Bungee Cord 12-30-13

Hello,

     Merry Christmas!  As is my custom, I write a story for my Christmas Eve sermon.  So, for all of you who weren’t at the 7:00 service at First Lutheran of Greensburg (and even for those of you who were)….here’s this year’s story.            

                                   

‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

     Four 12 years Billy Johnson had lived in the same town, the same house, went to the same church, had the same friends, but when he turned 13 he moved.  His mother got a new job, a good job, so after a family conference around dinner one night, the family decided that although it was going to be hard to leave, the right thing to do was to move to the town where his mom’s job was going to be.

     So, in the middle of the summer they packed up everything that they had, went to a whole bunch of farewell parties and set off onto a new adventure.  When they drove out of town, it really was farewell, because his mom’s new job was clear across the country.  It was a bit scary for all of them, so when their old town was out of sight they passed a Bible around the car and everyone read a verse from Psalm 23….”The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want……he leadeth me by still waters, he restoreth my soul…..surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”

     It took several days to drive to their new town, and even though they were still in the United States when they hopped out of the car to get something to eat at the MacDonalds, it felt like they were in a foreign land.  Everything was so much older.  The streets were so much tighter.  The houses were so much closer together.  The people talked funny, at least funny to them.  There were people wearing clothes the likes of which they had never seen before, and some of their favorite TV shows came on so much later than they did in their previous town that he knew that they would never be able to watch them.

     The transition to the new school was tough.  It wasn’t that the kids and teachers were mean to him, it was just that it felt like the kids and the teachers didn’t even notice him.  When he walked into the classrooms, the kids would wave a quick “hi” to him, but then quickly turn and talk to their friends.  Plans were made by them to hang out, but those plans never included him.  Some of the subjects in school were new to him, and he felt like a cycler going up a hill trying to keep up with the rest of the pack.  Other subjects were old hat to him, and sitting in class was like taking a sleeping pill.  It wasn’t that things were bad with the move to this new town, it was just that it was like trying to jump into a train that was speeding by, and as the days passed by he just felt lost … a fish out of water, a ship without a sail.

     The one place where he felt a little different was in church.  They located a Lutheran church not too far from his new home, and every Sunday he would go to church and feel a little less lost.  The worship liturgy was the same as the church he grew up in, they just sang it a lot faster here.  Communion was still the body and blood of Jesus given in bread and wine, but instead of a continuous flow of people past the bread and wine, you had to kneel around the altar and wait for everyone to get done.  Some of the hymns he recognized and could sing, others he had never heard before.  And even though the kids were a little warmer to him, they still seemed to stick tight with their old friends, kind of leaving him out.  It wasn’t the perfect place to begin to feel at home in this new town, but unlike everything else, it was at least a beginning.

     So, when Christmas came, it came to Billy with an extra measure of excitement, a chance for him to really feel at home.  He could hardly wait to hear the familiar story of Jesus’ birth, just like he had heard it over and over again before he moved.  He could hardly wait to sing “Away in the Manger”, “Silent Night”, and “Joy to the World” and know that they were singing them back at his other home on that night, too.  He couldn’t wait to watch the candle light get passed through the congregation, just like it did in his old church.  After feeling so lost for the last several months, Billy could hardly wait to get on the solid and familiar ground of Christmas eve worship.

     Christmas Eve morning not only ushered in Christmas, but it also ushered in a Christmas snow storm, the like of which had never been known in his new town.  Of course where he used to live, it was just one of those winter storms that you lived through, so he had no idea of the surprise that was coming before him. Playing video games all day as the snow kept on falling, he had a harder and harder time concentrating on the video game knowing that the time to go to church, to feel at home, was coming near.

     “We’re not going to church tonight,” said Billy’s mother.  “The weather is too bad, and the roads have not been plowed.  We’ll never get there, and if we do, we’ll never get home.”  When he heard it, his heart sank…..(to be continued next week)

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 12/22/13

Hello,

Merry Christmas!

Wednesday evening I was driving into Greensburg to a meeting at church, and as I came up Otterbein Street to turn south on Main St, my eyes caught a woman across the street waving a sign, as if in protest, which said, “KEEP CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS!”

