Free at Last!

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held slavery by their fear of death. (Heb. 2:14)

The law had punishments.  And the laws were so comprehensive no one could keep them all, so most of the time people lived in fear.  

But Jesus—oh, Jesus! Without breaking or banishing the law, He circumvented it, and at the same time satisfied justice by drawing a bigger circle—the circle of a dying love-gift, so that all those in the long line of punishment could go free.  He cut in line, died and paid the ultimate price, served the ultimate sentence.  Love swallowed vengeance. Love ate the sin and swallowed it whole.

Just when justice had the whole human race climbing the steps to the guillotine blindfolded, Love offered His perfect head for us all.  Now everyone is dancing in the street!  Praise music is being played on every instrument imaginable!  

The old Law System has been bought for the express purpose of destroying it, so that the Joy System could be put in its place.  Satan has been made to watch his plan breaking apart—agony for him.  But the ultimate agony is that Satan himself and all his tricks will be burned at the stake.  Gone forever! 

Free at last!  Free at last!  Thank God almighty we’re free at last!

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What to Give Up for Lent

What are you giving up for Lent?  During this season I hear this conversation-starter in restaurants and in other social settings.  Various answers follow:

“I gave up Chocolate.”

“Well, I gave up TV baseball.  I don’t like it that much anyway; I just watch it because my husband watches it, and if I’m going to be with him, I have to watch baseball.”

“I’m swearing off shopping at Walmart.  Whenever I’m there, I end up buying a bunch of stuff I don’t need.”

I find myself asking where did Lent come from, and why do people give up things for it? I can’t find any such religious observance mentioned in the New Testament account of the early church after the resurrection. When did Lent as an observance start and how did it get institutionalized as a Christian ritual?

What I found out is that Lent became a mandated observance at the Nicaean Council held in 325 C.E., a gathering of Christians from various areas where the church had spread in the then-known world.  It seems that at that point it had a self-denial and sacrificial emphasis, to somehow make oneself worthy of redemption and to self-atone for sins and shortcomings. 

Most historical traditions seem to relate Lent to the forty days of fasting that Jesus did in the wilderness as he battled Satan’s enticement to succumb to the lure of materializing His mission by seeking power, provision, and notoriety of an earthly kingdom.  If this is indeed the basis for Lent, it must demand far more than giving up chocolate or going on a diet for 40 days.

Fasting as a form of physical, mental, and spiritual purification has a long history in Jewish law and is a discipline of many world religions.  So the days leading up to Jesus’s arrest, trial, abuse, and crucifixion is certainly a sobering and appropriate time for followers of Jesus to fast.  The effort to somehow comprehend the suffering of the Master and, as Paul says, to “fellowship in his suffering” can bring us to a more acute awareness of the agony the disciples experienced as they all too often failed to supply the support Jesus needed, especially when their own safety was at stake. 

It is important to realize that Jesus’s followers did not know the outcome of those days.  Even though Jesus had given plenty of metaphors for what was to come, there was no comprehension of a coming resurrection. Those last days with Jesus was their own testing in the wilderness.  Would they succumb to the pressures of the power structures of the ruling strongmen or the ecclesiastical politic?

I hear some people say they are giving up certain “sins” for Lent, like gossiping, drinking, gambling, cheating on a spouse, or lying.  Others say they are going to give money to a charity or volunteer for a good cause.  It seems the implication is that as soon as Lent is over, they can go back to old behaviors, that Lent is a temporary discipline but not a permanent change. 

But the resurrection did come!  And the resurrection is all about new life and the power to live it.  We are no good at atoning for our own sins, and good intentions to change ourselves are always too weak.  Oh, but if Lent can be a turning, an about-face from where I have been to where I long to be, a turning from the regrets of my failures to a vision of the Resurrection and a brand-new life and a fresh attitude and perspective, then a “time” for that turning is a good thing. 

In deciding what to give up for Lent, I think of the end of Psalm 139:

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test my thoughts.  Point out anything you find in me that makes you sad, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. (LB)

If God points out the things in me that make Him sad, and I willingly give them up for Lent, I know the Lord of Lent will give me grace for each moment as I leave those things behind and choose Life for tomorrow—and forever.

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The Prayer Chair

For this last Christmas two dear friends gave us a valuable piece of bronze sculpture by Scott Rogers, the artist famous for capturing life in the American old West.  This piece was inspired by the artist’s visit to the Cibolo Ranch near Marfa, Texas, originally built in 1850 by Milton Favor and restored by John Poindexter.  While Rogers was exploring the adobe rooms-turned-museum in the ranch, he came across a simple “prayer chair”, once used in simple churches and pioneer homes as a place of prayer.  Rogers said that the instant he learned the strange chair was used for prayer, he “knew that one day I would use it in sculpture.”

The night we received the gift, we brought the wrapped box home and opened it in our kitchen.  Overwhelmed by the generosity of such treasured friends, we sat the sculpture on our kitchen island.   There it stayed for a week while we discussed where we should place it, somewhere where it would be in the traffic of our daily life so we would naturally pass by it in the course of regular activities and thus see it often to remind us of our friends as well as of the importance of prayer.

Now, well into the new year, I thought maybe I’d send to our friends a snapshot of the sculpture in our home and say a second “thank you”.  As I went to do this, I stopped to focus my camera on the art, but actually focused for the first time on its position in the room.  We had placed it on a vintage victrola we have kept through the years because of Bill’s collection of recordings dating back to the 78RPMs he bought as a kid in love with music.

The victrola sits between our well-used grand piano and the grandfather’s clock the Gaither Music staff gave us early on when there were so few of us it was an exaggeration to call us a staff.  Above the victrola was our all-time favorite collection of photos of our three now adult children.

As any parent knows, one never stops being a parent, even when children become peers and often wise advisors.  What, when it’s all said and done, did we give our children?  What do they still need that we can still give them?  What of those things—from tennis shoes to a college education—will last when this home we built around them is gone and, as Carl Sandburg said, the grass has covered all.

I had not really noticed when we chose to put the sculpture on the victrola, but there it sat—a soul at prayer between the piano and the grandfather’s clock.  What do we most hope we have given our children that we can still give now that they don’t need us as much as we need them?  

We can give them music.  We can give them our time.  And prayer, we can give them prayer.  These will take us all, joyfully singing, into forever, where the need for both prayer and time-counting will be no more.

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Distractions

When I was a little girl, my grandfather owned a small farm in Michigan.  When it came time for the spring plowing, I often walked behind my grandpa as he held the reins of the team of horses that were hitched to a four-bottom plow.  I usually had an old empty coffee can grandma gave me for picking up earthworms and nightcrawlers from the fresh furrows, so we could fish the many lakes in Calhoun County.

The horses pa used wore thick leather flaps attached to the bridle that kept the horses from seeing to the side.  He called them blinders.  Always full of a hundred questions, I asked him why the horses had to wear them.  He said “So they’ll keep looking straight ahead.”

“Why,” I asked. “Why should they keep looking straight ahead?”

“To keep them from getting distracted by rabbits or coons or blackbirds.”  He stopped long enough to give me an answer that he thought would silence me for a while, and told me to hop up on the bar that held his metal seat in place.

“Look down there to the other side of the field,” he said.  Do you see that old oak tree?  It’s right straight ahead of where we are now; do you see it?”  Yes, I saw it.

