Are You Safe?

"God is our refuge and Strength

An ever present help in trouble..."

Psalm 46:1

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble..."  Psalm 46:1. "Did you feel safe?"  "Were you ever in any danger?"  Those are the kinds of questions people ask when you take a trip to Israel.  I know many don't take this trip because of fears about security.  I understand that.  The news reports in the west make this seem like a dangerous place.   But the truth is that the only violence I've seen since being here was on TV - a news report about rioting in Baltimore.

Oh, there is danger here.  Israel has enemies all around it.   Security is very important here.  You see that in the very thorough check you go through before boarding a flight to Israel.  I often tell people that I never feel safer than when I am flying to or from Israel. Except that wouldn't be true because I hate turbulence.  

That all brings me to my thought today.  Is there any real security in this world?   Recent events suggest that even the White House can not be kept 100% safe.  Every parent who has sent their child out with the car alone for the first time has learned that they can't and won't always be able to protect their kids.  

Is there any place we can feel 100%safe?  These words from Psalm 46 give the answer.  "God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble..."  The only real security we have in this life is knowing that we are in God's hands.  As those baptized into Christ that is precisely where we are!  His hands hold us and they are amazing.  They are the strong hands of the Almighty God who created the heavens and the earth.  They are the loving, nail scared, living hands of our Savior who died for us and rose again.  His are hands we can trust.

Please understand this - this security is not a guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen.  This is a security that knows that even when the worst happens - we will be safe.  Psalm 46 does not say, God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble, therefore everything will always be fine."  No it says, 

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble, therefore we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea..."

I read these words to my father in ICUS, when he had his heart attack.  Moments later he died.  Did God fail to keep my dad safe?  No, in fact He kept his promise.  He became in the face of death my dad's most secure refuge!  Now my dad is safe in the hands of Jesus awaiting the Day of the Resurrection.  Even now you and I by faith are in those same hands - no matter what happens.

What Defines You?

"If anyone is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation..."

2 Corinthians 5:17

Have you ever watched one of those TED talks on the internet?  If you haven’t then you should.  Google TED talks and then watch a couple of them.   I love them and I hate them.  I love them because they make me think.  I hate them for the same reason.  The one I watched this morning is the perfect example – it was about shame.   I have been wrestling with what the speaker said all day.  She was explaining the difference between guilt and shame.  “Shame,” she said, “is a focus on self.  Guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is ‘I am bad.”  Guilt is ‘I did something bad.’”  I was tracking with her up to that point.  Then she added, “Guilt – I am sorry I made a mistake.  Shame – I am sorry, I am a mistake.”  That’s what troubled me.  That’s what I have been struggling with.   “Is that what I believe, that I am a mistake?”   Is saying, “I am bad” the same thing as saying, “I am a mistake?”   I don’t think so.  But I have to admit to you that I am really wrestling with this.  Like all of you, I struggle with shame and guilt.  I worry, “If I am bad, how can I possibly love myself?”  Then I looked up on the wall of my office and saw the picture you see posted on my blog today – a picture of a baptismal font. 

That’s why I am down here today, standing by the baptismal font at Trinity.   You see, shame and guilt are all I am left with if I try to define myself by what I have done and who I am.  Baptism points us in a different direction.  In baptism God gives us faith.  Faith defines who you are and who I am by who God is and what He has done. 

Let’s look at this.  Am I a mistake?  Faith answers with a resounding “No.”  You and I are creations of God. To say, I am a mistake is to blame Him.  But God is perfect.   He doesn’t make mistakes.   You are no accident.  Neither am I.  Indeed what the Bible teaches us is that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” 

What about the fact that you and I sin daily and sin much?   Doesn’t that mean I am bad?  Well, the answer is yes  when what defines us  is what we do, and say and think.   However faith points us in a different direction.  Faith points us to who God is and what He has done. .  Faith points us to the cross and empty tomb of Jesus.   Faith reminds us that God loves us so much that He gave His own Son… that Jesus lived and died and rose again to take away our sin.  Faith points us to this place… to baptism.  Here God washed away your sins and mine.  Here God buried us with Christ and raised us with Him to live a new life.  Here God adopted you and adopted me into His own family.  Here you and I were crucified with Christ so that it is no longer you or I who live but Christ who lives in us. 