As I scanned the corner on which she stood, the corner where the county courthouse stands, I noticed that behind her a live manger scene was being set up.  A simple stable had been constructed, and in it were adults portraying Joseph, Mary, shepherds, angels and wisemen.  On occasion throughout the year you will find various church groups gathering on the grounds of the courthouse to publically pray and entreat people to follow a cause for which they believe the government has gone astray.  Apparently on this evening this particular church group had reserved the public square to assert their concern that someone (The government? Society? Commercial interests?) was attempting to take Jesus Christ out of Christmas.

Although I applaud this church’s zeal, I think their message a bit misleading, misleading in that it seemed to imply that anyone could take Christ out of Christmas.  Remember, from the very beginning there were those who tried to take Christ out of Christmas…..the Romans demanding that a pregnant young woman travel 70 miles over rough terrain could have caused a miscarriage and kept Christ out of Christmas…the citizens of Bethlehem whose cold welcome of that same pregnant woman sending her to a cow’s home to give birth could have brought disaster to Christ’s birth…..King Herod whose determination to rid himself of any threat to his throne could have brought a quick end to Christ’s part in Christmas.  But none succeeded then, and none will succeed now because it was God who placed Jesus Christ in Christmas, and anyone who wants to take on God in a tug of war to take Jesus Christ out of Christmas will find themselves soon exhausted, their hands blistered with rope burns, and in humiliation giving up.

Romans 8:38,39 says, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  I’ve never heard this verse read at a Christmas service, but maybe is should be.  After all, isn’t the unstoppable love of God for his children what Christmas is all about?

So, maybe I should find out which church was providing that live nativity on the courthouse square, see if they plan on doing it again next year, and offer to give them a different sign to wave….. “FEAR NOT.  GOD KEEPS CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS! (and in every other day too!)”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 12-16-13

Hello,

     I put snow tires on my car this year, and it has made all the difference in the world.

     Last winter I tried to traverse the winding, hilly roads of western Pennsylvania with regular tires.  They were high performance tires designed to carry my Mini Cooper with handling ease on dry roads, which they did well.  But they lacked the grip when trying to weave around snow covered corners or when facing a icy hill.  More than once last year when the daytime snow blanketed the dry roads on which I drove to work, the travel home was precarious at best and the lane up to our house was not passable.  So, I would have to park my car on the bottom of our hill and trudge through the snow in my suit and dress shoes, leaving my car there until the snow melted.

     But this year things are different.  With my snow tires gripping the road under my front tires nothing seems unconquerable.  My car holds the turns as I serpentine my way over the ridge, and up my lane I go as if I was going downhill instead of up.  It is an amazing thing that has happened to my little car, now clad in snow tires.

     The Bible says this in Galatians, “⁷As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”….I don’t know if the Apostle Paul would be offended if I changed slightly his image a bit, but it certainly seems apropos to do so as I look out my window and see fields of snow, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have been equipped with Christ-gripping snow tires.”

     So, slick icy turns over which you would slide out of control with regular tires, need not cause you to turn around in defeat, for Baptized into Christ and therefore equipped with Christ-gripping snow tires you can take on those turns confidently and carefully.  When you come upon a snow blanketed hill you don’t have to cry uncle to the hill’s slippery incline, but instead equipped with Christ-gripping snow tires you can turn onto the lane and victoriously yell, “Charge!”

     In the wintery days of life when the travelling is treacherous and nail biting, remember that you do not run on high performance tires, for as the Bible says, “As many of you were baptized into Christ have been equipped with Christ-gripping snow tires.”  It makes all the difference in the world.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord  12-9-13

Hello,

     Regular readers of the Bungee Cord know that each week it is formed by the events of my life, some trivial….some significant.  Today it is significant.

