.

And then the question for us this: Are we doing what we were put here to do? Are we becoming, or being, the people that God made us to be? And more importantly, are we preparing the way for the One who will come after us, who will come for us? Are we preparing the world for the greatest One of all?

At the Presence of the Lord

When Israel went out of Egypt,

the house of Jacob from a people of strange language,

Judah became His sanctuary,

and Israel His dominion.

Psalm 114:1-2, NKJV

I'm not a big fan of preaching Biblical symbolism, but there are some illustrative pictures painted by the Grand Designer of all that are inescapable. Take this one for instance.

Israel--God's Chosen People--was enslaved in a foreign land, but when the cried out to the LORD, He sent a deliverer to break the power of the of the captor and lead Israel out of Egypt into their promised land. He led them through the Red Sea, and ultimately across the Jordan River, removing every obstacle from their path and providing for their every need along the way.

Israel is you and me, before we knew the LORD, before Jesus came and made us whole.

Egypt is the world of sin into which we were born, in which we lived.

Sin is the enslavement, and Satan is the enslaver of souls, holding us as captives in need of deliverance.

Christ is the great and awesome deliverer, the prophet greater than Moses, the embodiment of all Divine Power, who forgives and forgets all of our sin when he saves us and brings us out of Egypt's bondage.

The Exodus from Egypt is a picture of salvation, coming out of the world of sin into the land promise.

The Red Sea is a picture of Water Baptism.

The Wilderness is a picture of Sanctification.

The Jordan River is a picture of Spirit Empowerment.

The Promised Land is a picture of Victorious Living.

And I could go on, but I think you get the picture. And that's not really my point anyway. What grabbed me about the 114th Psalm was the Presence of the Lord in the believers life. When He brings us out of sin and puts His Spirit in us, we become His kingdom, His dominion. We submit ourselves willfully to the wonderful rule of the King of kings. We are His Israel, not that we have replaced the Chosen People, but rather we have been joined to the Chosen People. We have become people of God.

The tribe of Judah produced the great Kings of the Bible, the lineage that led to Jesus Christ. But the name Judah means "praise", and the Psalmist also wrote that God inhabits the praises of His people. When we lift up the high praise of God in our lives, we build for Him a tabernacle where He can dwell and be worshiped. We ourselves are a sanctuary of praise, a living tabernacle, the temple of the Holy Ghost. Peter says we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people who sing the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into marvelous light. When we are brought out of sin into salvation, we are transformed into the sanctuary where he dwells, and we are meant to worship Him.

When His presence fills our life of praise...

The sea will flee.

The rivers will roll back.

The mountains and the hills will skip away before us.

When His presence fills our life, He makes the way where there seems to be no way, going before us and coming behind us in the power of His might. He speaks and the universe surrenders to His will. Every obstacle is made surmountable, every weakness becomes an opportunity of glory for God. And why? the Psalmist asks. It is because nothing can stand before the presence of the Lord, the God of those who are His.

What Were They Thinking?

Praise the Lord!

Oh, give thanks to the LORD,

for He is good!

For His mercy endures forever.

Psalm 106:1, NKJV

Okay, so God's people were enslaved and being slaughtered in Egypt under the hard and heavy hand of Pharaoh and his task masters. They cried out to the Lord in their captivity, and He heard their cry. He found Moses over in Midian looking after his father-in-law's sheep, and He says to Moses, "Go deliver My people, and I will be with you." So then Moses goes back to Egypt, where his face is plastered on every post office wall as public enemy number one, does a whole bunch of awesome stuff with a stick and the power of God, and Pharaoh emancipates the Hebrew slaves and sends them packing on down to the Red Sea shore. Then he changes his mind, chases them with chariots and horses, and ends up drowning in the Red Sea when God parted the waters for Moses to pass over on dry ground but brought the waves crashing down again on the heads of the Egyptians. God feeds the Israelites when they are hungry, waters them when they are thirsty, shields them from the heat of the desert day and the cold of the desert night, gives them victory after miraculous victory over their enemies. And how do they thank him?

They did not appreciate the powerful goodness of God.

They rebelled against Him and His chosen representative.

They quickly forgot all that He had done for them.

They lusted for the things they did not have, and complained about the things they did have.

They griped about the generous provision of God and put Him to the test.

They envied God's appointed leaders.

They took an oath to serve God alone, and at the first opportunity made themselves a worthless god from the gold of their earrings.

They despised the pleasant land God had promised them and refused to enter it out of fear.

They did not listen to His word, nor did they believe it.

They ran after other gods.

They drove Moses to the point of insanity and crazed disobedience.

They did not fulfill the demands of God to destroy His enemies, bur rather intermarried and intermingled and became corrupt.

They served the idols of their enemies, and sacrificed their own children in abominable flames.

They defiled themselves and the land God had given them.

