April Week 5

Virtue: Hope
Resolution: I choose to hope in God’s promise that all broken things will be made new.

Human Story: John Croyle

A modern story of hope can be found in the dream and calling of John Croyle, a former football player with The University of Alabama. At the end of his college football career, he met with Coach Bear Bryant and talked about playing in the NFL or pursuing a calling he felt to build a place for boys who needed a forever place to call home. He decided to forgo playing professional football and give children who were hurting a chance. In 1974, John Croyle founded Big Oak Boys’ Ranch. Today, the Big Oak Ranch, serving both girls and boys, continues to meet the needs of over 100 children per year and has served over 2,000 kids through the years. The concept is based on providing a solid Christian home with a chance to go to school, experience everyday family life, and discover God’s plan for their lives. The strong sense of family gives a foundation for children to spread their wings to go on to live independent productive lives. The home gives hope to young people when all hope is lost. The name of Big Oak Ranch, has remained fundamentally rooted in Isaiah 61:3, “And they shall be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that He may be glorified.”

The ranch is a family affair involving John’s wife as well as his son and daughter who are gradually taking over the reins.  The ranch becomes home to children who have been raped, beaten, ignored and neglected.  Some have been found in places not habitable for the living while others have been dropped off at the gate of the ranch. A child moves into a 6-bedroom home with siblings and godly parents. Big Oak Ranch’s foundational tenets are simple and few:

1.     We love you. (demonstrates love and emotional support)
2.     We will never lie to you. (demonstrates truth and honesty)
3.     We will stick with you until you are grown. (demonstrates security)
4.     There are boundaries; don’t cross them. (demonstrates discipline)

John is a father to so many children who are now vital members of society in almost every walk of life.  Many come home for the holidays. They have been given a view of God through this man, who simply answered a call in his life and was shown a path to give hope to the hopeless.

Lesson: 1 Peter 1:3

In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Peter was writing to a group of churches in modern-day Turkey that were suffering at the hands of their Greek and Roman neighbors.  He was reminding them of the hope we have through the resurrection of Jesus.  Peter begins his letter addressing the gentile Christians in these churches as exiles. Their new life in Christ is so foreign to the culture, it’s as if they were exiles in a foreign land even though they lived in their own county.

We feel heartache at injustice, violence and calamity in the world today.  We long for a time of peace and shalom. The apostle Paul refers to it as groaning in ourselves and in all of creation.  In a way, all of humanity is in exile because this world is not our own. Just as the Israelites’ hope was in their restoration in Jerusalem, our hope is in our own reconciliation to God through Jesus, who has defeated sin and death, offering life to all.  We have begun our renewal and restoration with God, which will be complete at our own resurrection into the new Jerusalem.

We have a God that understands our sufferings.  Jesus was misunderstood, abandoned and betrayed by his friends.  As a parent might grieve over a child’s errant ways, Jesus cried: Jerusalem, Jerusalem… how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. (Matthew 23:37) 

How should we live as exiles, when we are feeling troubled by our surroundings?  Daniel shows us that we can live in the culture without being defined by it.  Jeremiah tells us to live life and pray for peace.  Jesus tells us to love our neighbor, who may be our enemy.  Peter tells us we are blessed when we share in Christ’s suffering.  We can take heart in Psalm 22, which Jesus quotes on the cross, that God hears our cries of forsakenness, that Jesus did not remain in the grave, that we have a living hope in his resurrection.    

Remembrance

Living Hope by Phil Wickham

How great the chasm that lay between us
How high the mountain I could not climb
In desperation, I turned to heaven
And spoke Your name into the night
Then through the darkness, Your loving-kindness
Tore through the shadows of my soul
The work is finished, the end is written
Jesus Christ, my living hope

Who could imagine so great a mercy?
What heart could fathom such boundless grace?
The God of ages stepped down from glory
To wear my sin and bear my shame
The cross has spoken, I am forgiven
The King of kings calls me His own
Beautiful Savior, I'm Yours forever
Jesus Christ, my living hope

Hallelujah, praise the One who set me free
Hallelujah, death has lost its grip on me
You have broken every chain
There's salvation in Your name
Jesus Christ, my living hope

Then came the morning that sealed the promise
Your buried body began to breathe
Out of the silence, the Roaring Lion
Declared the grave has no claim on me
Jesus, Yours is the victory, whoa!