     Woke up this morning, turned to my Facebook page and saw that a very dear and old friend of mine had placed a post, a post to let his friends know of the unspeakable tragedy of the death of his 29 year old daughter in a car accident last night.  He and his wife, whose death to cancer in her early 50’s still stings sharply, enveloped us in their arms of friendship when my wife and I took our first steps into our adult lives.  They lived a short two blocks from us and we wove our lives together for the first four years of my career as a pastor thirty years ago.  We shared dinner.  We often shared a glass of wine.  He and I hunted a squirrel that had snuck its way into their basement, and he came over to our house to install a dishwasher in our kitchen (is that supposed to involve smoke coming from a circular saw?).  They gave birth to their daughter in the same year that our oldest son was born, and together we learned by experience the challenges of being a first time parent.  They invited us to their cabin in the north woods of Minnesota, and in the company of newborns, mice, mosquito’s and M&M’s our lives were sealed together.

     When I read his post…all I could post back was, “Oh no!”

     I don’t know how he found the strength to type the horrible news.

     To try and make any sense of such a tragedy seems to me to trivialize the pain and the anguish in a father’s heart, or in the hearts of any of us who love him and his daughter.  Although the news that greeted me this morning was shocking, those of us who have trudged our way through life know all to well that none of us is immune from this sort of thing befalling us and shredding our hearts, too.

     I don’t know when it was, maybe it was in those first four years of my ministry that I shared with these dear friends, when I stumbled onto a verse in the Bible that I call my focus verse – it stands before my eyes every time the phone rings, every time I do something that magnifies the wretch that I am, every time I do something that waters the weeds of presumptuous pride, every time that I see the blessings in my life that are well beyond my deserving, every time that I walk into the lives of others whom tragedy has tackled with unrepentant roughness…my focus verse: 1 John 3:1, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are.”

That is what we are….period.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 12-2-13

Hello,

     Driving home from church today, my wife and I got behind a rather beat up, old, silver Toyota.  Because we were making a small grocery pick-up we took the route that led us through Greensburg and Latrobe, Route 30…..four lanes with lots of stoplights.  Traffic was relatively light, but somehow we got stuck behind the well-worn car in front of us.  As we putted along behind it, I noticed that it bore reflectors bookjacketting the rear license plate.  When I saw them, I said to my wife, “Maybe I should get those for my car.”  She snickered when she also noticed them, matching reflective silhouettes of a reclining woman (I have seen them before on the mud flaps of semi-trucks.).  Somehow I don’t think those reflectors are what I would want to reflect to the world.

     Seeing them led me to remember some years ago when our high school youth were doing an evangelism project (i.e. getting the message of Jesus out), and the person in charge of the high school youth asked me if I had any ideas for a magnet that we could have made to put on the kids’ cars and give to the adults of the congregation to display on theirs.  I thought a moment…mom….what would I want to people who got caught behind me to catch their eyes?  “THERE IS HOPE”…..that is what I told her.  Who knows….maybe the person behind me may have just lost their job….maybe they dug a hole for themselves that has gobbled them up….maybe the person just left the doctor’s office carrying an ominous prognosis….maybe death has clamped down on them like a spring-rigged trap….maybe they feel their family crumbling apart in their hands….maybe they have been treated like dirt by the kids at school….maybe…..”THERE IS HOPE”.  No matter what the person in the car behind me might be dealing with, I would want them to know that THERE IS HOPE.

     So, that was the magnet that we had made, and around Sioux Falls people saw a round magnet with a blue silhouette of the earth, encompassing a cross and the words THERE IS HOPE written in a large prominent font affixed to the cars of the youth and adults of our church. 

     It is not an accident that the Christian church that was centered in the Northern Hemisphere decided to place the date of Jesus birth (the Bible does not give us a date) at a time of the year when the shortening days brought more and more darkness.  It was placed at this time of the year as a perpetual reflection to the world of what Christianity is about….THERE IS HOPE.  When the Bible, in the Gospel of John,  speaks of Jesus’ place in the universe it says speaking of Jesus, “and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

    I don’t know if those magnets are still catching the eyes of drivers in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but no matter where you are in these darkening days of December I hope that this Bungee Cord has recreated those magnets and placed them in your vision.  And when you are caught behind some car or truck and all you can see is the trunk of the vehicle in front of you that amid whatever hopeless reflectors the driver has placed there you will see what God would want to be reflected into your vision…THERE IS HOPE.

     Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger