From a Distance

So I was finishing Michelle Bell’s rocking FBC-Fitness Core and More class at our gym last Thursday.  As I was helping clean up a little, Steven came into the gym with his mother.  Steven was there for Adult Upper Level Basketball.  I know Steven.  I’d never met his mother.  As we were picking up all the fitness shrapnel (Bosus, med balls, gliders, mats, weights) following the workout, Steven yells over, “Hey John, come and meet my mother.”

 

“Sure,” I said.  “Let me finish picking up and I’ll be right there.” 

 

So once the gym floor was clear, I walked over to meet Steven’s mom.  She gave me the once-over, kind of squinted a second, and said, “You look a lot younger from a distance.”

 

What do you say to that?  “Uh … I’m better looking from a distance too.”  I kind of chuckled.  She didn’t.  We chatted a moment.  I bragged on her son.  And that was that.

 

But I grinned all the way to the car: “You look a lot younger from a distance.”  And then another thought struck me.  Maybe it came from the Spirit; maybe it came from me—I’m not sure: “Live in such a way that your Christian life looks as good up close as it does from a distance.”

 

You’ve heard the old saying: “An expert is the guy from out of town.”  People almost always look better from a distance.  The guy or girl we don’t know very well almost always looks pretty good.  But get to know her, see her up close, peel back the layers that distance wraps around a person, and how does she look then?

 

Except for some of those much-deserved wrathful outbursts of God in the Old Testament, God looks pretty good from a distance too.  But when we read the Gospels, and see God-in-the-flesh, Jesus Christ, up close and personal, God looks even better.

 

I’m praying that the better people know me, the better my Christian life will look to them, the better Jesus-in-me will look to them.  I have some work to do here.  How about you?

And Mike Scott Smiled

I attended a funeral today—helped with it even.  Mike Scott died last Saturday at the end of a battle with liver failure.  And it wasn’t the liver he’d been born with.  That one gave out years ago, and Mike was the recipient of a transplant from some kind person who determined that death for him would mean life for someone else.  He couldn’t have donated his liver to a better man.  I had known Mike for the many years he and his family had been part of our church.  I got to know him a little better during his liver transplant.  But I never knew him all that well …

Until today.  The service was simple—the way Mike and his family wanted it.  Laura, his wife, and his adult children, Rachael and Bailey, didn’t want a lot of fuss.  These are quiet people.  That didn’t change with the funeral.  There was a piano medley of praise songs, one solo—Great Is Thy Faithfulness—and three speakers.  I was the parenthesis around a beautiful sentence weaved together by two of Mike’s best friends: Robert Farrell and Kevin Scanlon.  These guys were Razorback buddies in the late 70s who have maintained a growing friendship across all these years.

What rich tributes they offered to their friend!  Robert shared about visiting with Mike on the team bus as the Razorbacks were leaving College Station on the heels of a big Hog win over Texas A&M.  Robert had caught the first touchdown pass in his Razorback career.  And he told Mike, “Why is it that when I just achieved a childhood dream, I feel a little empty?”  Mike said, “Robert, it is just a football game, you know.  Maybe your priorities are out of order.  Try seeking Jesus first.”  Robert remembers that to this day, and he said that statement got him moving more fully toward the Lord.

Kevin and Mike were roommates in the athletic dorm.  Early in the relationship, Mike told Kevin, “I’m not a drinker or a carouser, and my faith is really important to me.  I also like Skoal.”  Kevin was amazed at the way so many people came to Mike for advice and how very much respected Mike was by the team and by so many others.  Mike was never shy to speak of Jesus but he didn’t blast his faith like a trumpet—loud and with a lot of fanfare.  He played it more like a flute—quiet, crisp, clean, and clear.  Kevin told a number of other stories as well.  Kevin’s presence on the team made it harder for Mike to ever get on the field as a quarterback.  And after college, Kevin even became Mike’s immediate boss with Stephen’s, Inc.  But their friendship ascended way above all that.