Challenge

John Croyle had a desire from a young age to bring hope to kids at risk.  Consider ways in which you can encourage and give hope to others this week.  Your gift of hope could be encouraging words, offering a meal, gifts of time or money to ministries, blood or organ donation, babysitting for a single parent, or something else God may lay on your heart. Be open to His leading this week as you seek His direction for ways to offer hope to others.

Reflection

Evaluate where you have your hopes and dreams.  Your hopes may include your career, your family, your health.  These are all good but consider if they were lost or taken away.  Is your hope also anchored in something everlasting?

Further Growth

Old Testament: Isaiah 41:17-20
Psalm: Psalm 148
New Testament: 1 Peter 3:8-18
Gospel: John 15:1-11

April Week 4

Virtue: Hope
Resolution: I choose to hope in God’s promise that all broken things will be made new.

Human Story: Frederick Douglass (1818 – 1895)

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered a 4th of July speech to a sizeable gathering of abolitionists. He was baffled by what he felt was blatant support of slavery in the church:

We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen!... The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in religious shouts of his pious master.

He was just as maddened by passive support of slavery in the silence of the church. If Christians were not directly involved in savage acts of slavery, they were, by and large, standing by in silence. Douglass rightly observed that the American church could, by herself, overthrow the terrible system of slavery:

Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds; and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive.

Douglass, born the son of a slave and her white master, became both a voice of hope and fear. He eventually escaped slavery and taught himself to read and write. He became a voice of hope for the millions suffering under systemic oppression and a voice of fear to those who were perpetuating it. He was one of the most visible and outspoken leaders in the abolitionist movement, a leader in championing women’s rights and the first president of the Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Company. Before the end of the 1800s he became known as the “lion of black America.”

Douglass’s faith in Christ led him to be bold and outspoken and to bring hope to thousands and possibly millions. D. H. Dilibeck said of Douglass, “Yet there’s a side of Douglass that’s not often remembered or celebrated: his radical Christian faith. Douglass was a kind of prophet crying in the wilderness of Christian slaveholding America.”

References:
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july
Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass 1854 by Frederick Douglass

Lesson: Isaiah 50:4 (NRSV)

The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens – wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.

If there is a word to describe much of our world today, it could be “weary.” People are busy, stressed, cynical, and separated on virtually every topic. In America the response to the question, “How are you doing?” is often “Busy.” The truth is that we are a weary people.

The world of Isaiah was no less weary. The people of Israel were exhausted, living in exile, and trying to make sense of their circumstances. This passage was promising a “servant” that would eventually arrive and be able to sustain the weary with a word. They wanted someone who could deliver a message of hope in the midst of their situation. Jesus eventually came as the ultimate servant predicted in Isaiah and delivered the ultimate message to the weary: I am the resurrection and life! As His followers, Christians must now carry the mantle of pedaling hope in our world. If we don’t, who will?

The world is in desperate need of people who can simultaneously learn humility and speak hope boldly. This rare combination of attributes can be like water on a dry desert, especially in our cynical and polarized country. This balance of humility and hope can be seen in this passage, in Christ, and in healthy Christ followers throughout history.

This passage says that the servant awakens every morning determined to listen. This is a posture of humility, listening and learning. As a result of this posture, the listener has been given the wisdom and ability to speak a word that sustains the weary.

In our human story, Frederick Douglass is a great example of this process. He listened to his people and he listened to God. He spoke out powerfully on behalf of those being oppressed by the evil system of slavery. He delivered a message of hope for hundreds of thousands which resonated with the weary. He spoke up against injustice with boldness and humility which ruffled the oppressor and was a balm to the oppressed.

In many instances, when we speak hope, it won’t resonate with everyone. When we speak hope to the weary, it may agitate others. May we be Christians who mimic the servant in Isaiah by daily listening and learning so that we can understand the world and our culture to such an extent that we can speak words of hope that sustain those who are weary.

Remembrance

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872 – 1906) was a brilliant author and activist who was a close friend of Douglass. Dunbar wrote this poem to eulogize Douglass after his passing.

A hush is over all the teeming lists,
   And there is pause, a breath-space in the strife;
A spirit brave has passed beyond the mists
  And vapors that obscure the sun of life.
And Ethiopia, with bosom torn,
Laments the passing of her noblest born.

