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Last week I had to do one of the hardest things that accompany the life of a Pastor. I was asked to officiate the funeral service of a baby. This should not ever have to be! Birth should be a time of celebration and not a season of uncontrollable grief! And as long as I live as human being- I cannot begin to explain why cruddy things like this have to happen to anybody! There are no words to aptly take away the immense pain that attempts to suffocate a soul at moments like these! And as for the old cliché that says “Time heals all wounds,” well the person who said that had to have rocks in their head!

I do know how these two young people felt! Death right after a birth has happened to my wife and me three times! Actually- counting two other miscarriages- Terri and I have five children already in Heaven in addition to our four living here on earth! And if you want to know the truth- even though I know that my children who have graduated to glory are much better off where they are now- I still wish I had all 9 with me here right now! After coming alongside that broken young couple the other day and the emotionally beaten up grandparents- I reminisced a bit about what those feelings are all about. I thought that what I felt then might help somebody today who thinks that “faith” only works when life goes your way! Life has rarely gone my way and there have been many tears along with my blood and sweat and cries along the highway of my journey! Let me take you back to the actual “Speaking In The Light Article” I wrote right after my son’s Benjamin’s short stay here on earth back in March of 1999!

“On Sunday morning, March 7th at 9:27 in the morning, my son Benjamin Philip entered the world. His stay on this earth was not to be a long one. At 9:33, just six short minutes later, he went from the arms of his parents to the Hands of God. That last statement describing Benjamin’s passing is not just wishful thinking. It is no way meant to be a passing cliché just said to make me feel better. The reality of God and the hope of heaven is what keep my heart beating and my blood flowing in the midst of such brokenness. The vast, infinite depth of the love of God is the only thing that keeps us from drowning in the ocean of our own grief and suffocating from the huge amount of disappointment that smacks us often and regularly right in the face. We can’t get away from the grim reality that we are not going to have the privilege to raise this beautiful little boy. God is very real for times such as these. Instead of blaming Him, we choose to lean on Him and plant ourselves firmly on the truth that God is our refuge and strength when the things of this earth prove to be fragile and incapable of holding any real weight.

Reason would tell you that it could never happen again. In April of 1995, our little boy Nicholas Paul was born at 24 weeks and his stay too was limited to just ninety minutes. We spent a whole lifetime in an hour and a half. We grieved and mourned but looked above and received the grace we needed to carry on. My wife and I had the hope that in the days to come, we would have the joy of raising one more child. We had experienced two miscarriages prior to the birth of my son, Rudy III in August of 1986. In 1988, my daughter Leah was born and she would later be joined by her sister Abbie in 1991. We all prayed daily for the health of our new son to come and anticipated his arrival which was supposed to come this June 1999.
Quite suddenly, everything changed! Tragedy rarely makes an appointment. Crisis moments are not the times to prepare; they are usually the times that expose whether you have done any preparation in the first place. Our faith was to be tested again. Many people are comfortable enough to kneel at an altar but God truly desires you to get up upon the altar and say, “Whatever my situation Lord, I will obey and serve You.” He wants all of you, not just your weekly words of allegiance. I could hear myself saying, “Not again Lord. You wouldn’t make us go through this again, would You?” I could not understand why this was happening. But why did Moses have to be rescued from a river? Why did all those innocent babies have to die just to appease King Herod’s hatred? Why did the Holocaust have to happen? Why do so many innocent unborn babes die each day in the name of convenience while so many arms of willing parents-to-be go empty? Why did Jesus have to die such a cruel death for a world that mostly ignores Him and uses His name as a response to hitting their hand with a hammer? Why did Benjamin have to die?

The “Why’s” will be answered someday and somewhere down the road! They will be answered by a loving God who is redeeming the mess left by a lost and hurting generation that chose their own way in the first place. No answer would be an adequate substitute to having my son in my arms anyway. I do know that I won’t let the unanswered questions keep my spirit from the only hope to save my soul! I pray that you my readers who have faced fierce tragedy would not choose the road that ends in bitterness and hatred, but that you would humbly and gently come to the Lord. This is a Lord who will hold you when you can’t hold up any longer! He doesn’t give cheap answers and meaningless pep talks. He gives me a passion and homesickness for Heaven that drives me to minister on!”

I wrote those words back in 1999 and against all odds- God did bless Terri and I with one more son, Joel Thomas who was miraculously born in July of 2003! But even today in 2013- through it all- as God gives and takes away- all I can truly say is what Job said: “Blessed Be the Name of the Lord!” Life is precious- each and one- each and every day! Don’t miss it!!!

Bill Hybels who is the Lead Pastor of The Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois tells the story of how he was driving one day, many years ago with his then 4 year old daughter Shauna.  This was back before the day that seatbelts and car seats were mandatory for children.  How many of you can remember back to those times when the only protective device in the car that kept you from diving headfirst into the windshield was your father or mother’s arm?  It is funny that I still do that with anybody who might inhabit the passenger seat almost instinctively because of how I was taught by my own dear parents!