I don’t have all the answers about what is guilt and what is shame.  I know you and I would carry both as long as our lives are to be defined by us… by the things we have done and left undone.  But that’s the point of baptism.  In baptism God defines us differently.  Now our lives are to be defined by who He is and what He has done for us.  You need no longer hang your head in shame. Because of who He is and what He has done You are loved… You are forgiven… You are a child of God… You are His new creation.  In Him you have nothing to be ashamed of!

A Stroll through Your Cemetery

“After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week,

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary

Went to look at the tomb.”

Matthew 28:1

I am out here today in the cemetery behind the church here in Frankfurt.  I am here today because I want to invite you to take a stroll through the cemeteries of your life – the real ones and the figurative ones.  I know that may sound a little morbid, but hear me out.   This may not be the case for everyone, but for me, one of the most helpful things I have done in working through grief has been to go and visit the graves of those I love – my mom, my dad, my sister.  The first time is always the hardest.  The first time, I came back to Illinois to visit my dad’s grave I just stood there and cried for a good long time.  Each time I go there, I tell my parents things I want them to know about.  Now I know they can’t hear me.  I just need to say those things. It’s part of how God has healed my heart.

So for a moment, I want to invite you to stroll through the cemeteries in your life.  We all have them. Some are real places where the bodies of our loved ones are buried.  Some are figurative.  By that I mean, that we all have things we have “buried” during our walk through life – a painful memory, something we've done or perhaps that we’re doing that we ashamed of… so ashamed of it that we bury it.  We try to hide it from everyone, from ourselves, even from God.  One member of Lamb of God in his testimony talks about helping out at an addiction recovery ministry called Celebrate recovery.  For a long time, he really believed he wasn't like the people who came to that ministry.  He convinced himself that he didn't have the problems they had.  The truth was that he did.  He had simply buried it, hidden it, denied it to himself and others, and then refused to go look in that cemetery.  But burying it didn't make it any less real.  It was only when through that ministry, he started to walk through that part of his life… it was only when he confessed that he had a problem with alcohol, that he started to heal. 

So what are the cemeteries in your life?  What are the things you have buried along the way… the things you have hidden or denied or lied about rather than dealt with.   Now is as good a time as any to go visit those graves. I know it’s not easy but imagine for a moment what would have happened if Mary Magdalene and the other Mary had done the easy thing and stayed home rather than go out to the tomb.  They could have just denied their grief, stayed home, avoided the pain that would surely come from visiting His tomb.  Thank God they didn't avoid His tomb.  When they arrived that morning the stone was already rolled away.  Two men dressed in white greeted them.  “He is not here!” they said, “He is risen!”

They went out to that tomb expecting grief and pain and tears.  Instead they found healing, hope, joy, forgiveness and peace at the empty tomb of Jesus.  Thank God they went to that grave that morning.  For because of what they found, we can go face the graves in our lives.  We can go face our shame because in Jesus our sins are all forgiven.  We can go to those friends we have lost because in Jesus there is reconciliation.  We can go and face the times… the events… the people that have hurt us because in Jesus there is healing. We can confront our addictions, the temptations that really trouble us because in Jesus the victory has already been won.  We can even go and face those very real graves of those we love, whose deaths still bring tears to our eyes and pain to our hearts.  For because His tomb is empty we have a living hope… a living Savior.  In Jesus we come to a place like this and see it entirely different.  This is not a last resting place.  This is a waiting room… waiting for His return… waiting for the Risen One to come again and raise up us and all the dead and give unto all believers in Christ eternal life. It’s a great place to go for a walk.