And in spite of all that, in spite of the punishment and discipline and correction He had to inflict on them, God did not reject or disown His Chosen People. He did not forget them or the covenant He had made with them. He did not cast them off or destroy them completely. Instead, He heard their afflicted cries, their grief, their sorrow, their repentance. They may have indeed been crying because they got caught, certainly because they were being punished, but God heard them anyway. And He showed up time and time and time again just to save them and demonstrate to them that, though they were a sorry lot, He was still a good God!

Thank You, God, that You are always better to me than sometimes I am to You.

Perfection is the Standard

My eyes shall be on the faithful of the land,

that they may dwell with me;

He who walks in a perfect way,

He shall serve me.

Psalm 101:6, NKJV

I am not perfect; far from it, actually. Just ask anybody who has spent any time around me at all, and they will tell you that I have flaws just like anybody else. I am not perfect, and I have never met anyone who was--although I've met a few people who thought they were. That was really what gave them away as imperfect; it bespoke of their delusional state of mind.

I am not perfect, but there is a God in heaven who is. I am not perfect, but God has One Son who is, who came our direction to show us how perfection could be achieved. I am not perfect, but God gave us His Word to tell us that perfection was the standard God upholds and expects us to meet. No pressure.

King David wrote the 101st Psalm and he said:

I will behave wisely in a perfect way.

I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.

I will walk in a perfect a way.

And then I think, "Really? David? I mean, really?" Remember, this is the guy who pillaged and plundered his enemies and lied about it. This is the guy who went for a walk at the wrong time of day, peeped into someone else's window while their wife was taking a bath, and found her so irresistibly attractive that he invited her over for dinner while her husband was out of town doing David's bidding. She came for dinner, stayed for breakfast, and a few weeks later gave David the happy news that they were expecting an illegitimate bundle of joy. David's response was to call her husband home, get him all liquored up and then send him to sleep with his wife, which the honorable warrior refused to do while all of his friends were in the field. So David's next step was to plot the man's demise, ordering him into the heat of the battle where he was sure to be killed. This is the guy who had more wives than he knew what to do with and still took one more in hopes of covering up his own failure. This is the guy who refused to correct or discipline his own children, permissively overlooking their unspeakable acts of incest, treachery and rebellion. This is the guy who numbered his people in his own arrogance, and when given the choice of punishment from God selected a plague that wiped out thousands of his subjects.

And yet he is called the man after God's own heart. How is that even possible?

David didn't meet his own expectations of himself, much less the expectations of God. How much better would his life have been had he lived by the standards he set, had he practiced what he preached? What if David had actually behaved perfectly and walked perfectly, never looking where he shouldn't have been looking, never thinking what he shouldn't have been thinking, never doing what he shouldn't have been doing? David hated sinfulness enough in the lives of others; what if he had hated it that fiercely in himself?

And then I have to ask, do I? Do I hate the sin in my own life that I tell people they should hate in theirs? Do any of us?

God expects perfection from us; but His Word also tells us that we cannot measure up. We are frail, flawed, failing human beings. All have sinned and fallen short of the excellence of God. None are righteous. In me nothing good dwells. How then do I have any hope of attaining the perfection that God tells me He wants from me?

I think David knew the answer to that as well. Since he himself was imperfect, he had to rely on the perfection of God and call out for the forgiveness that God makes available to all who ask for it. David was a man after God's own heart, not because he always did what was right, but because He knew how to get right through repentance. And we must all learn the same lessons. We must strive for perfection in our hearts and in our lives, but when we fall short, we must also run to the perfection of God to find help and mercy for ourselves. We cannot do it alone.

And until I get to heaven and all things are made new, I know that the most perfect I will ever be before God is when I stand before Him forgiven by His own grace. Thank you, Jesus, for that!

Self-Made Man?

Know that the Lord, He is God;

It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves.

We are His sheep and the people of His pasture.

Psalm 100:3, NKJV

People never cease to amaze me.

Take them to the most beautiful spots on earth, point out the grandeur of God's vast creation, look into the majestic and endless heavens, consider the complexities of the human body, not to mention the human heart. And invariably, some rocket scientist will say, "What an accident!" Challenge that rocket scientist--with his enormous library, impressive degrees, and small, closed mind--and he'll get on his high horse and in your face, ridicule anyone who believes in God, and continue to claim, without one shred of proof, that billions and billions of years ago, something unknowable imploded in on itself, flung its debris outward, and from that the universe managed to assemble itself.