Anyway, back to the story I was telling before I went on my own tangent- Bill Hybels was driving his Chevy Impala and Shauna was resting there right by his side.  He made a quick glance down to make sure his little girl was doing alright. When he looked up again, a car that seemed to appear out of nowhere was now suddenly heading straight at him. He had to make a split second decision.  They had one chance, so he pushed down not on the brake but on the accelerator as hard as he could.  The car roared to life and missed the other car by inches! Bill’s heart was racing trying to figure out how he could apologize to his 4 year old for almost getting her killed! How do you explain to her that he had to do this so that she would be safe in the long run? How could he advise her to make sure that she never did that when she would someday drive?  Well, while he was looking for the right words to come to his lips, before he could even get a word in edge wise- Shauna beamed right up at him and said, “Bold Move Dad!”

I love it!  Bold Move!  Sometimes life calls for us to make a bold move!  Sometimes love demands that we jump in with all of our heart!  Sometimes we can’t play it safe and we can’t look for comfort! Sometimes we can’t reason what must be risked! Sometimes the play calls for us to get out of the box and go for broke if we are ever going to have a chance to win! Sometimes running from danger only means we have surrendered to it!

I believe that we as believers live in a day when bold moves must become part of our daily behavior! There has been way too much rhetoric and not enough rubber meeting the road when it has come to being courageous enough to take church beyond the stained glass windows and beautifully crafted doors! Sacrifice should be second nature to those of us who have said with our mouths that we want to be like our Savior! To talk without the walk should have no place among those who have truly tasted of grace!  What if every follower of Jesus- no matter what church they may call their own- began living looking to making bold moves?  Do you think that it might just change the environment in a positive way?  Do you think it might even help others desire a God who actually has such influence in every day life?  And they’ll know we are Christians by our buildings right? Wrong! They will know it by our bold move of love with no strings attached!

God is singularly unmoved when people only gather to sing nice religious songs and listen to moving inspirational talks in these sacred beautiful buildings of bricks and sticks but do not care about or pray for or move toward or give toward those who are unfed, uneducated, unhoused and uncared for!  We will not be that kind of church that honors God with our words but then dishonors him with the actions or lack thereof in our lives! 

What should we give God in 2013?  Bold Moves!  What do you think it would do to the heart of Cape May County if God’s people got so involved in the community that this neck of New Jersey would be known not for the people who go to church- but for the churches that go to the people?  What if God caused more folks to connect with the V.A. so that Veterans didn’t feel like they were all alone and forgotten?  What if young unwed teenagers- who felt scared- knew they had someplace to go where they know they would be loved?  What if every time somebody asked why all this was going on, we answered with, “There is a God who loves this world and a Savior named Jesus who died for the sins of this crazy mixed up chaotic planet and he started a community where people who had nobody could be part of a real family?  What if every church service and mass that we have and we run every week was full of people who are being prayed for and cared about and right on the edge of having their eternities changed because there are bold prayers and bold moves going on all over among Christians right here?  Let’s give God what we he really wants from us- Bold Moves!         

I have never been a big fan of New Year’s Eve! I mean- to me- it’s a big to do about absolutely nothing! And as much as I love New York City- the one time I know you will never catch me there is on December 31st crammed together with thousands upon thousands of others with no other purpose other than to watch a ball drop! I can just hear me out there with my bladder about to explode because there is no restroom for me to find in sight shouting with glee, “Oh boy- Look at the ball drop!” When did a dropped ball become a reason to applaud? A dropped ball is never a good thing in baseball, or even football so why should it be the accepted traditional glorious way to welcome in a new year? Can’t we come up with a better reason to resonate our joy than by clapping over what would otherwise just be recognized as an error?

Now, It would be totally different if when the ball dropped all our debts would be cancelled! Or when the ball dropped- all our relationships would be healed- or all our loved ones would be alive and well again- and all of our world would finally be at peace! But none of those things happen at midnight! All that does occur is that the throngs of people who have had way too much to drink will make way too big a mess and somehow stumble home in the wee small hours of the new day to everything being the same as it was! What’s so happy about that? Actually, I believe that the best our society can muster up is to gives us lots of artificial noise and empty bells and whistles with nothing of genuine substance to truly wrap our hearts around? I still don’t really understand what those who don’t recognize Christmas as being the remembrance of the birth of Jesus are actually getting from celebrating December 25th? There has got to be more than just revisiting Saturnalia!
What’s so great about a Winter Solstice if the days getting longer don’t produce any hope or light or life? And what’s so great about another year if there is not true meaning and purpose waiting for you at 12:01? We all need more than just leftover trash to clean up on January 1st or a nasty hangover to get over!

