Look Again for the Very First Time

Are you ready for another round of look again...for the very first time? The game where we take a fresh look at some perspective of Jesus life that we may have heard so often that we fail to be amazed by it. Here we go...be amazed...

Your name is Mary. You’re a hooker. A street-walker. A prostitute. Nobody at the church wants you hanging out in front of the entrance, and you assume that if the church people don’t want you, their God doesn’t want you either. You watch from your corner as the people leave the evening service, giving you cold glares as they walk by or drive off. Not a problem for you. You’re not wanting what they have to give anyway. You’re waiting for a certain someone to come out of the church. Here he comes now. One of the Pastoral staff. He shakes hands with the last of the parishioners and watches as they disappear around the corner. He locks the building and then looks your way. You’ve seen that look hundreds of times before. The look of a man hungry with lust. He looks around to make sure that no one is watching and then gives you the signal. You leave your corner and head for your previously arranged meeting place a few blocks away. By the time you get there, he is already inside and waiting. You are barely undressed when the door comes smashing in. It’s the rest of the pastoral team. Grabbing you, dragging you from the bed as you clutch at sheets and try to cover yourself, they half-lift, half-drag you out into the streets.


Your mind is swirling. This is it. This time you lose. Set up by the pastors. You know the rules. You mess around and get caught, you die. You’ve played the odds and this time you lose. You’ve been in and out of a hundred beds, and so you figure it must be your time to go.

Inwardly you cry for a God to save you. But why would He? His people know you’re scum. His word says that an unfaithful woman should be stoned. No. No use crying out to Him. Take the punishment with as much dignity as you can muster. Suddenly you are flung in front of the Teacher, your sheet being ripped away as you hit the dusty street. Curling up you try to cover yourself from all of the laughter and leering eyes as the pastors say, “Teacher, Moses and the law say that we should stone this woman. What do you say?”

You know what any holy man will be forced to say and you brace yourself for the rocks. Abruptly, you realize that all has grown quiet and then you hear the question. “Woman, where are your accusers?” Looking up slowly from your curled up position, you realize no one else is around. It is just you and Jesus. He is taking His outer cloak and covering you. You respond, “I don’t see anyone, Lord.” And then His response takes you totally by surprise, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and leave your life of sin.” You look again. And you see for the very first time that He is smiling.

Go ahead...be amazed!

When You are Stuck in the Prison of Your Soul or I HATE to WAIT!!!

Genesis 41:1 "Two years passed…” After Joseph had interpreted the dreams of the baker and butler and the butler had been restored to his job, promising Joseph that if it all came true he would tell Pharaoh about him, the butler was reinstated and then...promptly forgot about Joseph—so the next verse starts with “Two years passed…” Two years! PASSED! While Joseph sat in prison!

Interesting that the Bible inserts those words. Two years passed. We have nothing recorded about Joseph’s life during those two years. We can only assume that it was lived the way the previous years had been lived because of what we see AFTER the two years. How had he lived? Gen 39: 20 So he took Joseph and threw him into the prison where the king’s prisoners were held, and there he remained. 21 But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love. And the Lord made Joseph a favorite with the prison warden. 22 Before long, the warden put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners and over everything that happened in the prison. 23 The warden had no more worries, because Joseph took care of everything. The Lord was with him and caused everything he did to succeed.

"But I don’t LIKE to wait." Neither did Joseph. "Well, if my story ended up like Joseph’s I wouldn’t mind the waiting so much." Joseph had NO CLUE how his story would end up. He just found himself stuck in “wait” mode. He must have wondered a million times if he would ever get out of prison and be able to fulfill some of his goals and dreams for his life…even if they were to be spent as a slave. He could at least work to be head of the household.

