we say that the kingdom of God is already and not yet.
Among the many moments, I would like to point out a few of those already moments I've witnessed in my lifetime
1997 SuperBowl
Green Bay Packers 35, New England Patriots 21
1991 Final Four
Duke 72 Kansas 65
1992 Final Four
Duke 71 Michigan 51
2001 Final Four
Duke 82 Arizona 72
And tonight
Cardinals 4 Tigers 2
I think 2006 is candidate for the year of the Carn-Dog.
First I find out I'm having a Roy and then the Cardinals win the world series.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Thursday, October 05, 2006
More Mourning
The event that I wrote about yesterday has become the third official scar that death has inflicted on me. I’ve experienced a lot of the same emotions that I did when Kyle died. I keep running the scenario through my mind and as Craig pointed out in a conversation we had a week ago, I bargain with God. “Wait that didn’t really happen. God I’ll give you xxxxxx if you just turn the clock back.”
I’ll be doing something during the day and then almost like I’ve forgotten for a split second, the dark reality of what has happened hits me again and I replay the tragic event over. I’ve thought about why Gabriel’s death has hit me so hard. I think it is in part because I know so many precious four year olds in my own life and the thought of that happening to Caleb, Ellie, Calla, Judah, Jack, Sutton, Jude, Avery, or Annie is horrifying. But I think that is how we empathize and enter into situations like that. We ask of ourselves how we would feel in the same situation. I’m sorry if you find that a bit bold, but I’m not in a bull-shitting mood tonight.
I study the problem of evil or more broadly providence quite a bit at seminary. It doesn’t seem to me that any answer really ever satisfies. Maybe that is why Job ends the way it does.
O God where are you now?
Ellie Wiesel located God in the gallows, hanging next to a Jewish boy who was slowly suffocating in a concentration camp.
When I think about Gabriel’s last couple of moments, I don’t see him running towards his death, I see him running into the arms of Jesus. Gabriel ran out the present and into the eternal. I see him doing all the things that four year olds love to do. And then I hear him being called by God. And God says to Gabriel, “Well done thy good and faithful servant. You demonstrated Me to those around you and you brought about joy in those in lives around you especially your parents and brothers and sister. They’ll be here soon Gabriel, but for right now I want you to begin to enjoy Me for all eternity.”
Gabriel knows nothing of our pain. For him perfect joy has just begun.
……interlude of thought……
Every time something like this happens I think the stakes get a little higher for me. I have all my eggs in one basket. Either the resurrection is true and everything about my existence makes sense or it is not and it does not.
Lord I believe, help my unbelief.
I Cor. 15:50-7
50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters,* is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die,* but we will all be changed, 52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’
55‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’
56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen
I’ll be doing something during the day and then almost like I’ve forgotten for a split second, the dark reality of what has happened hits me again and I replay the tragic event over. I’ve thought about why Gabriel’s death has hit me so hard. I think it is in part because I know so many precious four year olds in my own life and the thought of that happening to Caleb, Ellie, Calla, Judah, Jack, Sutton, Jude, Avery, or Annie is horrifying. But I think that is how we empathize and enter into situations like that. We ask of ourselves how we would feel in the same situation. I’m sorry if you find that a bit bold, but I’m not in a bull-shitting mood tonight.
I study the problem of evil or more broadly providence quite a bit at seminary. It doesn’t seem to me that any answer really ever satisfies. Maybe that is why Job ends the way it does.
O God where are you now?
Ellie Wiesel located God in the gallows, hanging next to a Jewish boy who was slowly suffocating in a concentration camp.
When I think about Gabriel’s last couple of moments, I don’t see him running towards his death, I see him running into the arms of Jesus. Gabriel ran out the present and into the eternal. I see him doing all the things that four year olds love to do. And then I hear him being called by God. And God says to Gabriel, “Well done thy good and faithful servant. You demonstrated Me to those around you and you brought about joy in those in lives around you especially your parents and brothers and sister. They’ll be here soon Gabriel, but for right now I want you to begin to enjoy Me for all eternity.”
Gabriel knows nothing of our pain. For him perfect joy has just begun.
……interlude of thought……
Every time something like this happens I think the stakes get a little higher for me. I have all my eggs in one basket. Either the resurrection is true and everything about my existence makes sense or it is not and it does not.
Lord I believe, help my unbelief.
I Cor. 15:50-7
50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters,* is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die,* but we will all be changed, 52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’
55‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’
56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Dancing to Mourning
Tonight I got a call from my sister (Noel) who in a teary and broken voice told me that my other sister’s (Kristin) best friend lost her youngest child. As her husband was backing out of his driveway, he ran over the couple’s youngest of five Gabriel. Gabriel (4 years old) is with Jesus now.
I don’t really know where to begin with this one. It’s not that my personal loss in this situation is great, I’ve only met the couple once, but as one who is now expecting and increasingly aware of just how precious children and life are, I’m heartbroken for this family.
The other night I was watching 7th Heaven, which though it celebrated it’s last episode ever last season is now again on the air for another new one???, and in the episode Reverend Camden told his daughter Lucy, who had just lost twins due to a miscarriage that, “you don’t get over some things in life, you just get though life and they never go away.”
Someday Gabriel will be raised from the dead. We will all ask with Paul “Where is your victory death, where is your sting?” Until then, we will mourn and remember.
Maybe the best answer I have is this. John 11:35 “Jesus wept.”
I don’t really know where to begin with this one. It’s not that my personal loss in this situation is great, I’ve only met the couple once, but as one who is now expecting and increasingly aware of just how precious children and life are, I’m heartbroken for this family.
The other night I was watching 7th Heaven, which though it celebrated it’s last episode ever last season is now again on the air for another new one???, and in the episode Reverend Camden told his daughter Lucy, who had just lost twins due to a miscarriage that, “you don’t get over some things in life, you just get though life and they never go away.”
Someday Gabriel will be raised from the dead. We will all ask with Paul “Where is your victory death, where is your sting?” Until then, we will mourn and remember.
Maybe the best answer I have is this. John 11:35 “Jesus wept.”
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Mourning to Dancing
Today I went to Dr. Foster’s funeral. Afterwards I made my way to Kyle’s gravesite. On my way there I realized that two of my soon to be three trips followed funerals. I guess that is because they get me thinking about death, and up to this point in my life Kyle’s may be the most poignantly felt death that I’ve experienced.
Julie Pennington Russell did the funeral and she did a wonderful job. Her message was “The Death of Death.” She pointed out a strange sort of juxtaposition that crossed my mind when Kyle died. In 1 Cor. 15 Paul quoting Hosea asks of death where is it’s victory where is it’s sting. I suppose that, that is a comforting passage and there are times when death is not so immediate, that this is exactly what we celebrate as Christians. We can in a cocky fashion taunt the very thing Christ has defeated.
But as Julie pointed out we cannot lie to ourselves because we know that death indeed has a sting. The day Kyle died, two very dear couple friends of Lindsay and I came over to pray with us. Probably because of disbelief and hurt I didn’t have anything to add to the prayer. I simply needed to hear from God. My one friend opened up the prayer very prophetically and therapeutically with, “Father we confess that death does have a sting.”
These are two tensions and/or perspectives we live with. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is helpful on this point. He had two categories for understanding dialectic truths like this. He referred to those truths that belong to the ultimate and the pen-ultimate. Julie eloquently brought those both together for us today.
So today when I took my trip to see Kyle I did so celebrating the pen-ultimate for the first time. This is the reality to which Kyle and Dr. Foster now belong. So to celebrate with Kyle, I stopped at Common Grounds and purchased a cup of Cowboy Coffee on ice and pulled into the graveyard not with the somber notes of Simon and Garfunkel, but rather with the celebration of Coldplay. I thought about how well I lived my life this last year and thanked Kyle for all the growth he’s help foster in both Lindsay and my lives.
Psalm 30:11
You have turned for me my mourning into dancing
Julie Pennington Russell did the funeral and she did a wonderful job. Her message was “The Death of Death.” She pointed out a strange sort of juxtaposition that crossed my mind when Kyle died. In 1 Cor. 15 Paul quoting Hosea asks of death where is it’s victory where is it’s sting. I suppose that, that is a comforting passage and there are times when death is not so immediate, that this is exactly what we celebrate as Christians. We can in a cocky fashion taunt the very thing Christ has defeated.
But as Julie pointed out we cannot lie to ourselves because we know that death indeed has a sting. The day Kyle died, two very dear couple friends of Lindsay and I came over to pray with us. Probably because of disbelief and hurt I didn’t have anything to add to the prayer. I simply needed to hear from God. My one friend opened up the prayer very prophetically and therapeutically with, “Father we confess that death does have a sting.”
These are two tensions and/or perspectives we live with. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is helpful on this point. He had two categories for understanding dialectic truths like this. He referred to those truths that belong to the ultimate and the pen-ultimate. Julie eloquently brought those both together for us today.
So today when I took my trip to see Kyle I did so celebrating the pen-ultimate for the first time. This is the reality to which Kyle and Dr. Foster now belong. So to celebrate with Kyle, I stopped at Common Grounds and purchased a cup of Cowboy Coffee on ice and pulled into the graveyard not with the somber notes of Simon and Garfunkel, but rather with the celebration of Coldplay. I thought about how well I lived my life this last year and thanked Kyle for all the growth he’s help foster in both Lindsay and my lives.
Psalm 30:11
You have turned for me my mourning into dancing
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