Without God, what starts out with bells and whistles usually peters out and results in just another overwhelming mess that somebody still needs to clean up! There is no long term paradise for anybody who attempts to take a shortcut to prepare a party that celebrates nothing! On the other hand, with God in the midst of the mess with you- what might begin with a sense of emptiness, loneliness, loss and frustration- will surely end in a divine dance with destiny that will give you a joy that will be true blue no matter what the calendar might say! And what might begin with a singing of the blues- will culminate with a choir chanting a suite of the colors of the rainbow that no eyes has yet seen, nor ear has heard nor mind has conceived what holy hoopla that God has in store for those who trust him through it all! We don’t need a man-made event when we have a God working behind our scenes to create a scenario that won’t end with our feet cemented in defeat!

On a hill far away where that old rugged cross stood- in a garbage dump aptly named Golgotha- in what appeared to be the most humiliating moment for the Lord Jesus- as he hung there on a tree being crucified for you and me- in a situation that nobody thought was worth dropping a ball over- actually led to a mess not to clean up- but to a crowd-pleasing chorus via the heavenly host that rocked and kicked the hell out of death and darkness! The sin that would have condemned us was totally paid for so that we could know what it is like to be eternally free and forever alive! Chains would not be an instrument of eternity because Jesus linked himself to a passionate procession of pain that purposely paraded into a prize that people like you and I would possess permanently! And that is something to shout about!

It may be just another New Year’s Eve- but it doesn’t have to be one more another ordinary day that is part of a wretched week that flows into a mediocre month!!! This could be the year that your blockbuster best selling autobiography begins and breaks out to the big bang of a beautiful brass band because your soul is finally going to be set free from trying to find your future and purpose on empty pages that wander aimlessly looking for a destination on a dead-end street! God wants to take you and make you the masterpiece that he always intended you to be! Look up for something more than a ball dropping! Look up and see you in the hands of the One who made the stars and the sky and the universe and thought up the dazzling colors of a sunrise and sunset! If he can do all that with creation- just think what he can create in you and through you! The same God who put the stars in the sky is committed to keep you on a course to shine for him as his way becomes your high way!

So Happy New Year that calls out of hibernation a new you and me- people who will be all that the Lord intended us to be! And that’s something to sing and jump and shout and knock ourselves out about! But this time we won’t be dropping the ball- but be a personal part of God’s catch of the day- and I can’t sit down over that one!

Christmas Day may be over- but the celebration of Jesus should never end! Christmas itself was just the beginning and was never meant to be the final destination! To know God in an up close and personal way is the key to understanding what this eternal life is really all about! Did you take the time this December to really sit at God’s banqueting table? Did you look to the Lord’s menu for satisfaction rather than falling into the trap of thinking a season could pull of what only a Savior was meant to accomplish?

Let’s quickly go back to the original tale of long ago but one that has still has lots to say to all of us today! We are told in the Gospel of Luke that he Shepherds had heard from heavenly messengers that a new king had been born in Bethlehem.  They would find this holy visitor birthed in a parking garage because that is basically what a stable literally was. Jesus would be lying in a bed of straw where the animals ate! The common term of the day was referred to as a “manger.”  Luke for some reason mentions the manger 3 times!

In Luke 2:7- we’re told that the child was laid in a manger! In Luke 2:12- the angel tells the shepherds that they would find the babe wrapped in bands of cloths and lying in a manger! In Luke 2:16- the shepherds went and did find the child lying in a manger- just like they had been told! The manger was not only a sign to the shepherds but it is still an essential marker for all of us also. The manger or feeding trough is not just a sign of the humility of Jesus!  A feeding trough is where God’s creatures come to eat! Maybe today is your day to marvel over the magnificent mystery of the manger! We can find our greatest source of life on God’s menu for us! Bethlehem was known to all in biblical times as “The House of Bread.” Deuteronomy 8:3 reminds us that “Man does not live by bakery bread alone!” We need something even more nutritious and nurturing to our starving souls!

In Isaiah 55:2- the Prophet asked- “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread? And why do you labor for that which does not satisfy?” Human nature is naturally bent towards spending money and working hard to try to obtain that which is just out of our normal reach! We strive to arrive at a finish line that lies just beyond our own ability to run this race with only the fuel that is stored within our physical means!

Jesus said in John 6:35- “I am the Bread of Life and whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty!” At the Last Supper- Jesus took the bread and said in Luke 22:19- “This is my Body which is given freely for you!” So the essential Bread of Life was served to all of us in a humble feeding trough laid out in the midst of The House of Bread! And God continues to invite all of His creation to come and dine and know what is like to have your souls satisfied!

What we really hunger for tonight will never be found under the tree in the morning. We yearn for meaning- for joy- for purpose- for a future- and for hope in the midst of bad news and despair! We desperately desire to know that we can begin anew and have our regret erased!  We are begging for a love that won’t ever let us go- and for life to still go on in the face of death! And the adventure all started with The Shepherds!  In the eyes of others they were too low to matter in high life!  They were bums and uneducated- smelly- poorly dressed- dregs of society!  They didn’t even own their own land and created tension by allowing their sheep to graze where they were not welcome! To grab the gist of this- imagine your neighbors regularly turning their dogs loose in your yard! These sheep people were tolerated but not celebrated! At least not esteemed by other men that is! But God invites them to His inaugural all you can eat feast first! How did those lowly guys respond? Just like they were always top shelf!