No. I think Joseph must have gotten pretty tired of the waiting. Two years passed. Two years! But God hadn’t forgotten about Joseph. He had greater plans and Joseph’s character would have to be equal to the task. Like a blacksmith forging his iron, or a glassblower who knows just exactly when to take the glass out of the flames, God knew what it would take to bring Joseph’s character to be strengthened equal to the task. He knew that Joseph would have to be able to wield power carefully. God knew that Joseph would have to be kind. He knew that Joseph would need to be wise and that ultimately, Joseph would be able to preserve his family instead of annihilate them because of unresolved hatred. God knew that Joseph would have to be able to forgive.

So maybe you find yourself in the waiting period. Nothing seems to be moving. Your career. Stuck. Your passion. Gone. Relationships. Stagnate. Two years pass. Maybe 5. And you wait. And wait. How do you deal with the wait?

I have been there. Waiting. My soul passionless. Sometimes even the food I ate tasting bland and grey. No aliveness in my soul nor song in my heart. Unable to feel all but the strongest of emotions: mainly anger. Waiting and praying that God would somehow, someway deliver me from the prison of myself. My job as a pastor was crushing at times, seeking to bring hope to those that God brought to me while the grey in my soul was eating me alive. Week after week, month after month, year after year, writing sermons, counseling, giving Bible studies, planning and executing mission trips to Appalachia, seeking to keep hope alive in my own soul and my spiritual nose above water.

To be sure, there were some times better than others. There were times when it seemed like I would be getting out of this soul prison. It would seem that the door were starting to finally swing open and new hope would spring forth, but just as quickly, something would happen that would slam the door in my face. The death of friends and family members through cancer, heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, plane crashes and sometimes, even old age, all of these stretched out on my life line to slam the cell door of my soul back in my face.

I read a story once, about Mother Theresa saying that she had gone 22 years without hearing a word from God. She called it her “dark night of the soul” experience. She was asked, “How in the world did you keep going when you felt God was so distant?” Her response stunned me. She reportedly answered, “I just kept going back to the last place I KNEW I heard God speaking to me and sought to be obedient to that."

So how do I endure the waiting, especially not knowing how long it will last? I think it is found in the same way. It is in my belief that God is in control and that it isn’t so much what happens to me, but IN ME, that matters. Somehow I keep going back to the time where I KNOW I heard God speaking to me distinctly and I, like Joseph, like Mother Theresa, seek to be obedient to that until I next hear God change my calling.

And so I continue to wait. Totally dependent upon Grace to help me administer grace to the graceless, hope to the hopeless, help me write sermons and give counsel and dispense wisdom that calls people back to God. Grace that gives me strength for the journey, not knowing if today I will be in the cell, or suddenly promoted to the palace. To be sure—I rest in HIS promise: 2Cor. 12:9 NLT Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.

Two years passed… how will YOU wait?

Living in the Land of the Un-graced

I have a confession to make. I have never told anyone what I am about to tell you. Not even my wife, though I think she must have suspected something. And I struggle with how to tell you this news this morning. Yet I feel the time has come for me to confess this to you honestly. And I will understand if you do not want me as your youth director after I confess this. I am prepared to accept that.

I am a terrorist (more like an unholy terror). Let me be quick to also add that though I belong to a group, I am not part of the al Quaida organization and have no responsibility for the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks of September 11, 2001. Though I am a pilot, I have never planned, nor would I ever plan on using a plane as a deadly weapon to bring about destruction of human life. I am also not into biological warfare. Nonetheless, I, and people in my group, can cause sleepless nights of anxiety. We can be ruthless when we feel we need to be. We operate quietly and without detection, for the most part, moving in and out of unsuspecting people, leaving behind us a trail of fears. The FBI nor the CIA has us listed, so they aren’t even watching us. We are pretty much free to move in and out of the population at will. As a matter of fact, we have quite a few operatives on the inside of the government, and to date, word has it that we have not yet been noticed.

My cell isn’t in to a quick death. My group is dedicated to long-term torture. We enjoy watching people dangle on a rope, fear in their eyes and terror in their hearts. And we have the ability to rip, shred and filet almost anyone. And what’s more, we can’t get enough. It’s not something I necessarily want to do. It’s something I almost feel I have to do.

I also have to confess, that many in my cell are are often found sitting with you in church each week. Don’t worry, if nobody moves, you won’t get hurt. Any given week, I see quite a few who are in my cell group and we are recruiting all of the time.

Oh, I’ve tried to get out a few times, but you don’t understand the pressure from the rest of the group. If I were to quit the organization, I would be the next victim on the list… and I’ve seen what happens to those who are considered traitors. It is not a pretty sight. So though I might want to quit, I’m just too afraid.

Who is this group? What is its’ name? Before we have people running out of here calling 911, I suppose I’ll tell you, and then you will have to check and see if you, too, are already part of this group. Our organization is called - Ungraced. The Ungraced Organization or the UO for short. Let me explain.

We are a group of people who, though we are called to live in God’s grace, and though we have accepted His call to do so, continue to distribute un-grace to those around us. And as a result, our words and our actions strike anxiety and fear into those around us and steal delicate hours of sleep. We don’t need biological weapons. Our words and actions alone can do the damage.

When confronted or offended by a Person (or we could call them Person A), does our operative launch a full out offensive on Person A?  No. Too dangerous. Could blow his/her cover as an operative for the Un-graced. Rather, he/she takes their anger and cloaks it in politeness, smiles and handshakes, until they are safely out of the confrontation zone. Then it’s action time!

Quickly gathering their ring of friends and supporters for a clandestine meeting, they plot an all out offensive. The guard is dropped and the statements fly. “Did you hear that?” “What was that about, huh?” “That Person makes me so mad! We can’t let them get away with this! Here’s what let’s do!” And that plan of action is put into effect. A little word here. An insinuating remark there. A well-poised question and the trap is set. Now…a little patience and whamo… Person A is in the crosshairs and running for cover and our operative smiles and knows that Person A won’t be quite so quick with their disagreeable statements the next time out. Person A has been successfully intimidated and is now running on fear.

The situations are different, but the results are the same. Fear. Intimidation. Anxiety. Irritation. Anger. Sadness. Guilt. Loss of sleep. Loss of appetite.    When we choose to operate out of un Grace, rather than God's Grace, we cannot change those results.

Philip Yancey, in his book, “What’s so Amazing about Grace?” recounts the story from Simon Wiesethal’s book: The Sunflower. It recounts a small incident that took place during the “ethnic cleansing” campaign of the 2^nd World War. It is a story that does much to explain what propelled Wiesenthal to become the foremost hunter of Nazis and a relentless public voice against hate crimes. The book centers, interestingly enough, on forgiveness.

In 1944 Wiesenthal was a young Polish prisoner of the Nazis. He had looked on, helpless, as Nazi soldiers killed his grandmother on the stairway of her home and as they forced his mother into a freight car crammed with elderly Jewish women. Altogether, eighty-nine of his Jewish relatives would die at the hand of the Nazis. Wiesenthal himself tried without success to commit suicide when he was first captured.

One bright, sunny day as Wiesenthal’s prison detail was cleaning rubbish out of a hospital for German casualties, a nurse approached him. “Are you a Jew?” she asked hesitantly, then signaled him to accompany her. Apprehensive, Wiesenthal followed her up a stairway and down a hallway until they reached a dark, musty room where a lone soldier lay swathed in bandages. White gauze covered the man’s face, with openings cut out for mouth, nose and ears.

The nurse disappeared, closing the door behind her to leave the young prisoner alone with the spectral figure. The wounded man was an SS officer, and he had summoned Wiesenthal for a deathbed confession.

“My name is Karl,” said a raspy voice that came from somewhere within the bandages. “I must tell you of this horrible deed—tell you because you are a Jew.”

Karl began his story by reminiscing about his Catholic upbringing and his childhood faith., which he had lost while in the Hitler Youth Corps. He later volunteered for the SS and served with distinction and had only recently returned, badly wounded from the Russian front.