That same man will insist that in a backwater part of this little galaxy of ours, a planet formed that was exactly the right distance from the sun, with the exactly the right combination of elemental compounds in its terrestrial sphere and atmosphere, to support the intricate system of life found on our Earth. In a noxious primordial soup, the right two proteins happened to run into each other, linking themselves to become the first amino acid and the building blocks upon which all life would stand. Single celled organisms begin to form, collecting together in clusters and putting their little nucleic centers to work making something of themselves. Skip forward an eon or two, and those cell clusters have mutated into amphibious form, a fishy creature with fins like feet that flops out of the soup onto the shores of some forgotten sea and suddenly finds itself able to breathe in oxygen through the pinholes in its face. Skip forward another eon or three, and our little industrious amphibian has lost his fins, grown a tail and opposable thumbs, and is swinging from the family tree looking for two rocks to bang together. He spots a shemonkey without a tail and walking upright, knocks her in the head with one of his rocks, and their children become the far distant ancestors of the magnificent specimen of humankind that the rocket scientist looks at in the mirror everyday.

Or so he'd like to think.

And then he looks at his life, his education, his career, his accomplishments, and all of the dreams yet before him. And because he is a handsome and smart and well-balanced individual, he determines that he is the way he is because of his own abilities. He is the supreme accident that just happened into this world.

The thing about accidents is...I've never seen a pretty one. They are all ugly messes. Accidents break things, they don't build things. Blow up the baking aisle at Kroger; you don't get perfectly assembled cookies, you get chaos. Blow up a printing press; you don't get a dictionary, you get devastation. Blow up a scrap metal yard; you don't get a new car, you get shrapnel.

It has been my observation that the things I contribute on my own to my life usually make the biggest messes. And thus I see a self-made man. But when I look at what an infinite and awesome God does, I never cease to be amazed at the wonder of His work in my life, and in my world. The Psalmist recognized the the handiwork of God when he said:

Make a joyful shout to the Lord!

Serve the Lord with gladness!

Come before His presence with singing!

Enter His gates with thanksgiving!

Come into His courts with praise!

Be thankful to Him!

Bless His name!

He is God. He has made us. And He is good!

Then Fear Came On

Then fear came on all who dwelt around them;

and all these sayings were discussed

throughout all the hill country of Judea.

Luke 1:65, NKJV

Do you know what true fear is?

Just to be quite honest, there are a couple of things that completely unnerve me. Sharks in the ocean. Mice. The creepy piano theme from Halloween. Not much else. I've known people who were afraid of heights, afraid of dogs, afraid of crowds, afraid of closed in spaces. I suppose we've all been afraid of the dark at one time or another. But do we know what true fear is, and do we have it?

The birth of John the Baptist heralded a new day for Israel, a Spiritual shift in the plan of God for His people. Prophetic utterance had fallen silent 400 years before. No one had any vision or revelation, and the people were going astray. They served God with their mouths, going through the motions of obedience, but their hearts were far from God. In truth they served themselves to please themselves, and relegated God to rituals of hand-washing and holy days. All that changed when an old man and an old woman brought a miracle baby into the world--and God was done messing with people's minds.

When Zacharias came out of the temple mute, everyone knew he had seen a visitation from heaven, they just didn't know what. Now nine months later, his silence was broken with praise to God, and a prophetic utterance promising the arrival of their long awaited Messiah, the redeemer and savior of Israel.

At first, the people who witnessed these things marveled. They were amazed. But then the gospel writer tells us that marvel turned to fear in their hearts. The Psalms and Proverbs encourage the fear of the Lord--it is the beginning of wisdom, knowledge and understanding. A healthy reverence for who God really is and what God can really do. When we hear about fearing the Lord, immediately that's where our mind goes, because God is all good and righteous and holy and loving. Why should we be afraid? But the language of the Bible is very plain--fear means fear. It means terror. It means dread. It means from this point forward, we will never be the same again.

Think about it. God is not just a power source in the universe; God is the powerful source of the universe. God started start. The lights of the cosmos are voice activated, and will stay on until God turns them off. God has the whole world, and you and me, in His hands. With the flash of His eyes, the flick of His finger...even with the simplest thought of His mind, God can change everything! You breathe until God takes away the air. You live until God thumps you in the head. You have a certain number of days, and then an appointment with destiny. And God is in control of it all!

So what do you do when God starts moving, when God starts speaking? Are the words and works of God something to be cavalier about, something to be handled and responded to lightly? When God speaks do we laugh from the tickle of our spiritual fancy, or do we fall on our face and worship God? When God steps up and acts on our behalf, doing the miraculous that we thought impossible, do we take it for granted? Or do we realize and acknowledge that something--No, SOMEONE infinitely greater than us is working all around us?

When God acts, people need to pay attention. We need to recognize the Hand of God, reverence the Presence of God, and fear the Power of God. He should be feared...and He should be discussed. But never ignored.

Continual

But I will hope continually,

and will praise You yet more and more.

My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness

and Your salvation all the day,

for I do not know their limits.

Psalm 71:14-15, NKJV

Why are you always so happy? What are you always smiling about? For years I have had to put up with those kinds of questions from almost everyone, as if expressing joy was an affront to civilization. Although now that I think about it, perhaps it is in affront to those who don't truly have it. But I have it. I tell people, "Hey, I'd rather laugh than cry." And God knows there's always something to cry about.

As a pastor, and even as a friend, I've learned there are times when people need a shoulder to cry on. I will readily admit that there have been times that I needed a shoulder to cry on. But I have found that truly the best place to go when I'm having a hard time or a bad day is into the presence of the Lord. He cares about my needs, my problems, my issues. He understands heartbreak and rejection. He sympathizes with me in my weaknesses. And I think about the author of those verses in Hebrews where it talks about Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith, who suffered through the crucifixion because He understood the joy that awaited Him after the resurrection, when His work was over and His mission fulfilled. And then the writer says, "You haven't bled to death yet." In other words, whenever you think things are as bad as they can possibly be, that things couldn't possibly get any worse, just remember--Jesus died. If you're not dead yet, it's not as bad as it could possibly be.

And even if they were, so what? Where is my confidence, my trust, my faith? Where is my hope? The Psalmist said, "You are my hope, O Lord God." When God is your source and your supply, your steadfast savior, your constant companion and friend, how bad can things possibly be? Paul wrote in Romans, "If God before you, who can be against you?" In other words, when God is on your side, everybody else might as well be. That's good news!

From time to time, I get down in the dumps. Nobody ever sees me that way because I don't go out in public in that condition. That's when I seclude myself in darkness and suck on my big toe while I cry. The only way people usually ever know that I'm going through something is if I tell them, and I don't usually tell them until it's over and done with and I can laugh about it--because laughter is the best medicine anyway. But I have learned that it is not good to live in darkness and dine on tears. It's not good for my body, not good for my soul, not good for my spirit. It accomplishes nothing. And being mopey just makes me mad. I don't like it in other people, I certainly don't like it in me!

So what if nothing goes my way. God is still in control.

So what if nothing turns out the way I think it should. God is still all powerful, and working all things out for my good and His glory.

So what if nobody likes me. Jesus loved me enough that He died to save me.

So what if everybody abandons me. He is a friend who sticks closer than a brother, and He is everywhere present all the time.

So what if I don't have everything that want in the instant that I think I need it. God still supplies all of my need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

God is good, all the time, and like the Psalmist I have learned (and to be honest, sometimes I'm still learning) to place my hope in Him, for if I hope in Him, my hope is continual. My hope is not on circumstances and situations around me; my hope is Christ within me! And while I hope, I will also sing and shout and dance about. I will praise God, for He is worthy of all my praise, for all that He's done, for all that He is, for all that He's going to do! And I will talk about His goodness and His saving grace all the day long. I will keep on praising the God who is good to me, because I have discovered that there is no limit to His love and help, and no end in sight!

Up Where We Belong

I was always fascinated by the piano. When I was a little guy growing up in church (I'm talking 3 and 4 years old), my pastor's wife was the church organist, and I idolized her. After every service, I would sneak up to the organ bench and sit beside her while she played, watching her fingers dance across the keys, studying her foot as she tapped out the bass line with it. And when I was 12, we had this little old lady who banged out ragtime-style gospel on an old baby grand piano, and I loved the way she played. That's when I started picking out songs by hear on the piano.

So at the age of 13, my parents signed me up for piano lessons. I think they might have wondered what I did with the money...two years of lessons produced very little results. I could play Heart and Soul (can't everybody?) and an incomplete version of Chopsticks. I could play most of Fur Elise pretty good, except for the part that is really fast and really cool. I wanted to learn Beethoven's 5th Symphony and The Entertainer. I hardly ever practiced, except for about 15 minutes right before my lesson. I was supposed to be learning church music, but I came through those two years able to play the Battle Hymn of the Republic and What a Friend We Have in Jesus. And then the typical life of the American teenager took over and I didn't take any more lessons.

For Eighth Grade graduation, the powers that be (I still don't know who made some of those decisions) selected Up Where We Belong for our processional song. As an aspiring, but lazy, pianist, I fell in love with the music and asked the lady who played it about getting a copy; I don't think I ever did. And that was nearly a quarter of a century ago.

Over the next couple of years, I picked out a few songs by ear--Amazing Grace, How Great Thou Art, The Rose, to name a few. I did get to play a couple of times for church services, which was really all I wanted to do with my piano playing capabilities. Then at eighteen, I became the church pianist. I could play pretty good in one key--F--and I could sight read, badly. My grandmother, a pianist and organist, taught me a few things. A couple of others pitched in their ideas. And with Dad leading in his so-called Key of G-Whiz, I slowly learned what lessons didn't seem to teach me. I learned how to play the piano.