“When I plow, I find something like that tree straight ahead of each row, and I keep my eyes on that thing and plow toward it.  If the horses don’t get distracted, the furrow we’re plowing will be straight.  But if I lose sight of my goal or the horses jig sideways because they spot a rabbit, the row will be crooked.  If this row is crooked, the next one lined up beside it will be crooked.  When we plant seeds, we follow the furrow and if the furrow is crooked, the rows of corn will be crooked.”

“But why does it matter if the corn is crooked?” I asked.

“It matters to me,” he answered in a tone that signaled that he was finished with this conversation.  I hopped down from the plow and went back to picking up fishing worms.

In the more than seven decades since, I’ve thought a lot about plowing a straight furrow.  I’ve had reason to consider distractions and when they are and are not a good thing.  I’ve seen the results of a field where a crooked furrow followed the one before it and the crops that then followed suit. I’ve thought about why keeping my eyes on the far away goal is important, and why horses wear blinders because they can’t remember why they’re out there in the field in the first place and can be distracted by a rabbit, why someone wiser must hold the reins.

And I am hoping as I look back over my field of service, that the rows have been mostly straight and the crops have been mostly full and that there have been plenty of seeds left over for another season.

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These Things Remain

Life is an attitude, an exercise in contrasts. Do I live open or closed, optimistic or pessimistic, hopeful of cynical, joyful or gloomy?  Of course, for all of us there are moments of all these outlooks.  But overall, do we for most of life think of the glass being half empty or half full?

There was a movie released in 2007 called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le scaphandre et le papillon) about Jean-Dominique Bauby who was chief editor of the French fashion magazine Elle.  He rode in the jet-setting circle of the privileged playboy culture until at 43, he had a stroke that damaged his brain and paralyzed his body, leaving him with what is known as “locked-in syndrome”.   What most of us lose bit by bit--our physical prowess, our muscle tone, our quick articulation, our ability to move—Bauby lost in an instant.  For him, all that was left was his sight, his hearing, and the ability to blink his eyes. Over months of being locked in, despairing and depressed over all that he had lost, he began to ask himself, “What do I have left?”

Not a bad question to ask ourselves at any juncture of the journey, from the jumping-gym to the walker or from the three-story house in the gated community to the care facility.

This next December Bill and I will celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary.  We have walked a long and stimulating road together.  We have been blessed to travel the world, to have and love three amazing children who have given us seven very unique and invigorating grandchildren.  We have moved in many circles of influence and made friends with some of the greatest and endearing people, known and unknown, who have lived on this earth in our lifetime.  We have risked and lost; we have reached out and been welcomed and rejected.

Today, this Valentine’s Day, we have been so enriched by it all and have never been so grateful. So much remains. How full is the glass?  Brimming over. As we have had to relinquish, we have found our hands and hearts incredibly more full than ever! So here is my Valentine to the country boy I married.

These Things Remain

The barn was disassembled from the homeplace some years back,
‘Cause barnwood was more valuable than barns;
And with it went the stanchions where the cattle used to wait,
The haymow, and the pride in family farms.
The tire swing, the orchard, and the hen house disappeared
About the time you went away to school;
They went the way of duck tails, white bucks with pink and grey,
And big white sidewall tires we thought were cool.
The landscape keeps on changing, and the fads will come and go;
The things of earth can never stay the same.
But some things you can count on and know that they are yours – 
Yes, through it all you know these things remain:

The happiness that comes from finding joy in simple things
Like eating supper by the kitchen fire
And watching trees you planted grow so tall they shade the house
Or laughing children swinging on a tire.
And nature still will lavish all its riches without charge, 
The golden sunset or the emerald hills,
And dangle crystal drops of rain like diamonds from the leaves--
These simple, lovely gifts are with us still.

Photo by: Angela Kellogg

The place you went to high school has burned down to the ground, 
And grass has covered over where it stood.
The apple and the cherry trees you used to like to climb
Have long ago been split for firewood.
A house now stands where you and all your cousins used to strip
For skinny-dippin’ in the quarry hole;
Grandmas, aunts, and uncles are all buried over there
Where evenings we now take our quiet stroll.
And most things keep on changing as time keeps marching on;
You can’t expect them just to stay the same.
For birth and death and growing are a part of every day –
But, even so, my dear, some things remain;

We still can judge a person by the value of his word,
And love is best expressed by what we do.
The milk of human kindness still nurtures those who hurt;
The universe still echoes what is true.
Wisdom and integrity, honest and grace
Will live on after all of us are gone.
And God will make provision for the dark and lonely place;
He knows that we just have to have a song!
These things remain.

We’ve put away the playthings our children thought were great—
The dolls and all the puppets and the stilts,
The “Star Wars” and the Weebles, the Barbies and the Gnomes,
The villages the Lincoln Logs had built.
The swing set sits there silent at the bottom of the hill;
The paddleboat last summer sprang a leak,
And I think our grandson mentioned maybe going with a friend
To look for an apartment late last week.
I guess we can’t expect for things to stay just like they were;
Changes are predictable as rain.
Yet with all the changes, I wanted you to know
Some lovely and eternal things remain:

A home is still the place that you can come to night or day,
And “family” are the folks that take you in.
And those who still believe in you through all your ups and downs
Are still the precious treasure we call “friends.”
The Lord who has been faithful to lead us from the start
Will walk with us until our journey’s through,
And I will walk beside you “for better or for worse” –
I really meant it when I said, “I do”.

© Gloria Gaither 1986

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Holistic Medicine

I’m a believer in holistic medicine.  We can no more expect to have a healthy body without addressing the areas of our existence that effect our physical health.  Choices that cause anxiety of mind will eventually elicit responses from our bodies.  Behaviors that contradict our moral sense of right and wrong, violate our commitments to each other, and destroy trust in community will inevitably rob us and others of the peace and joy of mind and erode spiritual, emotional, and physical wholeness.

No wonder to get to the source of issues, Jesus asked such disturbing questions and gave what seemed to be unrelated advice.

“Where is your husband?”

“Who is my mother and my brothers?”

“Sell all that you have and give it to the poor.”

“You need to be born again.”

“Who touched me?”

“Unless you become like this little child, you’ll have no Kingdom status.”

“Whose name is on this coin?”

“Let me tell you a story....”

“Do you want to be well?”

“But who do you say that I am?”

It is so human of us to segment, compartmentalize, detach, escape, divert.  When confronted with one issue, how easy it is to focus on someone else, change the subject, divert attention from our problem to some other problem. It is so like Jesus to go to the heart of the issue.

I passionately believe that serving Jesus is the best holistic medicine for an injured and malfunctioning life.  Over time and practiced consistently, the gospel of Jesus will heal us from our innermost parts outward—nourish us and make us well.  Jesus is not a quick-fix hit that will make us feel instantly better, then, like most other medicines, leave us with not only the disease we started with but several more serious side effects.  

No, He came to make us friends with God who made us perfect in the first place.  His deep “passion” is to remake us from the inside out in the model and mold of Himself.  His objective is to make a creature enough like himself that both He and we will be filled with joy in relationship together.  He wanted a friend with whom he had something in common; He called it fellowship.  

Satan’s objective and only power is to destroy and distort, but God creates and recreates.  As we relinquish control of our lives to God, we will become creative, too, and go about the joyful work of leaving behind us a trail of beauty and joy!