Mike would have rather lived than die.  He had overcome a lot in his life to succeed on so many levels.   Sadly, he couldn’t overcome this latest bout of illness.  But he was okay with that.  He was content to leave that in God’s hands.  He never worried for himself, but he was concerned for his family.  Still, he knew God would take care of them too.  So Mike faced these days with confidence.  Not long ago he talked with Laura about the apostle Paul’s line to his Philippian friends: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”  That was Mike’s sentiment to a T.  As long as he lived, he wanted his life to reflect Christ.  But when death came, he knew it would be gain for him.  He tried as hard as he could to get through that infection and numerous other complications in his illness.  He gave it his best shot.  But when a Christian gets to the place where there really is no living and he can only say “For me to exist is Christ,” then the gain of death and heaven is just too enticing to kick against any longer.  So late last Saturday, surrounded by family and friends, Mike knew the race God had called him to run was coming to an end.  He saw the finish line.  Like any good athlete, he bolted for it, and as he broke the tape, he raised his arms in praise to Jesus for getting him all the way home.  And he did so amid the cheers of a great cloud of witnesses, some of whom may well have been there because Mike helped them to Jesus.  What the apostle Paul said about himself to Timothy, we could say about Mike today.  Mike fought the good fight, he finished the race, he kept the faith, and now he is enjoying Jesus and sweet reunion and the glories of heaven.

Did I tell you it was a really good funeral service?  Hopeful, encouraging, faith-filled, plenty of laughter, and a few tears too.  But here’s what was so remarkable about it: even though Robert and Kevin told a lot of Mike-stories, somehow Jesus came off the hero.  That’s the way, Mike, Laura, Rachael and Bailey wanted it.  And that’s the way it was.

I had two thoughts as I left the service today.  One, I sure hope my funeral is not the next one to follow his J—it would be so anticlimactic.  But the main thought I walked away with today is not a thought I’ve often pondered at the end of any of the gazillion funerals I’ve been part of in my decades of ministry.  I walked away asking God to make a better Christian out of me.

And Mike Scott smiled.

The Twelve Thoughts of Christmas - Day 12

I remember sitting behind a beat-up car at a stoplight: smashed rear fender, bald tires, trunk held shut with a rope, rear window cracked, and a sticker on a hanging bumper that read: “This is not an abandoned car.”  Christmas is God putting a sticker on the manger that reads: “This is not an abandoned world.”  When we could never reach up to God, God came down to us in His Son.  When we could never solve our sin and death problem on our own, God sent His Son to solve it for us.  So here’s the twelfth of The Twelve Thoughts of Christmas: We are not forgotten or forsaken or abandoned—God is with us … and always will be.  Merry Christmas!

The Twelve Thoughts of Christmas - Day 11

I know Christmas is about birth, but Christmas is inextricably linked to death for me.  My father died the day after Christmas, 1987.  My mother died the day before Christmas, 2008.  And you’d be surprised how many funerals I do around Christmas.  For me, Christmas is not just about a baby’s cry in a manger; it’s about the tears of people in grief.  Away in a manger?  Yes.  Away in a casket?  That too.  But there’s comfort here for those who know the Savior.  When infant Jesus was dedicated at the temple, an old prophet Simeon, who had prayed to see Messiah before he died, saw the babe and declared, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart (die) in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation ….”  Without Jesus’ birth there would have been no cross or resurrection.  Jesus’ birth got the ball rolling for the remedy to our death problem.  Now all of us who know Jesus can, like Simeon, die in peace, knowing that the One who came for us in Bethlehem is preparing a place for us in the Father’s forever home in heaven.  Here’s the eleventh of The Twelve Thoughts of Christmas: the birth of Christ was the first nail in the coffin of the death of death.  Oh, and it also means we can grieve believing loved ones with hope.