I remember those years of banging out notes and chords in a choppy, staccato style that drove my parents bonkers. Mom would quote one of our favorite family films and accuse me of playing the piano with all the sensitivity of a road mender. But I struggled along. I played piano and organ in five different churches, picking up a little more stuff to throw in each time. At Bible College, a couple of professors gave me some helpful hints. And then something recognizable changed my music altogether. Suddenly it clicked and I never had real problems playing anything ever again. If I heard it, I could usually sit down, pick out the melody and fake the rest.

But to this day I have never played Up Where We Belong. It's a great song, the triumphant theme from an early '80s cinematic presentation starring the very young Richard Gere and Deborah Winger. I don't know if the movie was considered any good, although I've seen it a few times. The other night I saw it completely through for the first time in many many years, and suddenly realized that this is where the song came from. And it's been on my mind. But I still haven't sat down yet to play it.

Perhaps I never will.

Billy Joel- For The Longest Time

In spite of the song, this isn't a reflection on lost loves or childhood romance. It's actually about best friends. The reason I posted "For the Longest Time" isn't because of the song's wonderful, beautiful lyrics, but rather because of the time period it represents in my growing up years. Junior High was a rather idyllic time for me; we were growing up, and unfolding the mysteries of post-childhood. It was great!

My best friend had the coolest living quarters I could have ever conceived. He lived in a house with a huge upstairs, part of which served as his bedroom and the other part of which was converted into a pool hall plus pinball machine play room. It was great. I seem to recall that we spent hours and hours trying to become the pool sharks our fathers and grandfathers had been. I will only speak for myself when I say I don't think I came close. It was another twenty years before I learned how to jump balls and put a little English on the cue. Even now, I just mostly shoot hard and hope something somewhere goes in.

We did lots of great funny stuff together. There were the prank phone calls to Wilma asking for Fred; and to old Thelma Hodges, who was just a little off her rocker. We actually had her convinced that we were her long lost boyfriend from sixty years ago, and that we were coming for a visit. The funniest part was when we told her to call a certain number (Wilma's) and ask for us by the name Fred.

There was the only fight I nearly got into, because I stepped between my friend and a wanna be tough guy. Who knows why I did it?!? I wasn't a tough guy, I didn't want to fight, and my friend could pretty much take care of himself. But I put myself in the middle and hopefully prevented something really ugly from happening.

There were the two girls--best friends--that we chased because we were best friends and did everything together. We both caught them, oddly enough, although I have to admit that he definitely knew what to do after that. I needed help. Lots of help.

And it was my best friend who provided that help when I actually needed it. He coached me with the asking, the hand-holding, the kissing, the right stuff to say--at least what we thought was the right stuff to say. Looking back now it was probably pretty stupid. But hey, he was my best friend; I wasn't going to question the free advice he was giving.

Remember all the movies we watched over and over and over again...until we could quote them all from start to finish. No Time for Sergeants. Back to the Future. Return of the Jedi. Remember babysitting for my cousins? Or learning to drive a stick? Or trying to teach me to ride a motorcycle?

What about the trips did we took together? I remember the youth trip to Eureka Springs and playing farkle the whole way. There was the camping trip to the Rockies; we slept in the back of the Hippie Van...and ate so many beans that witnesses claim a green haze rolled out out when we opened the door in the morning. Our second camping trip was the one where we took the dirt bikes and four wheelers...the one where I crashed into his dirt bike with my four wheeler, broke it into a thousand pieces, and then ran over him...leaving tire tracks on his back. Fun times!

And it was in his attic pool room, while we were shooting pool with our Dads, that I first heard the song. That was back in the day when everyone still listened to FM radio, and recorded their favorite songs onto cassette using the latest HiFi system. His Dad was into oldies music. And don't think in terms of what is called oldies today; I don't really appreciate oldies stations playing music from the '80s. So what we were listening to was from the '50s and '60s, from when our parents were kids. But I remember the DJ making a comment about a request that had been made...for a song that wasn't old, but fit in with the oldies style.

That was when I heard "For the Longest Time" for the first time. And I've never forgotten it. It is certainly a great, and one of my favorite, love songs. But I can't hear it without remembering where I heard it first. Shooting pool with my best friend.

*

This posted is dedicated to some guys I used to know, and some that I know still. Hope you all know how much I still appreciate the "best-friendship" we shared, even after all these years. Ed. Darrell. Kirk. Bryan. Brian. Kade. Steven. Carey. Bill. Thanks.

Leaving On a Jet Plane

I don't live in the past, but I did enjoy it while I was there. I have great memories of growing up, fond memories of most of the people I've known and places I've been, even if some things didn't turn out quite the way I had hoped. I loved school, and out of fifteen years of formal education, there are two years that stand out above the rest as my favorites.

The first was my Sixth Grade year spent at Skellytown Elementary in, you guessed it, Skellytown, Texas. Skellytown wasn't much of a town then, just like it's not much of a town now. Never more than 1000 people living there at anytime, most of the time far less. And for some reason, 1984 was one of the far less years if the size of my class was any indication. There were only ten of us, and I can name them all and recount memories about them all.

It was a great year for me for several reasons. A new teacher (who was really just returning to our school in a different capacity) was our home room teacher. She was young and hip and wanted us to like her, and we did--most of the time. :) That was also the year that the demands of Athletics and Social Studies outgrew the Coach who usually taught those classes, and the school drafted our favorite English teacher to pick up a World History class...ours.

Most of the ten of us had spent years growing up together in our little school, and I seem to remember we were pretty tight, for the most part. You know how it is...playground politics and all. But we did some really cool stuff that year.

For instance, under the direction of our very cool home room teacher, we started a fan club for a very young and promising child singer named Amber Pennington...who sang the most tear-jerking song about a dog named Little Andy.

We conspired to leave the school secretary notes from "a secret admirer" slathered in old spice deodorant...and after several days of that, we threw an impromptu surprise party for her just because we thought she was cool. That surprise party, by the way, was one of several that we threw for ourselves, usually preempting one class or another...and we had teachers who would almost always go along with it.

We performed as a class in the White Deer High School annual talent show...singing first "Old McDonald Had a Farm", dressed in overalls, and with one of our classmates making animal noises with a guitar; and secondly "When the Saints Go Marching In", complete with trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, tambourine, and everyone dressed up in old-timey church clothes. It was great!

I seem to recall that we also had our first movie party (remember kids, this was in the EARLY days of home video viewing; the Video Cassette Recorder/Player was a relatively recent invention) at someone's house out in the country. We watched Man from Snowy River, which to this day remains one of my favorite movies.

But one thing that has stuck with me for a very long time, and probably always will. Our home room teacher played the guitar and sang, and our English/History teacher also sang, and I'll never forget one classtime when the two of them got together and started singing songs from the 60s and 70s...including one that had the most beautiful and haunting harmonies I've ever heard. They sang "Leaving on a Jet Plane." It would be years before I knew who Peter, Paul & Mary were, but for me, Brenda Dahl and Caren Kensing had the better performance. Wish I had THAT on video!

Now every time I fly, or even leave someone special, I can't help but sing the words I remember so fondly:

All my bags are packed

I'm ready to go

I'm standing here outside your door

I hate to wake you up to say goodbye

But the dawn is breaking

it's early morn

Taxi's waiting, he's blowing his horn

already I'm so lonesome I could cry

So kiss me and smile for me

tell me that you'll wait for me

hold me like you'll never let me go!

'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane

don't know when I'll be back again

Oh Babe, I hate to go

A Loosened Tongue Employed

Immediately his mouth was opened

and his tongue was loosed,

and he spoke, praising God.

Luke 1:64, NKJV

If you had been unable to speak for nine months, what would your first words be?

Remember that the muteness imposed upon old Zacharias was the consequence of not instantly believing the word of the Lord that came to him through the angel Gabriel. When Gabriel told him his prayers had been answered, that Elizabeth was going to bear a son in her old age, Zacharias' response was, "How do I know you're telling me the truth?" In other words, the seven-foot angel with the telegram on the end of a flaming sword wasn't enough. He needed proof!

"You want proof, Zack? Okay, here's your proof. You won't be able to talk until these promises are fulfilled." And that should teach you to open your big fat mouth.

How often have we spoken out of turn, especially concerning the things of God? I can't speak for you, but I have to confess that there have been times I didn't believe what I was hearing. I failed to have faith in the promises of God. I doubted, wavered, questioned...even knowing that I had heard the voice of God, I still asked for a sign. I guess it's just God's grace that I can still talk, huh?

And in that regard, how many times have I misspoken on God's behalf, or misrepresented what God had said to me? How many times have I heard others say, "God told me thus-and-so", and I knew in my heart they better be glad God didn't give them lockjaw, because the instructions they claimed were from God were so contrary to His Word? How many times have I wished for the spirit of shut up, either over my mouth or the lips of others?

I doubt very seriously that Zacharias was thinking my thoughts, but when he came out of the temple mute, and went home mute, and made love to his wife mute, and watched her grow in her pregnancy mute, and stood by during the birth mute, and for eight more days held his son mute...I suspect Zacharias was wondering just when his tongue was going to stop clinging to the roof of his mouth, when were his jaws going to come unlocked so he could tell everybody what had been going on inside him for nine months and more!

And his moment came when he had opportunity to follow through with the the instructions of God. Everything else had come to pass, with Zacharias and Elizabeth actively participating; God had come through for them. Now it was time for these old people to come through for God. And with a firm hand he scratched out on the pad: HIS NAME IS JOHN! And I wonder if he made the exclamation mark with the thought, "I will never doubt God again."

And immediately...

What would you have said?