But here is God’s lovely secret plan:  He does this not by making us autonomous “little gods”, but by making us body parts infused and made alive by the life-force that is flowing through us.  We become completely a part of Christ himself, yet we can only be that as we function in active (exercised) parts of each other, responding to the brain and soul of God.  That way we are never alone, always fully alive, and knowing that no matter where we are, we are right where we need to be.

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Diamonds in My Pocket

Tonight, I will have dinner with my friend and mentor Ann Smith.  Ann is here in Florida visiting her niece, so it was a happy discovery that we were going to be here at the same time because of Bill’s concert schedule.

Ann has been a mentor and friend for many years, as she has been to a long parade of college students, men and women in ministry, couples whose marriages were in trouble, and thinkers struggling with their faith.  I love Ann because she is so alive and ready to take on any discussion, constantly pushing herself (and me) to grow.  She is one of the sharpest minds and wisdom-seekers I know, so as a friend she is a rare and invaluable fellow pilgrim on this “journey to the sky”.

While Bill and the Vocal Band are singing in Ocala, I am meeting Ann and her niece Marcie for dinner.  We will laugh and tell stories and inevitably land on some topic that speaks to the core of life.  I will wait as on the edge of the ocean for the waves of Ann’s insights to wash up on the shore of my comprehension, then try to memorize the moment, make mental note of her words and, maybe, while she isn’t looking, scribble her wisdom on a napkin and tuck it into my pocket.

I will forget that it’s in my pocket, in all the gathering together of things to return home to my life in the dark January cold of Indiana.  But on some bewilderingly regular day of my real life, I will reach into that pocket for a tissue, and there will be the paper napkin laden with diamonds from Ann.  It will hold just the right words for just the right moment to reflect a prism of light on my path. And I’ll thank God again for a friend like Ann and for that dinner in Florida when we celebrated Ann’s 97th birthday, for I will have in my hand the sparkling dust of eternity from the youngest woman I’ve ever known.

(For more about Ann, see “Wisdom from Ann” blog for Oct. 31, 2018)

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How Then Should We Live Now?

It was in 1981 an awesome challenge to create a lyric to fit a long established and well-loved melody like the classic “Finlandia” by Jean Sibelius, but my desire to help preserve such expressive pieces of music with power and relevance for the present generation motivated me to try.  When writing any lyric to existing music, I try to listen, with an ear as unprejudiced as possible to any previous suggestion, to the “idea” that lies imbedded in the music itself, much as the sculptor who sees already hidden in the block of marble the masterpiece, he/she must liberate by chipping away the encasement that imprisons it.

This music was originally performed on July 2, 1900, as a statement of support for freedom of the press in Finland and of resistance to the increasing pressure of Russian influence.

The strength and tenderness that gave this wonderful music its tension seemed to me to parallel the tension in commitment to relationships that are worth the struggle to persevere, whether those relationship be between spouses, siblings, parents and children, neighbors, the family of human persons or, ultimately between each of us and our God.  It is this ultimate relationship—the one between us and God—lived out with integrity, that is the liberating key that releases us from the prison of our self-made hang-ups and teaches us, heals us, equips us and models for us how to be in relationship with each other. 

As the new year lies ahead, I now reread these lyrics.  Little did I know in 1981 what the dawning of the year 2022 would bring—the cultural climate of the world and our own country, the reshuffling of the various communities and denominations of the organized church, the economic crises resulting from a global pandemic, or the political upheaval of established assumptions worldwide.

Needless to say, the circumstances of this moment in time—more than 40 years later and now more than two decades into a new century—demanded that I search my heart to see if I am still as convinced of and committed to the aspirations of this lyric, inspired by music written in 1899.  As I knew then, the words were easier to write that to live.  Am I any further down the road of my spiritual journey now?  Am I better living out the clear, yet gently insistent, mandates of the gospel that so long ago captured my heart?  And, assuming I have made some progress, how now do I live the next mile of this journey of faith?

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Gifts I Would Give the Grandchildren

I want to give our grandchildren the gift of solitude, the gift of knowing the joy of silence, and the chance to be alone and not feel uncomfortable.  I want to give them transportation for the inner journey and water for their desert places.  I want to make them restless with diversion and disenchanted with the artificial excesses of our culture.  I want to give them a desire to strip life to its essential and the courage to embrace whatever they find there.

I would teach them to be seers, to notice subtleties in nature, in people, and in relationships.  I long for them to grasp the meaning of things, to hear the sermons of the seasons, and the exhortations of the universe, the warnings of the wounded environment.  I would teach them to listen.  It would bring me joy to happen in on them one day and find them with their ears to the earth or humming the melody of the meadow or dancing to the music of the exploding symphony of spring.

Yes, I would teach them to dance!  I would teach them to never so tie up their feet with the shackles of responsibility that they can’t whirl to the rhythm of the spheres.  I would have them embrace the lonely, sweep children into their arms, give wings to the aged, and dance across the barriers of circumstance, buoyed by humor and imagination into the ecstasy of joy.  I would teach them to dance!

I would teach our grandchildren to cry, to feel the pain that shatters the violated, to sense the emptiness of the deserted, to hear the plaintive call of the disoriented and lost, to understand the hopelessness of the powerless.  I would teach them to cry – for what is locked away, for that which is broken, for those who never know Life, for what was not realized, for the least and the last to know freedom.

I would teach our grandchildren gratitude.  I would have them know the gift of where they’ve been and who brought them to where they are.  I would teach them to write each day a liturgy of praise to read to the setting sun.  I would have them dwell upon the gift of what is, not wasting their energies on what could have been.  I would have them know that twin of gratitude: contentment – contented to live and breathe, contented to love and be loved, contented to have shelter and sustenance, contented to know wonder, contented to be able to think and feel and see.  To always call a halt to senseless striving, this I would teach our grandchildren.

I would teach our grandchildren integrity, to be truthful at any cost, to be bound by their word, to make honest judgments, even against themselves, to be just, to have pure motives.  I would have them realize that they’re accountable individually to God alone and, then, to themselves.  I would have them choose right even if it is not popular or understood, even by me.

I would teach our grandchildren to pray, knowing that in our relationship with God there is much to be said, and God is the one who must say it.  I would have them know the difference between prayer and piety; I would make them aware that prayer often has no words but only and open, vulnerable accessibility to God’s love, mercy, grace, and justice.  I would hope that they discover that prayer brings and is an awareness of our need, a knowledge without which there is no growth or becoming.  I would have our children know through experience and example that there is nothing too insignificant to lay before God. Yet, in that openness, we often find Him lifting us above what we brought to Him making it insignificant compared to the revelation He brings to us as a result of our coming to Him.  

I would not have our grandchildren think of prayer as a commercial enterprise, a sort of celestial clearing house for distributing earth’s material goods.  Rather, I would have prayer teach them that what we so often think we seek is not on the list of what we need, yet God does not upbraid us for our seeking but delights in our coming to Him, even when we don’t understand.  Mostly, I would have our grandchildren know how synonymous true prayer is with gratitude and contentment and have them discover the marvelous outlet prayer is for communicating this delight with God.

Lastly, I would teach our grandchildren to soar, to rise above the common, yet find delight in the commonplace, to fly over the distracting disturbances of life, yet see from this perspective ways to attack the knotty problems that thwart people’s growth and stymie their development.  I would give them wings to dream and insight to see beyond the now, and have those wings develop strength from much use so that others may be born aloft as well when life becomes too weighty for them to bear.  At last these wings, I know, will take our children high and away from our reach to places we have together dreamed of, and I will watch and cheer as they fade from my view into vistas grand and new, and I will be glad.