She weeps for him a mother’s burning tears--
   She loved him with a mother’s deepest love.
He was her champion thro’ direful years,
   And held her weal all other ends above.
When Bondage held her bleeding in the dust,
He raised her up and whispered, “Hope and Trust.”

For her his voice, a fearless clarion, rung
  That broke in warning on the ears of men;
For her the strong bow of his power he strung,
   And sent his arrows to the very den
Where grim Oppression held his bloody place
And gloated o’er the mis’ries of a race.

And he was no soft-tongued apologist;
   He spoke straightforward, fearlessly uncowed;
The sunlight of his truth dispelled the mist,
   And set in bold relief each dark hued cloud;
To sin and crime he gave their proper hue,
And hurled at evil what was evil’s due.

Through good and ill report he cleaved his way.
   Right onward, with his face set toward the heights,
Nor feared to face the foeman’s dread array,--
   The lash of scorn, the sting of petty spites.
He dared the lightning in the lightning’s track,
And answered thunder with his thunder back.

When men maligned him, and their torrent wrath
   In furious imprecations o’er him broke,
He kept his counsel as he kept his path;
   ‘Twas for his race, not for himself he spoke.
He knew the import of his Master’s call,
And felt himself too mighty to be small.

No miser in the good he held was he,--
   His kindness followed his horizon’s rim.
His heart, his talents, and his hands were free
   To all who truly needed aught of him.
Where poverty and ignorance were rife,
He gave his bounty as he gave his life.

The place and cause that first aroused his might
   Still proved its power until his latest day.
In Freedom’s lists and for the aid of Right
   Still in the foremost rank he waged the fray;
Wrong lived; his occupation was not gone.
He died in action with his armor on!

We weep for him, but we have touched his hand,
   And felt the magic of his presence nigh,
The current that he sent throughout the land,
   The kindling spirit of his battle-cry.
O’er all that holds us we shall triumph yet,
And place our banner where his hopes were set!

Oh, Douglass, thou hast passed beyond the shore,
   But still thy voice is ringing o’er the gale!
Thou’st taught thy race how high her hopes may soar,
  And bade her seek the heights, nor faint, nor fail.
She will not fail, she heeds thy stirring cry,
She knows thy guardian spirit will be nigh,
And, rising from beneath the chast’ning rod,
She stretches out her bleeding hands to God!

Challenge

1. Read slowly and intentionally Douglass’ speech about the 4th of July and open your heart to new insight. http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth of-july/

2. Choose to allow God to awaken your heart to be taught by Him. Select a passage to meditate on, asking God to help you listen to His teaching. Write down what He says to you. Here are some suggested passages or choose your own:
            Psalm 103:13-14                     Romans 12:2                1 Corinthians 1
            2 Corinthians 5:21                  Philippians 4:8            1 Peter 2:16-17 

Reflection

What does weariness look like for you? When you feel overwhelmed by circumstances or the state of the world around you, how do you process these feelings? As Isaiah 50:4 states from our lesson, morning by morning God will waken our hearts to listen to Him. May we invite Him into our weariness, and may we continually awaken to His goodness. 

Further Growth

2022: 2nd Sunday of Easter

Old Testament: Job 42:1-6
Psalm: Psalm 11
New Testament: Revelation 1:1-19
Gospel: John 20:19-31

2021: 4th Sunday of Easter

Old Testament: Ezekiel 34:1-10
Psalm: Psalm 23
New Testament: 1 John 3:1-10
Gospel: John 10:11-16

2020

Old Testament: Deuteronomy 6:20-25
Psalm: Psalm 66:1-11
New Testament: 1 Peter 2:1-12
Gospel: John 14:1-14

April Week 3

Virtue: Hope
Resolution: I choose to hope in God’s promise that all broken things will be made new.

Human Story: Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983)

Corrie ten Boom demonstrated hope in the face of adversity. She was born into a Dutch Christian family who believed their faith compelled them to serve others in need. For them, serving others was a natural expression of their faith and a way to share with others the hope they had found in Christ. Among the recipients of their kindness included displaced Germans at the end of World War One, numerous foster children, and members of the Jewish community in Amsterdam, Netherlands. 

During World War Two, when the Nazi Holocaust began to persecute Jews, Corrie and her family secretly opened their home in Amsterdam as a hiding place for those in danger. Although this act of Christian hospitality placed their own lives at risk, the ten Boom family helped Jewish refugees find other safe houses in an effort to flee the Gestapo. Some estimate that the ten Boom family rescued more than 800 Jews during that time.