Would you have greeted the wife who hadn't heard your voice in nine months? Would you have told the neighbors how much you hated your own name, and how could they even think of giving a kid such a hard moniker to spell? Would you have held your firstborn son and whispered his name for the first time while he looked up into your wrinkled face? Would you have let spill all the things you'd been saving up for all those months?

The Bible says that when Zacharias mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, the first thing he did was praise the Lord!

Whether we are mute or not, when God shows up and does stuff, and even when He hasn't shown up yet or done anything yet...the first words out of our mouth need to be praise to the Lord because of all He has done and all that He is going to do.

They All Marveled

And he asked for a writing tablet,

and wrote, saying,

"His name is John."

So they all marveled.

Luke 1:63, NKJV

They all marveled.

That short little phrase, three words, makes me marvel. What was so extraordinary about Zacharias' written statement regarding the naming of his son? Why did the friends and relatives wonder? Did they really scratch their heads and whisper among themselves about this simple statement, or was their something else involved?

Perhaps some of them understood that the birth of this baby boy had its beginnings in a mystical experience some ten months before, when Zacharias emerged from the temple mute, obviously struck by a vision of some sort. I'm sure they fully expected the silence to wear off eventually so that they could all learn what he had seen, but their wait had been a long one. While Luke records lots of things that Elizabeth said and did during those nine months, it tells us nothing about Zacharias.

Perhaps some of them thought that Elizabeth was simply making decisions in Zacharias' voicelessness that weren't hers to make. Naming a child should be the father's responsibility, and since Zacharias couldn't talk, how could Elizabeth know what his wishes were concerning the child?

Perhaps some of them even thought they knew better, and that John was no proper name for this heir. Zacharias was a proud name with an ancient heritage among their people, John not so much. Two prophets named Zacharias had died martyrs; everyone knew the ignominy of the wayward prophet Jonah and his weekend in the belly of a fish.

But for whatever reason, when Zacharias spelled it out for them, literally, they all marveled. They all wondered. And as I consider those two words, I can't help but wonder myself if perhaps there is another meaning here. That perhaps they all finally realized just how marvelous and how wonderful this event really was. They may not have know it fully then, many of them might never completely understand, but at the center of their attention was the greatest prophet that would ever be born, and in the womb of a teenage girl was their promised Messiah--the penultimate and the ultimate pieces of God's plan for the salvation of mankind. The forerunner had arrived, and the principal was on his way.

How marvelous indeed!

Trust

Our fathers trusted in You;

they trusted, and You delivered them.

They cried to You, and were delivered;

they trusted in You, and were not ashamed.

Psalm 22:4-5, NKJV

For the first time in His eternal existence, He felt a separation from God that He had never known. With the sin of the world--all the sins of all the people in all the world from all time--upon Him, He felt forsaken, abandoned, alone.

In desperation He cried out with a loud voice, WHY? Why have You left me? Why won't you help me? Why don't you hear me?

He was treated as a worm among men, something to be stepped on and despised.

He was mocked by those who saw Him, an object of ridicule and scorn. They shook their heads and wagged their tongues at him, hissing through sneers that the God in whom He had always trusted was now nowhere to be found to help Him.

His enemies surrounded him like charging and angry bulls, roaring like raging lions.

He was naked, shamefully exposed, and forced to watch while foreigners gambled for his clothes.

His life was spilling from His body one drop of blood and sweat and tears at a time. Dogs licked the blood that ran in rivulets down the wood of the execution stake.

His arms and legs were twisted in hideous contortions, straining against the nails that fixed him to the cruel splintered cross, and where the horrifying beating had ripped his flesh to ribbons, He could see exposed his own bones.

His heart seemed to be melting within Him, fainting from heat and thirst and pain.

His strength was gone. Utterly exhausted, He thirsted for a touch of water upon his swollen tongue.

He stared Death directly in the face, and knew that His time for the grave was at hand.

And hanging on Calvary's tree, Jesus the Christ, Son of the Living God, trusted in His Father. The night before He had prayed, pleaded, petitioned, "Please, let this cup pass from me. Let someone else do it. Don't let them do this to me." Anguished to the point of sweating blood, Jesus cried out from the depths of His soul to be delivered from the trial that faced him. But at the end of His tormented groanings, He surrendered to the sovereign will of God with, "Not my will, but thine be done."

Even now, in the heat of the day, those all around began to call out to Him: "If You are who You say You are, save yourself! Come down off that cross!" And perhaps He was tempted, in the frailty of His fleshly existence, to call ten thousand angels to slaughter those who mocked Him, to vanquish those who had condemned Him, to avenge Himself upon those who had denied and betrayed Him. But having renewed Himself in prayer the night before, having committed Himself to seeing the will of the Father accomplished, He surrendered to the sovereign will of God.

And He trusted.