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And a Child Shall Lead Them

I have grown up in the church and have heard nearly every theological debate human minds can devise. All through my growing-up years, the various branches of Christendom would have had it out at my parents’ dining room table, and ever since we’ve had a home of our own, Bill and I have witnessed our share of skirmishes, too.  Calvinist, Armenian, Reformed, Covenant, Catholic, Pentecostal, pre-, past-, and a-millennial, dispensational…ad infinitum.

Personally, I think they are all true, but not exclusively so.  With Milton, I tend to believe that God is paradox and we – finite minds that we are – can’t abide paradox.  We won’t be happy until we shove the infinite I Am into some manageable and label-able box called “a systematic theology.”  

Meanwhile, God manages to leak out through the cracks in our systems and show up in some denominationally mongrel neighborhood Bible study of young mothers driven together by their hearts, hungry for the Living Water.  Oh, my!

One debate I’ve heard way more than is edifying is the “literal/symbolic” debate, especially about the prophetic books of the Bible.  To this debate, I’m afraid I have to quote Jesus’ words roughly translated: “It’s not either/or; it’s both/and.”  Most disputed issues are debated over the details of a truth so huge that it is able to embrace both of our puny human viewpoints and have plenty of room left to “confound the wise.” Children, of course, get this.

For example, I have heard otherwise intelligent people get really bent out of shape about whether, in heaven, lions, their natural ferocious and carnivorous natures tamed and muzzled by paradise, will actually lie down with lambs. 

This miracle would be too small, I think.  Unlike hard-headed people, animals already obey the laws of God in nature and God can change the rules if He wants to.  But what a marvel if, here and now, instead of men and women whose strong wills and natures, lacking love, devour each other, we would be tamed by the coming of the Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven” as Jesus prayed.

What if the “meek lambs” among us could actually lie down in the same field as the aggressive lion-hearted among us?  What if those of us who are vulnerable rams could eat (with a calm and trusting spirit) right next to the guy we know who is a sure-enough swift, lethal and destructive leopard, our “natural” enemy.

Could it be that Jesus came for that?  Could it be the angels weren’t just humming a holiday tune that night on the Judean hillside when they predicted, “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth – good will to all kinds of people.”

Could it be that this melodic prediction could apply to homes where it’s been more like the Third World War than a place of peace and balance?  Could we all be remade by the Savior, this tender plant sprouting from the desert sands foretold by good old Isaiah, this Messiah who would not shout in the streets or break the bruised reeds among us?  And aren’t we all on a given day bruised reeds who don’t need a theologian who clubs us with certainties nearly as much as we need a lover to hold us close?

This child.  This Holy Child has come, I’m convinced, not to endorse all the humiliating things that have, sadly, been done in His name through the centuries, but to lead us from the war-torn battlefields of our own making.  He has come to cover us with his atonement for all the sick, sad, pointless pain we have caused each other and to heal our land, one broken heart at a time.

And when we’re too betrayed and suspicious to trust each other, when utopians turn out to be a façade and politicians who promise solutions prove to be mostly self-serving, when religious institutions are so distracted by their own in-house debates to notice a child slipping off the precipice of society, maybe it will have to be, ironically, a child who will lead us – then grow up to bleed for us so that his immense wounds can, at last, heal us.   This is Christmas…and Easter…and Valentine’s Day, too.

And A Child Shall Lead Them

Lions and lambs, leopards and rams feed together.
Gentle and wild, vicious and mild lie down.
Natures change there at the manger where hist’ry turns the page,
And God breathes the breath of a baby.

And a child shall lead them from their war-torn lands,
Yes, a child shall lead them; they shall go hand- in-hand.
And my holy mountain shall be filled with peace,
As water covers the ocean, and a child shall lead.

Broken and torn, in silence they mourn a fam’ly, 
Shattered, a trust lies in the dust and dies.
Then in that place, wonder and grace, like a seed that sprouts from sand
Remakes a man and a woman.

And a chid shall lead them…

Lyric: Gloria Gaither
Music: William J. Gaither and Doug Eltzroth
Copyright ©1989 Gaither Music Company

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And The Song Goes On...And On...And On

There has always been the Song.  It was echoing through the formless void, and it was the Song that called the galaxies into the dance, that drew spheres into relationships we call universes.  The stars could not resist the wooing of the Song, and each responded with a song of its own, making a harmony too beautiful to bear.

It was the Song that pulled order out of chaos and tuned to itself the instruments of each constellation.  The Song was the Light that made the murky clear, the ambiguous specific.  Our own spere we call earth was set in its orbit as the Song breathed the elements and sang them into existence. Gasses and particles and vapors were assigned a purpose, and they became water and clay and atmosphere. The music of the Song drew all things into such an intricate and interwoven masterpiece of order and beauty that its pattern would confound the greatest minds that were to come, for it was the Song that sang those very minds into existence. 

Since creation, down through the ages, each generation has heard and sung that Song to its children.  The Patriarchs sang it.  Hannah and Moses and Joshua sang it.  Deborah and Barak, David and Asaph and Solomon sang it.  The prophets sang it.  Finally, a young woman was visited by an angel who brought the news that the Song that sang galaxies into existence was coming to earth, to her.  And so she sang!

My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior
For He has regarded the lowly estate of His maidservant,
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me.
And holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him
From generation to generation....  (Luke 1:47-55)

And the Song came to sing among us.  Handel heard it and wrote what he heard for symphonies and voices.   Bach and Mendelssohn, Shubert and Vivaldi composed the music of their hearts to the Song.  Charles Wesley, Fanny Crosby, John Ness Beck, Ralph Carmichael, and John Peterson celebrated the Song with their music and words.  Stuart Hamblen and Mosie Lister, Fred Bock and Ronn Huff joined the long parade of writers who gave their hearts and their lives to the music of the Song.  

Now it’s up to us to carry the Song to a new generation and pull our children into the dance.  All heaven and nature sing!  We, too, must sing the Song and let the music fill the air!  Let the Song go on, and on, and on.....

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His Love...Reaching

Before anything else existed there was Christ with God.  He has always been alive and is himself God.  He created everything that is…nothing exists that he didn’t make. *  All that came to be was alive with his life, and that life was the light of men.**

The coming of the babe in the manger was not the first time Christ entered the world.  He has always been there – with the Father, and the story of His love reaching out to man began as long ago as time itself.

At first, God’s love reached out in creation, and His reaching had such enormous power that the firmament burst forth from his fingertips.  The sun and moon took their places, and God sprinkled the night with a thousand stars.  The waters found their way to their own boundaries and the tides were forever set.  Fishes and creatures of the deep found their paths in the sea.

And God went on reaching, and dry land appeared, buds burst forth.  Then came fields and grasses, hills and plains.  Heartbeats of animals and all living creatures throbbed at the touch of God’s reaching.  

Photo by Angela Kellogg

Even yet, Love, longing for someone to whom to give itself, was not satisfied, for love needs someone to receive.  So God reached further and made a man.