The Shepherds came without delay and found God on the menu is a feeding trough!  Nobody became somebody! Losers became winners!  The forgotten were suddenly remembered! And we must be willing to humble ourselves and still kneel down daily at the stable and allow God’s nurture to renew our nature! And in our haste- we must not waste in the morning- the magic of midnight! The Shepherds heard- they went and saw with their own eyes- and then they became God’s virgin messengers- telling others! This is important! 

We too hear what God says and we experience Jesus for ourselves and we need to then go out and tell others.  Shout it to the mountains and scream it to the nations that our God still moves his mighty hand- because he still can! Just because Christmas Day is over doesn’t mean that God is done making his moves on you!  How will you allow God to move his mighty hand in you today?  How will you allow God to move his mighty hand through you?  Hands down- with our hands up- God’s hand longs to feed our hearts with the hope we need to live for not just a holiday but all those holy days still to come!

The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens made popular one of the most beloved songs of the Advent season. The lyrics go “God bless you extraordinarily well you merry gentleman, let nothing you dismay. Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day; to save us all from Satan’s power lest we had gone astray- oh tidings of comfort and joy- comfort and joy- oh tidings of comfort and joy!”

This year in my annual Christmas edition of my “Speaking In The Light” column- I wish to give you the gifts of comfort and joy! What does comfort really mean? Its definition is to give strength and hope and to cheer one who has been discouraged and downtrodden. It explains that it is to ease the grief or trouble of one who has been burdened. It means to console one who has been overwhelmed.

Now some people turn to physical means to fill the bill when it comes to yearning for the necessary safety and security. “Comfort Food” is prepared traditionally at this time of the year because it provides for us a nostalgic or sentimental appeal! These dishes warm our innards and make us feel good and stir memories of simpler and easier days when dear Mom was always there taking care of us! We Americans can’t get enough of our macaroni and cheese and meatloaf and fried chicken and burgers and fries and apple pies and ice cream and cookies and jello to name a few! But choices on a menu can’t meet the massive missing chunks that cry out for love in the depth of an individual’s spirit! Babies need to be held. Children need to be encouraged. Teens need to be guided. Adults need to be significant. We all need the human touch!

Comfort is an essential ingredient if our souls are ever expected to be fully free to soar! And you can’t experience comfort in an isolated position. You can’t make the “comfort and joy” of Christmas happen to you as a solo act! There is a big difference between being stuck in a comfortable rut and truly knowing the life giving gift of being comforted and passing on that treasure to others. Jesus showed us that the greatest act of Christmas was that he didn’t just send us a card! He did more than drop a bag of blessings upon our head! The Lord left heaven and came to be with us- to live with us- to move with us and breathe with us and know what we feel and go through the pain and the passion and the panic and the pits and the possibilities that any person faces along the path of life! Jesus allowed himself to be purposely left out of the higher echelon of social circles so that he could be near to those of us who needed him most! He allowed his deity to descend upon the desperate dealings we all face because of living in this place! Jesus was willing to be lonely and left out of the crowd so that he could genuinely let you in to know personally the love of God! He taught us firsthand that comfort is not discovered via the absence of pain but in the very midst of it!

What kind of gifts are you willing to offer others to bring them tidings of comfort and joy this December? Are you attached to these presents with your own presence? Don’t you dare be spouting off that old cliché- “It’s the thought that counts” if it took you very little internal personal investment to give away your gifts this Christmas! Comfort takes a commitment where you are willing to invest the very best of who you are into who those around you really are! You can’t give love in a hurry! You can’t do depth in an instant minute! I know that many of our family members will be expecting to see traditional gifts under the tree in a few days, but quality time spent with a loved one will make a longer and lasting and more positive impression into a person’s empty well that seeks a solution that satisfies their thirsty insides. Every minute that you choose to get up close so that you can share special space in a connecting community with somebody is like money in the bank in terms of reinforcing self-esteem! It can actually keep those you love from doing and depending on what will never love them back! A recent study showed that back in 1965, parents spent an average of 30 hours a week in direct contact with their children. Today it is down to 30 measly minutes a day of quality time. Can we claim to have truly advanced if we are nothing more than strangers to those in our own families? Technology will never substitute for touch!

I close with this story. Recently a 40 year-old man was hospitalized for the treatment of advanced leukemia. While he was receiving massive doses of chemotherapy, he was placed in quarantine for fear that even the slightest germ could do him in. During this banishment, his family would come no closer than an observation window and the only ones allowed to handle him was a nurse who had been specially cleared as being in good health. Here is how this gentleman explained his experience that scarred his psyche. “This nurse changed my bedding and kept me clean and all that, but she hated to have to touch me. Whatever she was doing she did with as little physical contact as possible. I wish she would have known how desperate I was craving for the feeling of flesh on flesh. It was not a sexual thing because in my condition that was about the last thing on my mind. But I could honestly tell you that I was losing my desire to fight this cancer without touch! I needed to know that I was not only being cured- but cared about!”