In 1944 the family’s home was raided and all ten family members were imprisoned for their efforts. Corrie and her sister, Betsie, were sent to Ravensbrück, a German concentration camp near Berlin. It was during their time at the concentration camp, disconnected from their family, that Corrie and Betsie demonstrated the power of hope in their lives.

Despite rapidly failing health, Betsie maintained a hopeful outlook that encouraged Corrie and, together, they encouraged other prisoners. Betsie also began to make plans for their life outside the camp, even though their release seemed impossible. Among those plans included a home to help rehabilitate former prisoners and even to turn a concentration camp into a mission where they could minister to their German captors and help them learn how to love again. It was Corrie’s and Betsie’s strong faith in God that kept them hopeful even in the midst of their suffering. 

Betsie died while imprisoned at Ravensbrück, but Corrie was released from the camp twelve days later due to a clerical error, which she believed to be God’s providence. Freed from the suffering of the camp, Corrie did not forget Betsie’s plans and returned to the Netherlands. There, after the war, she set up a rehabilitation center for former prisoners and even cared for those who had cooperated with the Nazis. Her hope and faith were greater than any hatred she could have chosen instead. Two years later, she began a ministry which opened doors for her to share her faith and hope in Christ in more than 60 countries over the next 30 years. She also wrote several books, including her autobiography, The Hiding Place, based on Psalm 119:114: “You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word.”

When thinking about Corrie’s trials—being taken from her home, separated from most of her family, imprisoned at a concentration camp, and watching helplessly as her sister became sick and died—one might consider it reasonable for Corrie to lose hope. Yet, undaunted, she experienced the power of living hope through her faith in Jesus Christ. It was this hope that compelled her to look beyond her circumstances and trials and to continue sharing God’s love with others in need until her death at age 91. It was this hope that allowed her to proclaim, “With Jesus, even in our darkest moments the best remains and the very best is yet to be….”

Lesson: 1 Peter 3:1-9 (NRSV)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

These words of hopeful admonition were commissioned by Simon Peter, an early church leader in Rome, and written by his co-worker Silvanus to Christians scattered throughout modern-day Turkey. Peter reminds his readers of the new life and identity given through the resurrection of Christ, and he offers encouragement that faith in Christ brings protection and salvation for one’s soul despite the suffering one may encounter. For followers of Christ, this offers not only hope for our future eternal reward, but also an active hope for each day in the here-and-now. 

Faith in Christ does not exempt us from trials and difficulties. Relationships and possessions may prove to be temporary, and we may suffer because of the actions of others or even from consequences of our own actions. Even then, we can have hope because our souls are safe in Christ who will keep us as we trust in Him. Remembering that Christ rose from the dead and has promised to come again with full victory over evil can fill us with hopeful anticipation.

One way to live out this hope is to pray how Christ taught us—asking for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven so that his kingdom will be established among us. These are more than words we recite as we corporately invite God to allow us to be vessels through which His kingdom principles are realized in our community. It reminds us our hope is not in the systems and structures of this world, but our hope is in Christ. This active hope reminds us that all is well with our souls despite what might be happening around us, and it compels us to share Christ with others through our words, our witness, and our actions. 

Remembrance

A Liturgy for the Ritual of Morning Coffee – Every Moment Holy: New Liturgies for Daily Life

Meet me, O Christ
            In this stillness of morning
Move me, O Spirit
            To quiet my heart.
Mend me, O Father, 
from yesterday’s harms
From the discords of yesterday,
            Resurrect my peace
From the discouragement of yesterday, 
            Resurrect my hope.
From the weariness of yesterday,
            Resurrect my strength
From the doubts of yesterday,
            Resurrect my faith.
From the wounds of yesterday,
            Resurrect my love
Let me enter this new day,
Aware of my need
            And awake
To your grace, 
O Lord
Amen

Challenge

Reflect on the situation of Corrie ten Boom and how distant hope could have seemed. Consider people you know in your community that lived in eras when hope would have also seemed distant (World War II, health issues, financial crisis, death of a child, etc.). Ask them how they found hope during such difficult times and ponder in your heart what they say.

Reflection

Corrie ten Boom was in her 50’s when she was sent to Ravensbrück. Think about how many lives she touched for Christ in the second half of her life because she chose hope instead of anger or bitterness. No matter what your current age, think about how different your life will be in 5, 10 or 20 years based on your choice between hope and bitterness.