But man did not understand.  He took for granted the marvelous order and beauty that surrounded him.  He didn’t see that all the things God’s love had created were a result of God reaching out to him.  Instead of returning God’s love in gratitude by treasuring nature’s resources, man selfishly used, wasted and prostituted creation, blindly failing to recognize that it was all intended to be the lovely backdrop for abundant life.

Still, love went on reaching.  It was God’s reaching that caused Him to put a special value on the human person, that caused God to make man only a little lower than the angels, that gave man the treasure of being able to think and reason, to question and learn – to laugh and cry, to weep and rejoice.

But man misused this gift, distorted and wasted his thinking, perverted his emotions, violated his sensitivities to the feelings of others, and even used his mind to formulate theories arguing that he, himself, was the god of the universe and that his own mind had invented all things.

Still love went on reaching.  It was God’s reaching in love that built safeguards into the universe so this man wouldn’t destroy himself.  They were simple, timeless guidelines for freedom and joy.  But man called them bondage, fetters, chains.  He simply didn’t understand that the law was love’s safe harbor for his protection from the storms of himself.

Right from the beginning, God’s love has reached, and from the beginning, man has refused to understand.  But love went on reaching, risking rejection, offering itself.

Love offered the eternal; we wanted the immediate.  Love offered deep joy; we wanted thrills.  Love offered freedom, we wanted license.  Love offered communion with God Himself; we wanted worship at the shrine of our minds.  Love offered peace; we wanted approval for our wars.

Even yet, love went on reaching…and the word of the Father became Mary’s little son, and his love reached all the way to where I was.

His Love…Reaching

Love has always been here,
In the chaos of our world;
It was the Word that echoed through the formless void--
And whether in the universe or worlds of our own minds,
It’s love that turns our chaos into joy.

The Word that formed creation
Man just couldn’t understand,
Its sound was muffled by our wars and strifes;
And man destroyed resources God intended just to be
The lovely backdrop for abundant life.

And so this great Creator 
Who’d been reaching all along,
This God who formed the worlds with His own hands,
Made Love become a Baby, one of our very own,
And spoke His Word so we could understand.

His love, went on longing,
His love went on reaching
Right past the shackles of my mind;
And the Word of the Father became Mary’s little Son,
And His love reached all the way to where I was.

* John 1:1-3, LB
** John 1:4-5 NEB

Taken from the musical His Love...Reaching,
Words by Gloria Gaither; Music by William J. Gaither
Copyright © 1975 Hanna Street Music (BMI) (adm. at CapitolCMGPublishing.com) All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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Through

Over all these years of singing, writing, and working with people, we have heard one word over and over.  It is a word mentioned in almost every letter we’ve received; we hear it from folks who come to speak to us after concerts and in retreats where I have spoken.  The word is through.  “The songs got me through.”

Whenever we have stood before a group, be it a small intimate group or an overwhelming mass of people filling an arena, here or abroad, we can be sure of one common denominator: Everyone is going through something.  We all deal with “stuff,” and we will until we get through this life on earth.

How often we pray that God will remove or fix whatever we are going through:  illness, broken relationships, sadness, estrangement, set-backs, disappointments in business or vocation, loss of hoped-for opportunities.  We gather in each other’s homes or churches and ask for prayer that God will make the problems go away, that he will heal our bodies, make our spouses love us, change our children, give us that promotion or send an answer to financial difficulties.

All of these requests and supplications are legitimate subjects of prayer; God wants us to bring to Him anything that troubles us.  We are told in scripture to “cast all our anxiety on him because he cares for [us.]” (1 Pet. 5:7) Yet we know, too, that the things we so often ask Him to remove from us are the very things he uses in our lives to grow in us the qualities we most desire and He desires for us.

We know, for example that no one really wants the life our unbridled fallible inclinations would precipitate.  Galatians lists what selfish life without the Spirit looks like: sexual immortality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies.  All of these are filling homes, neighborhoods, the workplace, and governments with pain and war.  No one in her right mind would choose such a life.  No one dreams of a marriage or a house or a family or a community filled with such things.

Instead, in our heart of hearts we long to go home to a place filled with these qualities: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  But how do we get these qualities?  Often the very things we ask God to remove or to fix are the very things He is using to bring out in us the qualities for which we long.  We become patient, for example, by waiting, not by instant solutions.  We get peace by relaxing in His ways, knowing they’re higher, deeper, more enduring than our ways.  We become faithful by “sticking it out” when it would be easier for the moment to quit, throw in the towel and walk away.

We become good and kind and gentle by not reacting to slights, not giving the one who has hurt us “what they’ve got coming.”  Going through stuff ourselves gives us insights into what others have gone through, the abuse they may have endured, the disappointments they’ve had, the opportunities they may have lost.

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

“For as the heavens are higher than this earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”  (Isaiah 55:8-9)

There is that eternal perspective again – the big picture.

“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there but water the earth…so shall My word be that goes forth the from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”  (Isaiah 55:10)

We can be sure, then, that God is always up to something in our lives and it is good and it is eternal.   What the temporal is after is immediate and transient, and, ultimately, often destructive.  Selfishness is always destructive.

When God asks something of us, when he sends His word to the specifics of our days – His commandments, his promises, His blessings, His warnings – it is always to prosper us, but not always in the value system of earth.   He always is in the business of prospering us in eternal terms – in qualities that will endure.

Sometimes just the “fall-out” from what He is developing in us brings with it the tangible good things of earth: notoriety, financial abundance, positions of leadership.  Even earth is in desperate need of the good qualities of heaven.  But be assured those things are never the end result God is after.  His Word will always “prosper in the things for which he sent it.”  And those things are eternal commodities.

God turns even our propensity to disobedience into a gift of sorts, so that when we hit a wall, we will know that we can never take credit for our so-called virtues, but be driven back to Him for mercy, grace, joy, forgiveness, and, most important of all, love--the deepest longing of both the human and the divine heart.

So, no matter what we are going through, be certain that God loves us too much to let us settle for the petty successes of earth when He longs to open to us the storehouse of His unsearchable riches.  He has started something in us beyond our wildest imagination, and He will complete what He has started if we’ll just let Him take us through.

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Come on Down for Thanksgiving

For most of us, Thanksgiving and Christmas won’t be quite the same again this year.  Bill and I were together alone last year because of Covid-19.  Travel was restricted and large gatherings of any kind was discouraged.  

The big gathering we’ve always had on Thanksgiving, usually with forty or more family and friends, circled around our big kitchen with its central island groaning with bounty, will not be happening. We will not be reading “The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers”.  Our ceremony of the youngest child passing around a tiny basket of grains of Indian corn so each person can in turn return their kernel and tell what he or she is most thankful for since we were last in this circle will have to be celebrated in small family groups in separate homes.

The journey back home for Christmas might not be worth the risk of air travel, especially for those most vulnerable.  Many families have lost in the last year some of the generation that would have called us back home. Some families have fractured because the center did not hold.

War and pandemics and elections do not cause the crumbling of safe harbors.  It is the erosions of the heart, the fraying of the cables that hold the ship tethered to the pier.  Disturbances that shake the foundations only reveal the fissures and the fractures that were there all along behind the plaster and façade. Troubling times demand an inventory of the footings and foundations.  Circumstances may come like a storm, but if the moorings hold, if the foundations are strong, we will stand.