Three times as Karl tried to tell his story, Wiesenthal pulled away as if to leave. Each time the officer reached out to grab his arm with a white, nearly bloodless, hand. He begged him to listen to what he had just experienced in the Ukraine.

In one small town, abandoned by the retreating Russians, Karl’s unit stumbled onto booby traps that killed thirty of their soldiers. As an act of revenge the SS rounded up three hundred Jews, herded them into a three story house, doused it with gasoline, and fired grenades at it. Karl and his men encircled the house, their guns drawn to shoot anyone who tried to escape.

“The screams from the house were horrible,” he said, reliving the moment. “I saw a man with a small child in his arms. His clothes were on fire. By his side stood a woman, doubtless the mother of the child. With his free hand the man covered the child’s eyes, then he jumped into the street. Second later the mother followed. Then from the other windows fell burning bodies. We shot… Oh, God!”

All this time Simon Wiesthenthal sat in silence, letting the German soldier speak. Karl went on to describe other atrocities, but he kept circling back to the scene of that young boy with black hair and dark eyes, falling from the building, target practice for SS rifles. “I am left here with my guilt,” he concluded at last:

In the last hours of my life you are with me. I do no know who you are, I know only that you are a Jew and that is enough. I know that what I have told you is terrible. In the long nights while I have been waiting for death, time and again I have longed to talk about it to a Jew and beg forgiveness from him. Only I didn’t know whether there were any Jews left…I know what I am asking is almost too much for you, but without your answer I cannot die in peace.”

Simon Wiesenthal, an architect in his early twenties, now a prisoner dressed in a shabby uniform marked with the yellow star of David, felt the immense crushing burden of his race bear down on him. He stared out the window at the sunlight courtyard. He looked at the eyeless heap of bandages lying in the bed. He watched a bluebottle fly buzzing the dying man’s body, attracted by the smell.

“At last I made up my mind,” Wiesenthal writes, “and without a word I left the room.”

The SS officer soon died, unforgiven by a Jew, but Wiesenthal was liberated from a death camp by American troops. The scene in the hospital haunted him like a ghost. Over twenty years later, he finally wrote down the story and sent it to the brightest ethical minds he knew: Jew and Gentile, Catholic, Protestant and irreligious. “What would you have done in my place? he asked them. The second half of the book records their responses. Of the thirty six who responded, only 6 said he had erred in not forgiving the German.

My thought: The fact that it haunted him and tormented him for so many years would indicate that he had made the wrong choice. Grace extended rarely comes back to haunt you.

Where are you today? God is calling you and I to be gracious people. Not people who arch our backs and dig in our heels when we are provoked. Not people who work to plan our next attack and figure out ways to get what we want. Rather, He calls us to grace. First, for our own needs, and then once we are full of grace, for offering it to others.

The gospel of grace begins and ends with forgiveness. And people write songs with titles like “Amazing Grace” for one reason; grace is the only force in the universe powerful enough to break the chains that enslave generations. God's love and grace alone melts ungrace.

Let me finish with these words 2Tim. 3:1-5   You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. 2 For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. 3 They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. 4 They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. 5 They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!

God is calling you and I to quit the Ungraced Organization. He’s calling us to live a gracious life. One that is quick to forgive wrongs and extend grace, even if the other person isn’t sorry. He is calling you to be one that extends grace in the face of the seemingly unforgivable. There are only two options: Be gracious or get even. Forgive or grow bitter and exhaust your life on making sure they get their just due. Be a gracious saint or an ungracious terrorist. What about you? Are you willing to give up terrorism? Are you willing to release it to God?

Lord, I’m choosing this day, to tear up my card and quite the organization. I’m turning around, again, and saying yes, Lord, thank you for Your grace and that I’m not condemned. Help me to be a gracious person dispensing Your grace and forgiveness to others who offend me. I give You the terrorist in me today. Take it and make me who You want me to be. In Jesus name. Amen.