Further Growth

2022: Easter Day, Evening Service

Old Testament: Daniel 12:1-3
Psalm: Psalm 136
New Testament: 1 Corinthians 5:6-8
Gospel: Luke 24:13-35

2021: 3rd Sunday of Easter

Old Testament: Micah 4:1-5
Psalm: Psalm 98
New Testament: 1 John 1:1 - 2:2
Gospel: Luke 24:36-49

2020

Old Testament: Nehemiah 9:6-15
Psalm: Psalm 23
New Testament: 1 Peter 2:13-25
Gospel: John 10:1-10

April Week 2

Virtue: Hope
Resolution: I choose to hope in God’s promise that all broken things will be made new.

Human Story: Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498)

Hope, though a concept which dreams of a better future, is never true hope unless it aims to make the present a better place to be. Hope is expecting new creation to be finally realized as God has promised. Being a person of hope means bringing foretastes and signposts of that new creation in the present. One such individual who did this was Girolamo Savonarola. Born to a wealthy family, Savonarola went against his family’s wishes for him to become a physician and instead became a Dominican friar.

Savonarola was a mature believer. He knew one didn’t have to choose between being academically rigorous and working for justice. He was known for educating others in the deep truths of Scripture, and his preaching attracted people by the thousands. He was also known for his service to the poor and for calling the church to renewal. He taught against luxury, secular art, secular culture, church corruption and exploitation of the poor. He organized periodic “burnings of the vanities,” giving others an opportunity to burn “stuff” that may have been idolatrous in their lives, for he firmly believed that the purpose of life was not in the accumulation of things. His hope for a better day in the future factored into his decision to sell most of the property of his convent and give the proceeds to the poor. His hope for a better future gave him the courage to preach about the evil of luxury and how a life of excess indicated a person’s Christian faith was not truly Christian at all.

Early Protestant reformers including Martin Luther read some of the friar’s writings and praised him as a martyr and forerunner whose ideas on faith and grace informed Luther’s own doctrine of justification by faith alone. The larger Reformation would have been much smaller had it not been for men like Savonarola, whose hope for the future made him work for reformation in the present.

Lesson: Isaiah 40:27-31 (NIV)

Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God"? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;  but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah’s hope was for a new Jerusalem, and the future hope would come about through a Messianic king. This new Jerusalem was not solely for the benefit of Israel alone, but for all nations. God always chose Israel for the sake of blessing other nations. Israel’s disobedience features prominently in the prophets, as the prophets are calling them to repentance and warning them of what life will look like if they continue on their current path. Isaiah has been warning them of this but then begins to give them a message of hope as seen in our lesson text.

Although some like to speak as if the days keep getting worse and worse, one only has to read a history book to find out that evil has reared its ugly head in every era. Though looking to the past or our current news headlines could lead us to despair, our faith demands that we hold out hope that God will renew all things. As Christians, we know how it all ends. We do not have to despair over uncertainties! Our God is the creator of the universe, and we cannot grasp His wisdom. He works through the powerless and those we typically see as weak. It is this God who will right all wrongs. He sees the oppression taking place. He is aware of the perversion of justice. He will destroy all evil, and this fact should spur us to desire that future fact in the present time. It should also spur us on to devote ourselves to love and good deeds, bringing God’s will to our lives and our community.

Remembrance

After the Last Tear Falls – Andrew Peterson

After the last tear falls, after the last secret's told
After the last bullet tears through flesh and bone
After the last child starves and the last girl walks the boulevard
After the last year that's just too hard

There is love, Love, love, love, There is love, Love, love, love, There is love

After the last disgrace, after the last lie to save some face
After the last brutal jab from a poison tongue
After the last dirty politician, after the last meal down at the mission
After the last lonely night in prison

There is love, Love, love, love, There is love, Love, love, love, There is love

And in the end, the end is oceans and oceans of love and love again
We'll see how the tears that have fallen
Were caught in the palms of the Giver of love and the Lover of all
And we'll look back on these tears as old tales

'Cause after the last plan fails, after the last siren wails
After the last young husband sails off to join the war
After the last, this marriage is over
After the last young girl's innocence is stolen
After the last years of silence that won't let a heart open

There is love, Love, love, love, There is love

'Cause after the last tear falls there is love

Challenge

As the human story stated, hope is not true hope unless it aims to make the present a better place to be. Most of us won’t be civic authorities with power to change legislation to aid the oppressed. However, we do have power over a small sphere of life, such as our children, our co-workers, and those who look up to us. If sin didn’t permeate this life, what would look different in how those people live? Take steps to implement the vision that may come as a result of this exercise.