Christmas needs to be more than tidings of comfort and joy! It is going to take a serious step of involvement to be willing to get closer to those that we rub shoulders with each and every day of our lives! Comfort eases pain and lessons anxiety and softens the blatant blows that this daily rat race delivers! Comfort generates hope and is healing and helpful. On that holy night all those years ago, Jesus left heaven to come to earth to be with us so he could be one of us! It is very clear from scripture that God delights in comforting his people with touch!

Who needs to be touched this Christmas? Who needs to touch another with the same powerful comfort that you have received? Are you ready for the comforting touch of Christmas? This is prime time to take advantage of the opportunities you get to love on one another! Kiss your spouse more often- and hug and hold your kids tight! Embrace and engage your friends and family warmly every time you get to meet and greet! Replace the texting with some face to face interaction and don’t be afraid to invite God fully into your life! You can’t pass and give away what you have yet to receive yourself! Touching another can save their life! Contact is crucial in comfort this Christmas! Don’t miss it! I wish you all a blessed Christmas and a hopeful and joyous new year!

Epilogue: Speaking of touching another this Christmas- would you consider praying for those in prison as you wake up this December 25th? Some members of our Lighthouse Church Prison Ministry asked some of the inmates who show up regularly to Bible Study what the toughest part of the holiday was for them and they chimed back quickly, “It is having to be separated from our loved ones!” They then asked for prayer on Christmas Day to help them make it through this difficult time. We want to invite you to honor their wishes. Could you please be compassionate and merciful and remember those others who will not have the chance to experience all the positive connections that we will know over these next days? Would you please join us to pray for them on Christmas morning? They know they have done wrong- but isn’t this the season to be given the opportunity to make things right? “God please touch these precious people and show them comfort and joy and healing and hope even in the midst of prison… Amen!”

There is never a good time to have to say farewell to a loved one but having to do it at Christmas makes it all the more painful.  This past week I had the honor to officiate the Memorial Services of two precious women who graduated to Glory this December! One dear saint was named Wilma and the other precious angel was named Roberta.  Both of these dear ladies lived long and fulfilling lives into their very late 80’s.  Both of them had the love and respect and admiration of their families and friends at the close of their journey! They had completed their personal races of life well and crossed the finished line to a mixture of lots of tears for their leaving and yet a host of hopeful cheers for their arriving safely at heaven’s shore!  As a matter of fact, many of Wilma’s 83 great grandchildren were in attendance to bid adieu to the woman who had become their family’s rock and support system. And the cherished picture of Roberta that many shared was that she would finally get to be reunited with her hubby Jake!  

You don’t have 27 grandchildren and 83 great grandchildren without making an awesome impact!  Wilma and Roberta were both individuals who were not just spectators of life- but actually got in the game and played it at the level that they left it all on the field when the final gun had sounded! That is not always the case.  There are times when one has to stretch for something nice to say at a funeral!  They have to do a little digging to come up with a noteworthy accomplishment! 

Years ago Nancy Jones was the oldest resident of a mid-western community. When she died the editor of the local newspaper wanted to commemorate her death. But the more he inquired about Miss Jones the more he discovered that while she had never done anything terribly wrong neither had she made a striking impression. She had maintained a reclusive unmarried lifestyle. She never took vacations, was a spendthrift, and held fast to her small, one bedroom apartment. Since writing an article was difficult, the editor shifted the assignment to the first writer he came across, which happened to be the sports reporter. The sports reporter took the editor’s information and wrote the following: “Here lie the bones of Nancy Jones. Her life held no terrors. She lived without risk; she died without risk. No hits, no runs, no errors.”

I’m afraid to say that this is the way many of us live our lives.  We may not do anything wrong- but we aren’t doing all that is right either!  There are times that you must risk failing if you are ever going to succeed!  You must be willing to love, even if it means having your heart broken! You must be ready to give if you are truly going to understand what it means to live! An automobile wasn’t made for the garage and God doesn’t steer parked cars! We have got to get up and go away or coming home will never hold the worth that it should!

Christians are taught that this world is not our permanent home.  We weren’t made for this place!  We should have a pass through mentality when it comes to how we approach our days!  But that doesn’t mean that we just grab the nearest rock and sit like a statue until the day of our departing arrives.  We can live like we have nothing to lose because of everything Jesus gained for us when he redeemed our souls from the dumpster! Because of our Lord taking the full brunt of death head on when he himself died on the cross to pay for our sins- we only have to deal with the shadow!  Jesus kicked the grave in the teeth with his resurrection and removed the lasting sting out of dying for good!  We know that our last breath here only earmarks our first breath in paradise! And eternity holds more for us than this world ever could because sin has always messed up the program!  When we cross over there will be no more cancer and gossip and back biting and divorce and disease and abuse and disappointment! Death was never in our original makeup. This is why we don’t really know what to do with it!  But there will be day that if you believe- all that being deceased will mean is that we will cease operating from earth and move on up to that deluxe apartment in the sky!