 So maybe this is the time to strengthen the cables and give loving care to the ties that bind.  It is certainly a time to prioritize, because, as someone has so ably said, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.  The institutions and systems of this world are not the main thing.  Kings and kingdoms will all pass away; these are not where our eternal citizenships lie. Often things in which we invest our time and energies, our finances and allegiances, the things that drain our emotional and physical resources—when we ask ourselves at the end of an exhausting day, “Was there any eternity in it?” we are hard fixed to come up with a list of what we did that really mattered.

It helps me to remind myself that gratitude helps my perspective.  There is no greater preventative for cynicism than to focus on the blessings of simple things in regular days, things I tend to take for granted because they are so regular. These things are not insignificant; they are the main thing.

There is a new song that Bill and Gerald Crab wrote for the new Christmas Vocal Band project.  The song focuses on a couple of real life situations that, like most circumstances, seem to be so in our faces that they eclipse all the rest of life.  A dime held close enough to our eye can cover the moon. We’ve all been there.  In our desperation we feel as if God is a million miles away.  As the song says, our prayer comes out, “Come on down, please Jesus, come on down. Heal this broken world and make it right!”

God hears our desperate cries—about our circumstances, about the crazy world, about things beyond our power to affect.  Yet, when we get quiet enough to hear, Jesus whispers to our tired spirits, “I did come down. And I never left.  I am with you always, even until the end of this world.”

Then comes a renewed sense of gratitude, and a clearer recognition of our Father’s loving message posted all around us.  The corny old chorus doesn’t seem so corny after all.

Count your blessings; name them one by one.
Count your blessings; see what God has done.
Count your blessings. Name them. One. By. One.
Count your many blessings; see what God has done. 

“Rest in You Tonight” is available on the Gaither Vocal Band’s new CD/DVD All Heaven and Nature Sing. Purchase or listen HERE.

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The Manger and the Cross

In a question-answer session at a Christian college, a student schooled in the literalist tradition asked the great writer Madeleine L’Engle if she thought the creation story in Genesis was literally true.  Was there a literal Garden of Eden and a literal Adam and Eve?  Her answer was simple: “It’s truer than that.”

I have found that the more I read the Word, the more depths I find there are to be plumbed that go beyond the story, no matter how historically true the account. Over time, the Jews have proven to be careful historians of places, events, and genealogies.  But the deeper truths of metaphor woven into the account of historical events is an interconnected revelation of eternal consequence. 

In all the prophecies related to the coming of the Messiah and the events surrounding the birth Jesus the Christ, is a story that is truer than the facts of the happening.  So that we would know how true it is, the details matter and are more than random, although it must have seemed so at the time.

The bookends that hold the story of what we now know as the coming of the long-expected Messiah—the bookends were made of wood.  Now, one would think that an event of such consequence so long prophesied and so well-known over centuries by both the commoners and the learned, when it actually took place, would be earmarked by symbols of royalty, pageantry, and celebration by the pillars of power.

But it seems that the heavy doors of history most often swing on very small hinges.  And this event and the short life-span that followed it that was to alter history was so ordinary and so unspectacular that the subtle story unfolded with little notice for those considered to be “somebody.”  In fact, the wooden book-ends that held the story were not even fine polished wood, but the ripped and rugged boards that would make a carpenter cringe.

At the time the circumstances seemed a difficult inconvenience brought about by an edict from an invasive power-structure to bleed the citizens of more taxes. Only the young pregnant woman and her betrothed knew that another Presence propelled them forward, a Presence that had planted a promise and a seed in the young woman.  The two of them protected that seed as best they could even though the mandate to return to the place of their genealogical origin made them strangers in an overcrowded city, bearing what, back in the Exodus that long preceded theirs, was called “the bread of Presence” (Exodus 25:3), now about to be made flesh.

So it was that these two arrived in Bethlehem, the City of Bread.  But there was no “table of Presence” to hold this Bread, at least until a kind inn keeper offered his shelter for animals so the urgent baby wouldn’t be relegated to the street.  The rough-sawn feeding trough, likely already half filled with seeds and grains for the evening feeding of the inn’s guest donkeys and horses, was offered, too, with some clean hay for both the young couple and their soon-to-be-born infant; the inn keeper provided at least a private corner, warmed by the breath of animals, in which Mary could finish her labor.  Did the inn keeper’s wife bring water and some cloths?  Did she help the awkward carpenter with the delivery?

We only know that this promised Messiah was laid on some fresh hay, swaddled in cloths to make him feel secure in this very insecure place.  When his tiny hand brushed against the splintered, rough-sawn wood of the manger, did Joseph cringe, he who had sanded and polished so many pieces of fine wood for cabinets and doors and ornamental furniture?

Did Mary grasp these moments of rest and solitude with her baby before borrowed neighbors rushed in with the newborn lambs they couldn’t leave behind on the hillside, to tell of another Presence—that of angels filling the sky...and their hearts?  Little did those, crowded in that stable around this fragile infant, know that this would not be the last time this tender hand would touch such rugged wood, nor that He, too, would become a carpenter, loving fine wood, sanding it smooth, making it shine.

But He would live His life against the grain, rubbing systems and governments the wrong way by his very life and words.  Systems would resent his sanding and planing, the knocking off the barbs of cruelty to the poor and powerless.  And this carpenter’s hand would offensively be nailed against the grain to the roughest of woods—a cross—not because He was powerless, but because His power was from another system, the law of love.

The manger.  The cross.  Literal bookends of a new kind of Kingdom.  Yes, literal wood and a literal baby.  But truer than that.  The Bread of Life would invade our world in a place called the City of Bread.  The seed of God himself would be laid in a rough-sawn rugged feed trough for animals, and this great God Jehovah would come all the way to where we are.  He would begin and end His physical, literal days on this earth with a literal manger and a literal cross.  But our own hearts would be this Bread’s table of Presence.  

Oh, yes, we love the Christmas story. But in this story, everything counts because it’s so much truer than that!

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No Unknown Soldiers

One of my best friends on and off the road is Janet Paschal.  I always smile when I hear people describe her as if she were a china doll, fragile, breakable, and delicate with black patent leather shoes painted on her china feet.  Okay, yes, Janet is petite and beautiful with a voice that can sooth the troubled beast, but she is no china doll.  She is smart, witty, and certainly no push-over.  She has opinions and good logic to back them up. Janet is also a good songwriter.

One of her best songs is one she wrote about her grandfather when he was leaving this world, “Another Soldier’s Coming Home.”  It’s addressed to her heavenly Father about this dear man who served God faithfully all his life.  So many of those who have lost a loved one who was a role model of faith over the years have identified with this song.

Of course, because of the soldier metaphor in the song, it has resonated with many military families.  Years after she wrote it, Janet got word that a soldier that had been killed in 1972 during the Vietnam War, listed as an unknown soldier, and buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, had been identified by his DNA as Michael Blassie and was being shipped home to his family in Missouri.  The family contacted Janet to ask if she would come to the ceremony for his reburial and sing her song, “Another Soldier’s Coming Home.” The military burial was covered by all the major networks.

Bill and I watch the beautiful service with tears in our eyes as this once lost and unidentified young man was celebrated by his mid-west family and community.  One of the moving speeches was given by a high-ranking officer who said in his tribute, “This may be the last unknown soldier to serve our country because of the discovery of DNA....”

It was that line that caught my attention.  I kept thinking that this soldier, who knew Jesus and had come from a family of strong faith, was never unidentified or missing-in-action in the Army of the Lord.  No faithful soldier in the service of that army can ever be lost.  God has always had our DNA and never leaves those who serve Him to languish on life’s battlefield.