Reflection

Virtues cannot be divorced from one another. As our story indicates, Girolamo Savonarola required love, courage, and hope to make meaningful change in his culture. When you consider broken things or people that need renewal, what are the main virtues that come to mind for that dream to become a reality? Share examples with others as they arise.

Further Growth

2022: Fifth Sunday in Lent, Passion Sunday, Palm Sunday

Old Testament: Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm: Psalm 126
New Testament: Philippians 3:7-16
Gospel: Luke 20:9-19

2021: 2nd Sunday of Easter

Old Testament: Isaiah 26:1-19
Psalm: Psalm 111
New Testament: 1 John 5:1-5
Gospel: John 20:19-31

2020

Old Testament: Isaiah 43:1-12
Psalm: Psalm 116:11-16
New Testament: 1 Peter 1:13-25
Gospel: Luke 24:13-35

April Week 1

Virtue: Hope
Resolution: I choose to hope in God’s promise that all broken things will be made new.

Human Story: Melody Green (1946 - )

Today I have more faith in God’s goodness and ability to provide than ever before. Even when terrible things happen He can turn those things towards our good…but only if we have the patience to wait while we are hurting. –Melody Green

Melody Green, writer of the beloved song “There is a Redeemer”, is not a stranger to grief. Melody had a simple and quiet upbringing near the beaches of California. For lack of a safe place to play as a child, she became well acquainted with nature: the sand, ocean, and sunsets. Although born into a Jewish family who believed strongly that there was a God, Melody’s interaction with nature helped her to believe even more deeply that there was a Creator behind it all. 

In her twenties, Melody dabbled in the hippy drug culture; she studied philosophy, astrology, even Buddhism in order to “find” and connect deeply with God. However, she did not find what she was looking for until years later after she married aspiring musician Keith Green. In 1975, Keith and Melody were invited to a bible study that changed both of their lives forever. It was here that Melody found what she was looking for: Jesus Christ, and her life’s trajectory immediately changed. She and Keith began opening their home to struggling adolescents as a form of ministry, and they hosted dinners with neighbors in their community. Their ministry grew quickly and was established as LDM, Last Days Ministries. They were thriving as a family, both with their ministry and Keith’s music until it all came to a screeching halt. 

In 1982, Keith and two of their young children boarded a small plane for a quick trip, but it crashed only 20 minutes after taking off, leaving no survivors. Melody was left with their one-year-old daughter and she was six weeks pregnant with their fourth child. Speaking of this time in her life, Melody says, “The rug was yanked out from under my whole world that day…Without the Lord and the support of my friends and the LDM community I never would have made it.” 

In spite of this tragedy, Melody went on to continue leading LDM, which has become a large international ministry serving disaster victims, the sick, the needy, and those in need of rehabilitation. In 1985, she rose to the forefront of the Pro-Life Movement, receiving death threats and even being arrested once during a peaceful protest. She also established the Good Neighbor Mercy Fund which has served victims of the Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and others in need.

Today Melody resides in Hollywood, CA. Her daughters are married and follow Jesus, lucky to have a mother who set an example as one who was able to grieve with hope in her Savior.

Lesson: (NIV) 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (NIV)

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Some of the Christians at Thessalonica had recently died (most likely due to persecution), and some of the believers there were concerned that those who had died would be at a disadvantage when Jesus returned, possibly missing out on something. Paul reassures them in our text that this is far from the case.

Any notion of the afterlife was a minority opinion amongst the populace in ancient Greco-Roman society. Death was considered final. Archaeologists have uncovered tomb inscriptions in Thessalonica which reflect this hopelessness, with sentiments of death being the end. There was certainly no concept of an afterlife. Paul is telling believers to grieve differently than “the rest who have no hope.” Grieving is assumed. We grieve because sin and death still permeate life, but we grieve knowing that sin and death have been defeated. We grieve knowing that death and evil will finally be eradicated at the consummation of the kingdom, when our hope is fully realized.