I remember some 30 years ago before I did my first funeral- I thought I would look in the Scriptures for some wisdom in what our Lord did in these cases!  But Jesus didn’t do funerals!  Jesus only knew how to ruin a good ceremony! He brought the daughter of Jairus back from the dead and resurrected Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus to name a few.  I believe Jesus didn’t like doing this because it wasn’t the best thing for those who were in glory!  Can you imagine one minute you are whole once again with no pain and totally free and with the Lord and those you love and then all of a sudden you are thrust back into this chaos here on earth?  How can that be good?  I have told my family and friends that if I have died and already gone to heaven and you bring me back- I will hurt them!  They have been to Canaan and they don’t want to come back again! Jesus doesn’t do funerals because Jesus is the Life and death is a bad word when it comes to our God’s vocabulary!

Let me close with words of hope from the lyrics of Stephen Curtis Chapman. He wrote this song about a loved one finally getting to go home for Christmas- but that refuge was to not be found anywhere hear on earth!  She went home to a place where they don’t have to worry about saying “Merry Christmas,” or having to lose the holiness because of the commercialism.  She went into the presence of God!  “I’m going home for Christmas and nothing’s gonna keep me away. She’ll be face to face with Jesus as we celebrate His birth and this gift will be worth more to her than anything on earth- ‘Cause she’ll be home.  And as we sing ‘Joy to the World’ I can’t help thinking of the joy that’s in her eyes right now. And though our hearts still ache, we know that as we celebrate- she’s singing with the herald angels and heaven’s glowing on her face!” 

Welcome home Wilma and Roberta!  Save a spot for me!  See you someday soon!

The Prophet Isaiah writes in the first chapter and the 18^th verse of the book that bears his name these powerful words of divine invitation: “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “though your sins are like scarlet- they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson—they shall be like wool.”

What personal matter in your heart of hearts and in your own little corner of the world you dwell within needs to be settled this December?  Are you still knocking yourself out trying to not only make everybody else happy, but come to some sane and lasting inner peace yourself on your own?  Without the Mass of Christ to celebrate- sadly we are left with nothing more than just the mess of us to attempt to negotiate our way of dead ends and far from happy endings!  We are in way over our heads!    

Let me take you back to ISAIAH chapter 1 where verses 15-17 add: “When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood!  Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.”

So we do have a choice.  We are placed in a place of cross roads! We can choose to give up our self-reliance and take him up on his offer to “Come to him” and do it God’s way or we can spend lots of time and energy and money and resources to try our best to cover up our inner despair with outer decorations! And boy do we go to great lengths to attempt to make something that is dead on arrival to somehow appear alive again!

Christmas Trees are a prime illustration and example of what I am talking about.  Here we take an all but dead plant and adorn it with a wonderful array of dazzling colorful lights and hang our heartfelt sentimental ornaments upon its branches and we put a star or an angel on its tippy top and none of it can change the fact of the façade that this forest creature needs to face and that is it is already dead- or worse yet fake and phony and was never alive in the first place! But we people do the very same thing!  Rather than come clean and rally together to reason with the Lord and humbly invite him to forever change our artificial state into something evergreen and make our colors into the true hue of who we really are- we go the good works and lots of outer make-up route! We go to extreme measures to try to prove that we are royalty when in reality we are only rotting away! Humans for years have been going to drastic means to hide their desperate state! We all in vain try to hide our vainness in an effort to validate that we are something special and we want others to know that we really do matter!

One of the colors of the Advent Season is purple!  Many of you already know that we in the church associate the color purple with royalty! But- did you know why?  The answer has to do with very expensive snails! 2000 years ago- when Christ lived on earth-the color purple dye was the most expensive one to produce- and only kings could afford such fashionable extravagance! In fact- just one ounce of dye cost more than an entire pound of gold!!! Why was it so expensive? Believe it or not- the royal dye called “TEKHELET” in Hebrew was squeezed from snails! The extracts were boiled down to come up with the color purple! It took over 10,000 Snails to make enough dye for just one robe. But a royal robe alone is not enough to make one regal! As a matter of fact, many of you this Christmas will be squeezing the snails of your last dimes and pennies to try to give you a wardrobe of self-worth and sorely it won’t work!  You can’t make something royal if all you have are rotting ingredients to work with!

And Jesus, whom they mockingly dressed in purple when they scoffed at him being the King of the Jews and crucified him and had his own life squeezed out of him, did so in order that our colors could change and would change forever! What is the sacred shade of salvation? What is the true tint of eternity? What is the honored hue of hope?