The Twelve Thoughts of Christmas - Day 10

It’s not uncommon, even for believers, to look at all the evil and heartache in the world and think it even if they don’t speak it: Where is God?  Where is God in the wholesale slaughter of Christians at the hands of ISIS terrorists?  Where is God when the six-year old gets cancer, when a tornado rips through a quiet little town, or where poor people are starving and suffering from preventable diseases?  The question is legit.  So is the answer: God is with us.  Of all of Jesus’ Christmas names, I think my favorite is Immanuel—which means “God with us.”  Jesus left the peace, comfort, and glory of heaven to make a beachhead in Bethlehem in humble conditions, the child of peasants.  He grew up in obscurity and fulfilled His mission though a brutal death on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.  And on the third day after, He rose from the dead in power and glory.  Where is God?  He is with us.   The manger shows us that no situation is too degrading, no experience too humbling what that God, in Christ, is with us right in the midst of it.   The cross shows us that no struggle is too great, no injustice too unfair, no sin too heinous, no grief too deep, no suffering too intense, not even death itself is so awful what that God faces it with us in Christ.  And the resurrection assures us that because Jesus rose from the dead and lives today, He is able to send us His Spirit so that He truly can be with us and in us everywhere, all the time, and in every situation.  Here’s the tenth of The Twelve Thoughts of Christmas: Jesus is God – with – us: now and forever.   

The Twelve Thoughts of Christmas - Day 9

When the angel showed up in Joseph’s dream and gave him assurance that Mary’s story about the child in her womb was leget, the angel told Joseph, “And you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”  It took another 33 years or so and a cross and resurrection for Jesus to make that happen, but happen it did.  Through Jesus, we can have forgiveness from our sins—all of our sins.  That’s what He was born for in the first place.  So it seems to me that when we are born a second time through our faith in Jesus, we need to practice forgiveness too.  This hits home at Christmas when we are often forced into spending time with people we don’t like and people who have hurt us.  Oh the tension of those gatherings!  All that walking on egg shells!  All that hard work to avoid getting face to face with those with whom we are at odds!  All that fake-y niceness when we do and that phony-baloney wish of “Have a merry Christmas” when we really mean “Have a nightmare-y Christmas!”  Here’s a novel idea: why don’t we act like the Savior we worship and forgive those who have sinned against us?  It may not fix the relationship, but it will fix you.  And you will find new joy, fresh peace, and a relaxing of the tension that ties you up in knots.  I don’t mean to make it sound easy.  It cost Jesus a cross.  But hey, He’s done all the paying for forgiveness, so we don’t have to, nor do those who have sinned against us.  So when your swallowing down your egg nog or your Christmas punch, how ‘bout swallowing your pride too.  Forgive, give it to Jesus, let it go.  That’s a lot easier than carrying it around.  Here’s the ninth of The Twelve Thoughts of Christmas: Jesus came at Christmas to forgive sinners; let’s join Him.  

The Twelve Thoughts of Christmas - Day 8

For all the good Christmas does, it also accentuates pain.  The lonely often feel lonelier.  The poor feel poorer.  The grieving feel their loss more acutely.  Broken families feel more fragmented than ever.  What’s supposed to be a happy time, cuts like jagged glass.  The hurting often feel out of step with Christmas.  Many want to sing; you want to sigh.  Many want to laugh; you want to cry.  So hear some good news: God is not out of step with you.  He called His Son Immanuel on purpose.  The name means “God with us.”  God with the lonely.  God with the grieving.  God with the hurting.  God in the midst of broken families.  You may not feel Him but He is with you.  And if you’ll pray as best you can and wait on Him, He will show up in your life in a way as surprising as Him showing up as a baby born in a barn in Bethlehem.  So here’s the eighth of The Twelve Thoughts of Christmas: Your circumstances do not, cannot, and will not change who Jesus is—God with us, God with you.  Oh, and for those of us who aren’t hurting at Christmas, let’s be with them too.