Life is full of heartbreak. Grief will most certainly come. When it does, don’t repress your grief; don’t try to explain it away or justify it or pretend you aren’t hurting. Just grieve. But grieve with hope, being assured that, though death may have won the battle, it has most certainly lost the war.

Remembrance

Death, Be Not Proud by John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee 
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; 
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow 
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. 
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, 
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, 
And soonest our best men with thee do go, 
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. 
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, 
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, 
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well 
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? 
One short sleep past, we wake eternally 
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. 

Challenge

We all know people who are hurting. Reach out to someone you know this week who has experienced the death of a loved one. It may be a neighbor, family member, or church member. Let them know you care about them and are remembering their loved one. It just might mean the world to them.

Reflection

Have you had circumstances in your life that have caused you to doubt God’s goodness and despair of hope? Think back to Melody’s story. How do you think she was able to continue in whole-hearted ministry after the death of her husband and two of her children? Remember that she acknowledged it was through her faith in the Lord and her community of friends and co-workers that she was able to carry on. Do you have a faith community you can turn to in times of doubt or struggle or crisis?

Further Growth

2022: Fourth Sunday in Lent

Old Testament: Joshua 5:1-12
Psalm: Psalm 34
New Testament: 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
Gospel: Luke 15:11-32

2021: Easter Day

Old Testament: Daniel 12:1-3
Psalm: Psalm 136
New Testament: I Corinthians 5:6-8
Gospel: Luke 24:13-35

2020

Old Testament: Genesis 8:6-16, 9:8-16
Psalm: Psalm 111
New Testament: 1 Peter 1:3-9
Gospel: John 20:19-31

April Introduction

April: Hope

Resolution: I choose to hope in God's promise that all broken things will be made new. 

April is the season on the church calendar when we are in the midst of Lent and move into Easter. This time period is marked by remembrance and contrition and it is somber to be sure. Yet, because of Easter we are not left in despair; in fact, we are given the very opposite habit of the heart: hope. Our resolution for this month captures the Easter vision: I choose to hope in God’s promise that all broken things will be made new.

In Jesus’s resurrection we are caught up in God’s cosmic work of restoring all things to the way they are supposed to be. This is why Paul includes hope among the three elements that remain when all others pass away (1 Cor. 13.13)—hope (along with faith and love) is a central marker of the Christian life. To be a person of hope, in the theological sense, means to have a positive expectation and belief that Jesus will be true to his promise to give life to those who believe in and follow Him. A hopeful person rests in the knowledge that in following Jesus he or she has been marked by the Holy Spirit as God’s own. On that basis, we are given the very same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead and that shall raise us from the dead. Resurrection is a central aspect of hope in the Christian story. But this concept is broader than merely transcending death. 

Our Easter hope of participating in the resurrection of Christ also calls our attention to the whole of creation. In the Letter to the Romans, Paul lets us know that all of creation awaits redemption (Rom 8.22). We find that the brokenness of the Fall is not limited to humans alone but also extends to all creation. The glory of Easter is that in Christ all brokenness is repaired. Our Advent longings (“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”) and cries for Christ to come and “Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace,” have their initial affirmative deposit in the resurrection. The hopeful Christian, then, expects with sure trust and eagerness God’s good, gracious, and enlivening work to restore to life and wholeness all that is dead and broken. Although we may at times or for seasons struggle with doubt (how will this be made right? how could God repair this?), it does not mean we have lost hope. The opposite of hope and faith is not doubt, but rather despair which is when we have lost all sense of God’s goodness and ability to redeem. Even then, though, God is working to make all things good and to restore even lost hope to those experiencing brokenness. In the season of Easter, we look with hope to God who will restore and repair all brokenness and make all things new.

April: Liturgy

Leader: Almighty Father who miraculously delivered Your people Israel from slavery to Egypt, remind us of our baptism, reassuring us we are no longer enslaved to sin but have been cleansed and forgiven.

People: Father, set us free from things that enslave us.

Leader: Lord Jesus who defeated death by Your resurrection, help us frame death as it truly is – a power that will one day be destroyed, and one that has no final authority over us.

People: Jesus, resurrect Your people and dwell with us.

Leader:  Holy Spirit, the source of all light, give Your church power to restore the broken systems and people of this world. Empower Your people to create beauty in dark spaces and bring new creation to our city, our country, and our world.

People: Spirit, Flood our imaginations with dreams of new creation.