Retrieving Christmas is looking for all of your gifts in the right place by gazing lovingly into the right face! It is reaching out with outstretched palms into the nail scarred hands of the one who was born that you might have a life that will never end! It is spending less time at the mall and more time at the manger!  It is spending less money on presents and investing all of your heart into the presence of God who makes all things new! Jesus was born this day to live a life a perfect way that you and I could never pull off even if we had an endless amount of time on the clock!  I am truly dreaming of a White Christmas but one that God can make come true! Even though our sins may be as scarlet, because of the red blood of Jesus shed on our behalf- we can have a clean slate as white and pure as snow! This December- it is time to retrieve Jesus!  It is time to receive Jesus! It is time to stop squeezing snails and allowing God to hold us as he always desired to do so!

Celebrate this heartbeat because it just might be your last one! I know life is hard. And I know that this is true from my own up close and personal experience. If you are waiting for all of life to perfectly fall into place before you will ever give your soul permission to throw a party- you might never well know the joy of allowing your spirit the chance to dance! I have probably felt more pain than I ever have known pleasure along this beaten path! But I do know that if a person loses his voice to express the unique song that the Creator of all wired deep down within his being- then he loses the greatest weapon formed to equip him to be able to shatter the darkness.  To sing is to shout to the surrounding audience, “I may be down- but I’m not out!” It is a sign to the opposition that this walk has not concluded in defeat- for I will press on to go the distance!     

Now I want to make it very clear that we don’t sing because we are blindly oblivious to all that encompasses us.  It is not a song of escape to pretend that what is real is not happening! It is not a self-induced comatose state to attempt to deceive our brain that all is joy and dandy! Actually we sing a song of thanks not for the circumstances which change with every passing minute! But we raise our melodies of hope to communicate authentic thanks to our Maker that God has not abandoned us and he is with us- even in the mess! We have a God who has chosen to make his very home within us!  And that means that even though I daily get frustrated with the accident prone container that I am- I am blessed by the truth that the contents within me are my Lord and my Savior and the one who has given me his eternal word that he will deliver me to my ultimate destination!

In the New Testament, when we are told that Mary composed a psalm of gratitude to her God after she was given the news that she was to become the earthly mother of the son of God- this was not an easy tune to sing!  Remember, for her to accept the assignment and humbly obey her calling- it would mean that she would be forever an outcast!  People would whisper behind her back the rest of her days, gossiping of impropriety!  If it wasn’t for some timely divine intervention, even Joseph would have divorced her quietly and her family removing her respectfully from society so as not to embarrass their good name. But Mary chose to not settle for a safe song!  One that anybody could have sung anywhere, anytime, anyplace!  Mary opened up her heart magnificently and accepted the masterpiece that the Lord of all had composed just for her!  It was the oratorio that would only be hers and nobody else’s!  And she sang it loud and proud and obediently and nobody lived a life like Mary!  My soul magnifies the Lord!  My song must be sung so that God could be lifted up and known and understood and worshipped!  

Pain may well remind us that we are alive- but God reminds us of why we are alive and love and music make the journey worth taking!  We try so hard to fit in but in doing so we get left out of our unique script that God has authored just for us.  It was Robert Kennedy who once said that, “Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, but not a guide by which to live.”  The woes of any given trip are going to produce some aches and hurts and bumps and bruises.  You can’t unwrap a package and expect the product to remain showroom new!  But with the use and the wear and the tear that come with the process also produces personal experiences and awesome adventures and special stories that are yours and yours alone!  We all have histories and every individual has been given a soundtrack especially constituted by God to score the movements and the memories of the precious gift of breathing- but humans have a tendency to want to skip the bad times to only be able to encounter the euphoric situations. There is no song without seeing the whole big picture within its proper context! There is no full appreciation of what majesty is all about if you have never tasted a desperate mess!

C.S. Lewis said that “What one regards as interruptions are precisely one life.”  I believe that to mean while you are sitting around waiting for your specific but imaginary ship to come in- God has had a whole array of colorful boats floating all around you inviting you to come aboard and sail away with him! Open your eyes and in turn- open your heart! I sing today a song of joy that is not comprised of artificial ingredients nor is it a farce of forced cheap thrills!  It is the roar of Rudy’s road that makes me smile even as it makes me cry!  I wouldn’t wish it on anybody else and yet I wouldn’t trade it for anything else! The notes just as they appear and the crescendos just at the precise spot and the key changes for the emotional highs and the melancholy minor chords for the depths of my lows are all necessary because all of it is what makes it my song! 

I close with the words of the psalmist who belted out in the 56^th song these life giving lyrics: God, I will offer you what I have promised; I will give you my offering of thanksgiving, because you have rescued me from death and kept me from defeat. And so I walk in the presence of God, in the light that shines on the living.”       

