From April 12, 2009
Love Alive
Isaiah 25: 6-9; Mark 16: 1-8
A line from a letter in the most recent issue of the United Church News has been running through my mind for several weeks now.
The letter's author is a college junior completing a double major in psychology and religious studies. "My primary focus here [at the university]," she explains, "has been on human's fear of death, and how religion functions as a comfort in the psychological process of being afraid to die."
My primary focus has been on human's fear of death, and how religion functions as a comfort in the psychological process of being afraid to die.
Louder than trumpet strains or pealing bells, Easter's proclamation is this: because Jesus lives, so we will live. Because Jesus rose, we, too will rise.
Because of Jesus' faithfulness to the end, because he refused to submit to the forces of darkness, because his love for God overruled everything else, including his attachment to his own precious life, you and I gather this day in jubilation and gratitude. We celebrate with all that is in us, rejoicing that God has, as Isaiah so elegantly puts it, "swallowed up death forever."
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From March 29, 2009
Folded In
Jeremiah 31: 31-34
"Would you like to lose weight while you sleep?" If so, a supplement company is dying to sell you an herbal something-or-other that gives new meaning to the old saying: you snooze, you lose.
Isn't this great? Take a cat nap instead of cutting calories. Turn in earlier every night rather than going for a walk. Order a month's supply of supplements, fluff your pillow, and before you can say "winken, blinken, and nod," you'll be off to Kohl's to buy smaller jeans.
But maybe sleeping's not your thing. Then order yourself one of those special battery powered 6-pack-maker belts. Wrap that bad boy around your midsection, flip the switch, and little electrical impulses will transform any flabbiness into, uh, "abbiness."
Maybe you're already trim and slim. Maybe money's what you need, not a new figure. A full size ad in Wednesday's Paducah Sun shouted your answer: lottery tickets! If you believe what that ad says, then we're all just a dollar or two away from being millionaires.
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From March 22, 2009
So Loved
John 3: 14-21
OJ Simpson cost me a friendship. It happened the day of his freeway drama. My friend and I were glued to the television like so many were that afternoon, watching OJ's Bronco creep along, wondering if unbearable grief or overwhelming guilt was prompting his peculiar behavior. When the Bronco pulled into Simpson's Brentwood driveway and then just sat there, it seemed obvious OJ was contemplating suicide.
"The best thing OJ could do right now is kill himself," my friend said plainly. Nothing prepared me for her comment. This beautiful, soulful woman worked tirelessly to make life better for everyone in her broken-down corner of the world. How could she possibly believe OJ's suicide could be a good thing?
The good thing, as I saw it, the thing I was desperately praying for, was for OJ to step out of the Bronco, accept responsibility for what he had done, and then allow God to lovingly rebuild his life in prison.
It was an easy prayer to picture happening.
I could see OJ's slow but complete transformation and then devoting his life, first behind bars and later as a free man, to teaching men alternatives to domestic violence. Who better than a redeemed Football Hall of Famer to speak to abusers everywhere?
"OJ's not going to do that, Karen. His life is over. He's better off dead."
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