It's easy to trust God when things are good and going your way, when you are the head and not the tail, above only and not beneath, when everybody likes you and nobody hates you, when your living on the mountain underneath a cloudless sky. It's easy to trust God when angels and demons do your bidding, when you speak in faith and see miracles take place. It's easy to trust God when you're living in victory and triumph and prosperity and health, when all your enemies have been subdued at your feet. It's easy to trust God then.

But try trusting Him when your entire world comes crashing down on your head, when those who hate you have their way at your expense, when your prayers seemingly go unheard and no answer will come, when the blessings of God that make rich and add no sorrow with them seem small and long ago.

Try trusting Him when you've taken everything that you are, everything that you want, everything that you could ever do or hope, and nailed it to a cross. You may very well die on that cross, but will you trust the sovereign will of God. Will you hear His voice and obey His commands, even if it means that darkness must descend on your pitiful existence?

Jesus did. And Jesus died. But three days later, His hope did not disappoint. His trust did not put Him to shame. Because from the finality of His death rose new and eternal life, for Him, for all, for you and me!

Trust in the Lord.

Why Was It Important?

His mother answered and said,

"No; he shall be called John."

But they said to her,

"There is no one among your relatives

who is called by this name."

so they made signs to his father--

what he would have him called.

and he asked for a writing tablet,

and wrote, saying,

"His name is John."

Luke 1:60-63, NKJV

All the well-intentioned relatives were truly intent on naming the baby Zacharias, after his father. This was the firstborn son, likely the only son that would ever be born to Zacharias and Elizabeth, therefore he should be given his father's name. It all made perfectly good sense to everyone standing around the recently-circumcised and squalling infant. Zacharias had to be this child's name.

But Elizabeth said, "No."

"No?" they asked.

"He shall be called John."

In those days, John, or Yochanan in Hebrew, was not an uncommon name. Because of the Maccabeean revolt 165 years earlier and the high regard in which Jews held the family of Mattathias Maccabee, his name and the names of his sons--John, Simon, Judah--were popular boys names for generations in Israel. However, Zacharias and Elizabeth must have been from a different priestly family than the Maccabees because when Elizabeth stated the baby's name, the friends and relatives looked at each other in surprise and said, "Why would you want to name him John? No one in your family has this name?"

So they went over Elizabeth's head and appealed to Zacharias, who hadn't spoken in nine months. His answer was the the same, scrawled out on a writing tablet--"His name is John."

And so it was. Not because Zacharias admired the Maccabees--though perhaps he did. Not because Elizabeth had spent hours flipping through the pages of a baby names book looking for names she liked. They were calling their baby boy John because that is what the Lord, through the angel Gabriel, had told them to do. While Zacharias had been burning incense in the temple at Pentecost the year before, the angel appeared to him with the news that his prayers for a son had been heard and were about to be answered. He was further informed that his son would have a great ministry in Israel, a ministry "in the spirit and power of Elijah", and that he would turn Israel back to the true worship and prepare them for their Lord. And the angel commanded Zacharias to name his son John.

I can understand why Zacharias and Elizabeth were so insistent upon naming their son John. If you are a godly person seeking to do God's will, you are going to follow his instructions to the letter, especially when those instructions came with the little miracle God was sending you. It would be a slap in the face of God for them to accept the gift of their child and then name him anything other than what the Lord said to name him. So for Zacharias and Elizabeth there was really no other option.

What piques my curiosity is why God would be so insistent upon the baby's name. So here are some thoughts.

They could have named him Elijah--but then that might have really stirred up some fanatical fervor on both sides of the political and religious equation once he started preaching at the Jordan River. He might never have been able to seriously deny being Elijah, if that had been his name, and the conversation in John 1 would have taken on an entirely different meaning. John had to be able to say, "I am not" to their questions.

They could have named him Zacharias, which means God has remembered. But this child's name was not about God remembering His promises. It was about Him acting upon His plan, put in place from before the foundation of the world. This child was an integral part of that plan, and he had a specific place in it. Besides, I don't think Zacharias the Baptist rolls off the tongue as easily as Johnthebaptist.

But John. Zacharias and Elizabeth belonged to a people who knew something about naming babies, who understood that a child's name could very well reflect if not define his character, his personality. And John is a name with no small significance in light of John's short ministry. At about 30 years of age, John shows up at a public river crossing and starts preaching to the travelers: REPENT! He starts talking about sin and judgment, calling people out by name and revealing their sins. He preaches about axes and winnowing fans and fires ablazing. And he announces that Messiah is coming. His message was a hard one, sometimes a harsh one. Many would respond and be baptized; others would reject and curse his name. Eventually he would be thrown into prison because his speeches weren't politically correct. And ultimately he would give his life for his proclamation of judgment.

God sent a message of judgment, but he sent it through a messenger with the right name, for John means God is gracious and merciful. For in judgment, God always remembers mercy!