Thanksgiving is here! I love this holiday more than the others mostly because of its pure simplicity. It is a day with no other purpose but to be grateful! Thanksgiving Day is an opportunity to stop complaining about what we don’t have and it is a divine invitation to join the dance of celebration over the blessings that we have been given. Sure, they are gifts that can’t always be measured in monetary means or via their weight or volume- but they are those lovely intangibles that genuinely make us all who we need to be and impact us at a depth of soul satisfaction that no “thing” could ever accomplish! Gratitude is a platitude of the most attractive of attitudes!

Saying “Thank you” is one of the first sentences most parents teach their children. Whenever something is given to a child, one is almost certain to hear a mother exhort her little tyke, “What do you say?” Even to this day, I still want to correct adults who receive a service or are given a gift or a favor with no reply at all! Does it require that much energy to express a little appreciation? Even the Bible tells us that a cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. At a quick glance, it isn’t easy to miss the fact that there are way too many dry bones occupying our horizon these days! We could use a little less debt- and a little more indebtedness to all good gifts that come our way on any given day!

And that brings up a great question for examination especially after Super storm Sandy has been our way this Fall. What is it that officially designates a true “Blessing?” Is a “Blessing” a person- a place- or a thing? I have heard many people say that we here in Cape May County were “blessed” because we dodged a bullet when that catastrophe came flying our way into our town but didn’t do the destruction it did in areas just miles from us! Does that mean that the people up the road were not “blessed?” Did God love us more because we aren’t “gutting” our homes like those in Mystic Island are? Or maybe we just don’t have a very good handle on “blessings” after all.

I have recently been part of relief teams with a wonderful organization called Operation Blessing that have gone a few miles up the Garden State Parkway into those neighborhoods where almost every possession that a person owned is now currently being bulldozed along the curb out front to make its new home in a trash dumpster! If blessings are only what we own- then these people could surely proclaim that they were overlooked this Thanksgiving Season! Many are at a point where even in their elderly years now- they are forced to start from scratch! This is where maybe we need to redefine and reprioritize what we call all good gifts from God above! If it could all be gone in an hour- then maybe it is not worth living for! But a soul cannot be destroyed in a storm! Actually- because of our Lord’s divine intervention- those trials and tribulations that we run into on this planet earth can actually bring out the best in a grateful heart! It isn’t until you realize that you are not what you own- and your value is not measured by how high your pile of toys goes up- and that even when you do not have a penny to your name- you are still worth more than pure gold to God that you actually begin to understand what the secret of life is all about!

Blessings are more intangible than store bought! Blessings are in the form of body and blood and soul and spirit! Life is what life is all about! If it doesn’t breathe- it is not worth loving and living for! Relationships are what matter most! Everything God has ever done has been driven by His unconditional love for us! He doesn’t abandon us in the bad weather of this environment. Even Jesus went through hell for us so that he didn’t have to go to heaven without us! Nothing can separate you from a love like that! And it is that kind of love we all need a little more of! Love that comes into the pit with a fellow neighbor and without words- allows that individual to lean on him and fall into his arms and just cry! And after the tears- the two look up rather than look around and we realize that if our hearts are still beating- then there is still a specific purpose to get out of bed each day and unwrap the gifts that are still to be found in the midst of the mud and the manure and the mess that wants to take center stage! But don’t be deceived! God has planted a bouquet for you to be encouraged by in the midst of the desert! God still has a song of hope for you in the midst of the howling winds and the rising tides! Through it all- the Lord stands by our side and for that company- the beautiful faces of the people in our lives- the strangers that are only strange because we haven’t taken the time yet to learn their names and hear their stories- if we just find out that the blessings are the bodies that are all around us- we can still all be a thankful congregation!

So we gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing; He chastens and hastens his will to make known.
He forgets not his own. Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining, ordaining, maintaining his kingdom divine! So from the beginning the fight we are winning; Our Lord is right at our side, all glory belongs to him! And while we are not exempt from every tribulation- we know that the blessings within our congregation are not what we hold in our hands- but the actuality that He holds us firmly within his and he doesn’t have butterfingers! He never ever lets us go! And for that_ I am eternally and truly thankful!

The Lighthouse Church Sandy Relief Efforts
TLC Point Person: Pastor Rudy

After much prayer over all the information collected about how we as a church can be God’s hands and feet in the relief efforts after the historic storm Sandy- we believe the best ways to join God in what He is doing and longs to do is to:

We want to make sure that we minister to those specifically affected within our TLC Body as those needs are made available to us…

We will be available to come alongside and be a partner to:
■The Barnabas House in Wildwood
■The Atlantic City Rescue Mission

We will concentrate our specific relief efforts through Operation Blessing with the following Christian and Missionary Alliance Church:
■The Lighthouse Alliance Church in Tuckerton, NJ

Here’s how TLC People can help:
1. Sign up to volunteer and be part of a TLC Work Team…
2. Donate Supplies to be given to The Alliance Relief Centers…
3. Donate Money to The Lighthouse Church Sandy Relief Fund… Checks payable to The Lighthouse Church with Sandy Relief in the Memo…
4. Continue to Pray for those who lives have been altered by the devastation…