In the next few days after the ceremony in St. Louis, I wrote the lyrics to “No Unknown Soldier” to which Lari Goss wrote the perfect music.  The song was recorded by Ernie Haas and Signature Sound on their upcoming project, and they sang it at the Homecoming taping in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

Thanks to Janet’s tribute to her grandfather and a ceremony to an “unknown soldier” whose identity was finally established, and to an officer who paid tribute to him, a deep truth was stamped on my heart.  God has our true identity established forever.  We are of a royal lineage and can never be lost from the care of the King that we serve.

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The Stage is Bare

The concert had been a sellout. It turned out to be an enthusiastic audience of all ages with waves of laughter and applause between the songs, the laughter, and the moments of deep spiritual awareness.  A great night!

By the time we were finished tearing down displays in the lobby, putting equipment in the bus, and changing our clothes in the dressing room, the building was empty. All the lights were out except for one lone lightbulb dangling by a frayed cord from the ceiling above the stage. As we carried our bags across the stage from the dressing rooms to the back door, we stopped for a moment and talked about the evening. The single light and the huge silent room were such a contrast to the spotlights and the excitement of an hour ago.

“It was a great night,” one of the performers said. “But the question is, do the things we sang and said then work now?”

There is always a danger that politicians will start believing their own press releases, that kids will not be able to distinguish fairy tales from reality, that performers and actors will not be capable of separating the stage and the floodlights from their Monday mornings and daylight.

Bill and I have spent a great deal of time with aspiring young artists, not so much to help them “make it,” but in the hopes of teaching them some things that may save them from themselves when they do make it.

In our culture, talent often results in what the world would call “success,” but it has been our experience that success is often much harder to deal with than failure. In fact, failure is often good for us human beings; we learn from our failures. While we can learn from our failures, we’re more often destroyed by success.

The Palm Sunday story in the Bible carries a very modern application. It’s easy to praise the Lord in a crowd of cheering worshipers, singing songs and “lifting holy hands.” But when the dust clears, and the music stops, and the lights are reduced to a bare lightbulb dangling from a frayed cord, what then? Is our praise as convincing when we’re alone in an elevator? Does it “preach” when we’re the only person in the congregation?

I once heard someone say about a Christian speaker: “I’d be more impressed if I ever heard him pray when he wasn’t on stage.”

My father was a pastor, and I often heard him quote 1 Corinthians 9:27, Paul’s high standard, which my dad held up for himself: “But discipline my body and bring it into subjection: lest, that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway” (NKJV). That verse was like a caution light that flashed over my parents’ ministry.  It is a caution light for me. It is a warning for Bill’s and my ministry of writing and speaking and parenting and living in our little town. What we do when the stage is dark and bare is so much more important than what we do when it’s bright and full.

When our traveling groups meet for a time of prayer before concerts, we have often prayed that we would be as real at McDonald’s after the concert as we seem during the concert, that our lives with the stagehands and the auditorium’s staff would be as convincing as our lives beyond the spotlight.

When it is all said and done, I hope our children and our parents, our neighbors, and the ­people with whom we work will see our praise lived out much more articulately than we are ever able to express in words and in print.

May our failures and shortcomings be redeemed by the sweet love and grace of Jesus so that His spirit makes a more lasting memory than our fragile humanity. It was this deep desire and that night on the empty stage that inspired this song. Sandy was there that night, and it was she that first recorded the song.

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Then Came the Morning

At first, after a death, there are things to do: arrangements to make, friends bringing condolences to receive, stories to tell. But after the funeral and burial, reality sets in. The sympathizers go back to their work and lives. The flowers lie wilting on the grave. The leftover casseroles are scraped into the garbage disposal. The house is empty.

Bits and fragments associated with the one so recently present begin the long caravan of reminders: a pair of gardening shoes by the back steps, an old wool plaid coat in the hall closet with a wadded-up tissue and a pack of Clove gum in the pocket, a scribbled note in the margins of a favorite book, a roll of half-exposed film still in a camera, a layaway slip with only half of the payments recorded in the pocket of a worn leather wallet. As the days go by, the other reminders lie in ambush: a fragment of a song on a passing car’s radio, an old joke overheard in the grocery store, the smell of a certain kind of fragrance. As Emily Dickinson once wrote, “the sweeping up the heart and putting love away” is the “saddest of all industries enacted upon earth.”

Grieving is the private thing after the public ceremonies surrounding a death are over, and no two ­people do grief alike. Some drop out of sight, avoid human contact. Some are terrified of being alone and surround themselves with ­people. Some treasure a loved one’s possessions; others clean them out and move to a new setting not so laden with memories. Some need to talk again and again through the memories and the emotions that go with them. Others clam up and act as if nothing has happened.

We ­don’t know exactly how those who walked with Jesus processed the public execution of their gentle friend. We do know that one of his friends, a wealthy man named Joseph from a nearby town called Arimathea, went to Pilate and asked to have Jesus’ body released to him after it was taken down from the cross. Joseph was an official of the Jewish Council and had enough status to make the request. We know, too, that Joseph had already purchased the linen shroud and that he wrapped Jesus’ body himself and placed it in his own tomb carved into a rock.

We know that everything had to be finished before sundown that strange surreal night because nothing remotely like work or preparations could be done on the Sabbath. But after sundown, how did these very different personalities deal with the reality of Jesus’ death: There was John, the gentle lover; Peter, the impetuous; Thomas, the cynic; Mary Magdalene, the much forgiven; Luke, the scientific processor; Salome, the doer; young Mark, the observer of detail; and Mary, the over-protective mother of James. Each must have had a unique reaction.

The Sabbath was a day of required rest, but did they wait in silence? Did they meet at each other’s homes and talk it all through? Who first felt rage at the wasteful loss of this man? Who sifted through events for some clue that would make sense of it all, give some logic to this spiral of circumstances? Who of them was in denial, wondering if it had all been a horrible nightmare from which they might awaken any moment?

For the doers, the sunset on that Saturday night released them to get busy. Three of these were Mary Magdalene; Mary, James’ mother; and Salome. Preparing spices gave them a practical way to work out their grief, and preparing Jesus’ body would let them do something to show their deep love for this friend who was now gone. Had any one of them caught His line to the Pharisees about restoring “this temple in three days”? Were any of them secretly wondering if, by some act of the Divine, He would return to them? Which of them felt despair?

One thing is certain: nothing halts the grieving process like a resurrection!

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I Don't Belong

Life on the road is hard work. Contrary to what most ­people think, those who make their living in a portable profession do not have a life of all glamour and glory. Travel is full of inconveniences and frustrations. One needs to learn to accept disappointing cancellations and long waits in airports or in truck stops for repairs as par for the course. Sleeping in crook-necked positions while leaning against a building pillar or, if one is fortunate, a friendly shoulder; eating food you ­don’t quite recognize; adjusting to performing the “routine of toilet” in less than convenient or sanitary surroundings—these are all part of the traveler’s life.

Add to these realities the assorted artistic temperaments of a troupe grouped together because they love to sing, but not necessarily because they are compatiible in other ways,  and you could have the makings of a civil war. At the very least, let me say from experience, traveling together gives ­people ample opportunity to get to know and test the validity of each other’s Christian graces. It also develops some amazing friendships and calls forth some qualities in human character that are tantamount to sainthood.