You CAN Begin Again Pt 2

She didn’t think it was that big of a deal, at least not at first. Her boyfriend had only wanted to spend a little time making out, showing her, as he put it, “how much he loved her.” It was exciting to be held in his embrace. It felt good to be physically touched and caressed. But one thing led to the next and before long, raging hormones got the best of them, and found themselves in bed, not only with each other, but with a load of guilt and overwhelming shame. But they loved each other right? How could it be wrong when it felt so right? And yet there was always that nagging feeling in the back of their mind that something wasn’t so right. When all of their friends were gone, when they were apart, and they were left only to the thoughts in their own mind, they both knew, deep down that it wasn’t right. And yet, when they were with each other, they couldn’t control themselves and they found themselves getting more deeply involved, until one day they realized that life wasn’t quite as fun as it once had been. They were fighting more in between their sexual encounters. In fact, life had been reduced to that cycle. Fight and have sex. And the guilt continued to gnaw on them. And she just knew she was going to hell.

He thought that perhaps it was because she just wasn’t the right girl after all, and though he had promised a thousand times that he loved her, he began looking and jumped ship when he saw a prettier face come by. And it wasn’t long before he was involved in another relationship and pledging his love to another, “for all time!”

She could hardly stand herself for the choices she had made, and she liked him less. Something inside her screamed. “Wait!---Do-over!” But she realized that she could never go back, and since she was headed for hell and since a guy had ruined her, she decided that she was going to get her revenge by taking down as many guys as she could. She set out to see if she could seduce someone. At first, she did it for fun. But one day, a guy offered her money, and she realized that she could support herself and mess up guys at the same time. And guys were so stupid, she thought. They are so totally ruled by their hormones.

Weeks turned into months which turned into years. Always it was the same. Men, who just wanted one thing. Men from all walks of life. Business men. Construction workers. Professors. Lawyers. Doctors. And yes, even a few preachers, who always came at two or three in the morning to keep from getting caught. The hypocrites. All of them, professing to live honorable lives, some even having a wife and kids at home.

At least she wasn’t pretending…not anymore. There had been a time when she had told herself that she was still a good person. But not anymore. Now she knew what she was, and had accepted it…except for that same old gnawing feelings of guilt that she couldn’t seem to shake, and that she was headed for hell. And in the middle of the dark and lonely nights after the man of the hour had left her bed, she would lay and stare at the ceiling and wonder if there was no way out.

It happened early one morning. She had just gotten to sleep at 2:30, but at 5:00, just as the sky was starting to turn pale, there was an insistent knocking on her door. She pulled aside the curtain to see one of her regulars, a preacher, looking around and banging on the door. She opened the door and he swept in, angry that she had taken so long to answer the door. “Someone might see me,” he said. “Hypocrite,” she responded.

“Don’t call me that! I give you a good amount of business!”

“Yeah, and a good amount of guilt. If your God is so great, why doesn’t he rescue me from you?”

He pulled out a wad of bills. “Who's the paying customer here? Do you want the money or not? Just shut up and get on with it."

She went into the same weary routine of seduction and soon it was over. Suddenly, the door burst open and in came police officers and a bunch of other ministers. Finally she thought, they’ve nailed the hypocrite. He just sneered at her and picked up the wad of bills that he had laid on the nightstand. But instead of him, they grabbed her and yanked her naked and fighting from the bed, dragged her out into the street and down towards the local church. There was a Street Preacher there. And they threw her down in front of him. Naked and alone. And they began quoting scripture, “Moses said that such a woman should be killed. What do you say?”

You know the story and you know the preacher. Jesus bent down, without saying a word and took off his outer garment and covered her. Then he knelt down and began writing in the dirt. The accusers asked their question again. Jesus stood up and said, “let the one without sin be the one to throw the first rock.” And then he knelt and started writing. One of my favorite Christian writers, Ellen White says that he was actually writing their sins in the dirt, and one by one as they read their own sins written there, they dropped their rocks and slipped away.

When they were all alone, Jesus asked the woman a simple question. John 8:10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

I can imagine her looking up for the first time from the place she has been huddled waiting for the rocks to hit. And as she looks around she is forced to acknowledge that no one is left to condemn her except the one that truly could. John 8:11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Jesus speaks the same words to you and me this morning. Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin.” Do-over!

That’s the good news. And some of you need that news this very day. Some of you, the Lord has been working on your heart all this week. You’ve had a spiritual struggle going on for a long time, because you know you need to drop the old life and start over, but you keep clinging to your sin. Let it go this morning. Accept before God, that you are a sinner in need of forgiveness. Confess your sins to Him, and he will forgive and cleanse you from all of your sin. He’ll let you start over.

Simply say in your heart to God: God, I am a sinner in need of your forgiveness. I need you to take my sin and guilt and shame and cover me with your robe of righteousness. 

 

You CAN begin again!!

Do-overs are Awesome!

Don’t you love that concept of “Do-over”?  Don’t you wish sometimes in life after you’ve just messed up big-time that you could just yell, “Wait!  Do-over!”  and everything would reset for you just the way it was before you messed up?  Wouldn’t that be great? 

You say something you really didn’t mean to say, and you can see that your words just devastated the other person—“Wait!  Do-over!”  and the damage is instantly undone.   It’s like you never said anything at all.  Or you wreck your parent’s car and injure someone.  “Wait! Do-over!”  and zzzzzip!  You are right at the point before things went awry, and with your new-found knowledge, you can avoid the mistake and move on consequence free.  You choose differently and avoid the wreck and no one is any the wiser.

What a great concept, if a simple “Wait! Do-over!” would un-change all the bad mistakes and stupid choices we make or dumb accidents we have because we’re not paying attention.  But it’s not that simple.  There is no magic do-over rule.  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Have you ever experienced that rule?  For every choice you make, there is a consequence.  That’s the rule.  If you want good consequences, you have to make good choices.  But if you make bad choices, there are bad consequences to have to deal with.  That’s life!

Some of you, this morning, are carrying heavy loads because of the choices you’ve made.  Some of you are absolutely miserable this morning deep under the surface, even though you outwardly may be smiling and joking. 

See we live two different lives.  One that is on the surface that we let everyone see, and one that is beneath the surface that we desperately try to keep hidden, except from a choice few people that we’ve learned to trust.    And you live life scared to death that someone you don’t trust might find out who you really are and not like you because of it.

You desperately long for a Do-over.  A new beginning.  One that says….ok…I  have really screwed things up in my life, but wait—do-over!!!  I just want to be at peace inside myself.  I just want to be able to look at myself in the mirror again and know that I’m an ok person.  I just want to be loved for who I am.  I want to drop this load of guilt and shame.  And I just wish I could start all over and not be so stupid and make the same mistakes.

Did you know the Bible says that there is such a thing as a do-over.  While it can’t erase all of the consequences of your sin and bad choices, it can make you appear, to God, as though you had never sinned.

1 John 1:9- If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

Now that’s a Do-Over of epic proportions!

Look Again, For the Very First Time

I wish you had never heard the story of Jesus.  I wish you were hearing it for the first time.   I really wish that you hadn’t heard the story before,  simply because many of us have heard it so many times before that we have lost the wonder of the story.   We have grown so familiar with the details of the story, that we have lost our sense of awe.  It has grown to be common place, and we end up thinking, “Oh, yeah…I’ve heard this all before!”  And in so doing, we lose a chance at being amazed once again by the incredible story of Jesus.   I want you to be amazed again.  I want you to have that sense of awe and wonder.  I want you to stand with eyes wide and mouth open as you hear the story of Jesus and salvation.  So today, let’s play that old game of pretend.  Let’s pretend that you have never heard the story before.  Let’s put ourselves into parts of the story.   Let’s look again, for the very first time at the story of Jesus.  Are you ready to pretend?  Here we go…

Your name is Peter.  You’re a sanguine.  You enter a room mouth first.  You’re big, strong and foul-mouthed.  You can cuss any sailor under the table, because you are a sailor.  A fishing sailor.  Everyone knows who you are because at the tavern, you can tell the crustiest jokes.  At the docks, as you sort fish, you can make most other fishermen blush with your language.  Your wife is forever getting mad at you for being so crude, but she can’t help but love you since you are so big-hearted and caring. Honest too.  Perhaps it is these last characteristics that were the ones Jesus was looking at when He called you to follow Him, but unlikely, with all of your other character flaws.   Certainly everyone else is shocked.  A wharfman and a rabbi hanging out together?   Definitely not a rabbi from around here.  He wouldn’t want someone like you making his class of pupils look bad.  You stick out like a bad apple.  But, look again.   There He is motioning to you saying, Follow me.

Your name is Mary.  You’re a hooker.  A street-walker.  A prostitute.  Nobody at the church wants you hanging out in front of the entrance, and you assume that if the church people don’t want you, their God doesn’t want you either.  You watch from your corner as the people leave the evening service, giving you cold glares as they walk by or drive off.  Not a problem for you.  You’re not wanting what they have to give anyway.  You’re waiting for a certain someone to come out of the church.  Here he comes now.  One of the Pastoral staff.   He shakes hands with the last of the parishioners and watches as they disappear around the corner.  He locks the building and then looks your way.  You’ve seen that look hundreds of times before.  The look of a man hungry with lust.   He looks around to make sure that no one is watching and then gives you the signal.   You leave your corner and head for your previously arranged meeting place a few blocks away.  By the time you get there, he is already inside and waiting.  You are barely undressed when the door comes smashing in.  It’s the rest of the pastoral team.  Grabbing you, dragging you from the bed as you clutch at sheets and try to cover yourself, they half-lift, half-drag you out into the streets.

Your mind is swirling.  This is it. This time you lose. Set up by the pastors. You know the rules.  You mess around and get caught, you die. You’ve played the odds and this time you lose.  You’ve been in and out of a hundred beds, and so you figure it must be your time to go.

Inwardly  you cry for a God to save you.  But why would He?  His people know you’re scum.  His Word says that an unfaithful woman should be stoned.  No.  No use crying out to Him.  Take the punishment with as much dignity as you can muster.   Suddenly you are flung in front of the Teacher, your sheet being ripped away as you hit the dusty street.  Curling up you try to cover yourself from all of the laughter and leering eyes as the pastors say, “Teacher, Moses and the law say that we should stone this woman.  What do you say?”

You know what any holy man will be forced to say and you brace yourself for the rocks.  Abruptly, you realize that all has grown quiet and then you hear the question.  “Woman, where are your accusers?”  Looking up slowly from your curled up position, you realize no one else is around. It is just you and Jesus.  He is taking His outer cloak and covering you.  You respond, “I don’t see anyone, Lord.”   And then His response takes you totally by surprise, “Neither do I condemn you.  Go and leave your life of sin.”  You look again.  And you see for the very first time that He is smiling.

Your name is Jairus.  You’ve come a long way to find Jesus.  Your only daughter is dying.  The doctors have all given up and you’ve taken her home to die.  But somehow, you just can’t give up without trying everything.  One of your servants has seen Jesus heal and suggests that if you could just find Jesus and have him come, your daughter might not die.  You search frantically, from one town to the next.  The reports are all the same.  “You just missed Him.  He was here about 2 days ago and healed most of the people in the town.”  Hope grows stronger, while on the other side of the emotional roller coaster, you become frantic as you realize that you are a few days behind him.  You redouble your efforts, trying to reach Him and get Him home before it is too late.   Finally, you come racing in to a town and discover a large crowd of people gathered around.  This must be Jesus.    Pushing your way through the crowd, you come face to face with Him.   “Master, you must come now!”  The urgency is in your voice as you try to get Jesus to follow you back through the crowd.   He motions for you to lead and begins to follow.  You look back and realize that He has stopped and is asking who touched Him.  You turn back to urge Him to hurry when one of your servants rides up to the edge of the crowd on horseback and motions for you.

You can tell by the look on his face that it’s too late.   “Don’t trouble the Master any further,” he says,  “She’s dead.”   Grief wrenches your soul and you slump to the ground. The If only’s come. If only you had found Him quicker.  If only He had been closer to your home.  If only she had held on for a little while longer.  If only there were no crowds to slow Him down.”

A hand on your shoulder jars you  back to reality.  “Don’t worry, just believe.”   Jesus helps you to your feet and begins walking towards your town, He and his disciples helping you as you stumble along in a haze of grief.  You sleep little that night, and the next day is a blur as you head home.  As you come near your house, the mourner’s are there in full force.  It really hits home.  She’s dead.  Jesus simpy quiets them and says, “Don’t mourn.  She’s sleeping.”  Laughter meets His statement.   How can Jesus mock your pain with such a statement.   You enter to find  your wife weeping and lying across the bed holding the lifeless form of your daughter.   Jesus gently lifts her and you rush to hold her, to hold each other, as Jesus now looks at the little body on the bed.

Gently, yet with authority he says, “Little girl, I say to you arise!”  Her eyes flutter open as you heart beats wildly.  Your wife screams with joy and leaps toward the bed as your beloved daughter sits up.  Suddenly the three of you are laughing, crying, talking, hugging, kissing, and marveling at what just happened.  You look again…and He is gone.

Do any of these stories get your attention?  Do any of them make you say, “Wow, so that’s what God is like?”  Do they amaze you?  Do they warm your heart? Time and time again in scripture, we see Him healing the sick, opening blind eyes, giving legs to the lame, and raising the dead.  Stuff that would knock our socks off if we saw it today, but we have grown so used to the stories that we can barely muster a “ho-hum” as we stifle a yawn.  Look again, for the very first time.  Jesus is simply amazing.

Where’s the wonder?  Where’s the awe?  He chose a loud, foul-mouthed fisherman to be one of His main mouthpiece to share the good news of the Gospel.  He had no back up plan.  If Peter and the others failed, the story would not be shared.  Doesn’t that blow you away?  Look again and remember; if He can use Peter, He will use you.

He restored a broken-down woman, caught in the middle of her sin.  A sin worthy of stoning, and turned back her accusers with a line, “he that is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”  And then wrote their sins in the dirt to remind them that there is not one righteous.  Doesn’t that bring you hope?  If He can forgive Mary, he can forgive you.

And this one absolutely blows my mind.  He took a lifeless form and gave it life.  How many funerals have you seen that one happen at?  One minute you have a corpse, the next minute a dancing little girl. One minute you have parents mourning the loss of their only child, and the next minute they are weeping for joy and laughing all at the same time.  Which really pumps me.  If He can raise Jairus’s daughter, He can raise my dad!  And He can raise your loved ones that have fallen asleep in Jesus.  

But those are only three stories.  Jesus always does the amazing thing.  He puts aside Divinity to take on the form of a baby.  He works for 30 years as a carpenter.  God. A carpenter.  He feeds 20,000 with a few loaves and fish.  He walks on water.  He calms storms with a word.  He meets demon-possessed people and leaves them demon-free, sending the demons into pigs.  He called the most unlikely people to do the most unbelievable.  He loves. He forgives.  He laughs with people.  That’s amazing.  A God that not only loves us, but one that likes us and is willing to sit down to supper with the worst of us.  And enjoy our company.  Look again.  When was the last time you saw this Jesus?  When was the last time you were amazed?