Bill and I have been traveling as a part of our work for more than fifty years. We have had dozens—maybe, by now, hundreds—of other artists and writers, sound engineers and technicians share with us station wagons, vans, motor homes, buses, and planes for extended periods of time. We have, in that time, known a few divas, but mostly we have become well acquainted with some beautiful human beings whose confessions and professions of faith were most articulately made by the quality of their servant attitudes in the pressured and unguarded moments of life, on and off the road.

When I think of validity, perhaps no name comes so quickly to mind as that of Buddy Greene, with whom this song was written. Buddy is a man of God in the most practical and unpious sense. One of Bill’s and my all-time favorite ways to spend the hours on the road is to engage in a deep, honest discussion of a great life issue or theological concept. The truth of the adage “iron sharpens iron” is most evident when two or more ­people will allow each other to agree and disagree—sometimes heatedly—on the safe soil of common respect and mutual acceptance.

Buddy Greene is one of the travelers who most loves to plumb the depths of the things of God. One road discussion with him was precipitated by an article in a newspaper about the murder and sexual abuse of a child. Buddy and I were talking about how sick the world had become and how depraved human beings can act without Jesus. That turned to a discussion of how even Christian groups seem to twist and distort the simple message of love, grace, and forgiveness Jesus came to live out for us. The “politicizing” and “culturalizing” of the Gospel as a way to polarize believers seemed to us such a contradiction of Jesus’ words: “Come unto me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

“I feel sometimes like an alien,” I eventually said to Buddy. “And I’m not so sure I even want to ‘belong’ in a world where babies are abused and the powerful are rewarded for misusing the weak. When we start to ‘fit in’ in such a world, some caution light should start to blink in our souls.”

“Well, you are an alien,” Buddy said. “We all are. We’re strangers and pilgrims. But remember, an alien is not a person without a country. Aliens are citizens, but not of the country they are in for a while. We, too, are citizens. It’s just that our citizenship ­isn’t here.”

A few miles after our discussion, I gave Buddy a lyric I had finished. He took it home and called me later. “I think ­I’ve got some music to your song,” he said. “Want to hear it?” Writers often play music or read lyrics over the phone. To the tune he’d just created, Buddy sang me the lyric I’d given him. I knew it was right. “Like a glove, Buddy!” I said when he was finished.

Buddy himself recorded the song on a project he appropriately named “Sojourner’s Song,” the original title of the song. I still like that title best, though the song is now known as “I ­Don’t Belong.” I like “Sojourner’s Song” because the truth is, we do belong. We are citizens. It’s just that our citizenship is in another country to which we are ­traveling. And since this world is not our home anyway, we may as well love and give and live while we’re here as if ­we’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

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I've Just Seen Jesus

Many epic films have been made of biblical stories and the life of Christ—The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, Jesus of Nazareth, and Quo Vadis, and now The Chosen, to name a few. Hollywood effects have made the Red Sea part and the waves form a giant wall of water for the cast of thousands to march to freedom from Pharaoh’s army. Technology has caused a river to turn to blood and leprosy to disappear.

But for me no film device has been as powerful as that used in the old black and white Cecil B. DeMille film King of Kings. Instead of casting an actor to portray Christ, the director chose to show only Jesus’ feet walking along the way. The cameras focused not on Jesus but on the faces of those who were affected by Him. Made before the days of “talking films,” the movie forced its audience to read on the screen what Jesus said, and then see the result of His words in the lives changed or the bodies healed.

I was a small child when I saw this film, yet I can remember scenes in detail: the face of the woman taken in adultery when her eyes met the Master; the way the crippled child looked when he felt strength flowing into his withered leg; the joy the ten lepers expressed when they peeled off the bandages that had held their rotting skin on their bones.

But movie depictions would pale in the reality of walking with the living Christ. What an experience it would have been to see Jesus as He walked the dusty streets of Nazareth, to sit near Him on the grassy slopes of Galilee and with our own ears hear Him say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.... Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” To have Him take me by the hand and raise me to my feet as He spoke the words, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” To have Him touch our dead child and say, “She is only sleeping. Child, get up.” What an experience it would have been to say at the dinner table after such a day, ­“We’ve just seen this Jesus!”

But of all the encounters with the living, walking Christ of history, none would have been as amazing as those the disciples who loved Him best experienced the third day after the crucifixion. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus, Martha and Mary of Bethany, Peter, John, Thomas ... on Friday they had stood at the foot of the cross. Every unbearable moment of that afternoon had been etched in their memory: the nails, the thud of the cross as it dropped into the hole the executioners had dug for it, the seven times Jesus had groaned out His last words. How could they ever forget the ugly, taunting remarks of the Romans? The contrast between the curses of one thief who died beside Him and the plea of another whose eyes met Jesus’s as He promised that that very day they would be together in paradise—these memories played back over and over again as these witnesses tried to sleep that Saturday night.

They had waited around—through the storm, through the eerie blackness of midday until evening when the soldiers came to confirm that the bodies were lifeless. It ­hadn’t been hard to take Jesus’ body down from the cross; the nails—from the rough treatment and the weight of His body—had torn large holes through His hands.

Joseph of Arimathea spoke to the soldiers and asked for permission to take Jesus’ body for burial in an unused grave on his property. By the time the body had been released and they’d carried it to the tomb, they had little time left before sundown, the beginning of Sabbath, to wash and wrap the body. There was no doubt that Jesus was dead. The gaping wounds, especially from the spear the soldiers had jabbed in His side, had released so much blood and body fluids that He looked shrunken and dehydrated.  

How tenderly they must have washed His body, His words still echoing through their minds: “Take, eat; this is my body that is broken for you.” The night before they had thought that the bread and the wine and His words were only symbols as ancient as Moses.

Now they realized this was a new thing—this breaking of bread He had asked them to “do in remembrance” of Him. For His part, it was no symbol. His real body here in their hands was torn to pieces. For them, too, it would become more than a symbol; it would become a call to follow His example, even if it meant losing their lives.

That Sabbath eve they had gone their separate ways in silence. There was nothing to say. It seemed to be all over. They had walked an amazing journey with Him toward a promised kingdom that now seemed to lie shattered at their feet. Yet something unexplainable in their bones felt not like an end but a beginning. Perhaps they were in denial, yet there was a sense of hope in all the black hopelessness that no one could articulate—not to each other, not to themselves.

They would each tell a very personal account of those hours, for knowing Him was a personal experience, shared, yet uniquely their own. One thing for certain: No one could really see Him, or be seen by those eyes that seemed to look into one’s very soul, and ever be the same again.

Then, on that Easter morning, they found the tomb empty. Mary Magdalene had actually spoken to the living Christ, and they—Peter and John—ran to check out her story. Could it be true? They felt the gamut of emotions as they entered the garden of the tomb. They could see at once the open grave, the stone leaning to one side as if it had been shoved like a child’s toy out of someone’s way. And then they saw the figure clothed in white, sitting on the huge stone to the side of where they had laid their Lord’s body.

“Why do you look for life in the place of the dead? He is not here! He is risen! Look, this is where you laid Him!”

Their faces. What was in their faces? And how did they return to the other disciples? Whatever happened to them there and later when He appeared to them, charged them with a passion that still, two thousand years later, makes us believe their story.

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