The Bungee Cord. 10-30-23

Hello,

Are you saved?

I’ve seen this question scrawled across billboards on highways. I’ve heard people ask that of others. I’ve had people ask it of me. Even though it is often a question that Christians pose to others, I am not quite sure what is being asked.

Are you saved? In my experience, I would say that most often this question can be rephrased to, “Are you going to heaven after you die?” For those of us who are older, this understanding is clearly what is behind Rev. Billy Graham’s asking it, and I think it is what is being asked on all those highway billboard signs, because often in the background of the sign are the flames of hell.

In the Bible, the Apostle Paul talks a lot about being saved. One of the more prominent times is Ephesians 2.8: “For by grace you have been saved through faith.” When I carefully read Paul’s writings, what Jesus says, and the rest of the Bible, it is clear to me that although “being saved” involves going to heaven, being saved is far more than just getting something (heaven) after we die. Being saved is much more like being chosen by the kid in school that no one would dare mess around with to be their best friend.

Being saved is when something that you have done that has brought pain to you and others tries to tackle you to the ground and pin you down, and the savior comes along and tears that bully off of you and sets you back on your feet. Being saved is when you’ve tripped up and fallen into a shark tank, and as the sharks are slicing their way toward you, you feel an arm reaching into the waters and pulling you out. Being saved is when you have made such a fool of yourself that everyone else walks to the other side of the street when they meet you, but the savior comes running to embrace you and walk stride with stride with you. Being saved is when you stand covered in skunk spray in the presence of God almighty and you hear, “I love you more than life itself.” Being saved is when you hear that same one stand between you and anything else that would want to stake their claim … including death…on you say, “This one is mine, and I’ll never give this one up.” Being saved is far more than going to heaven after you die.

Something that has happened over the centuries, it seems to me, is that Christianity has become a way… or the way…to get into heaven, that is, be saved. But it is clear to me that Jesus brought about a salvation that is a far greater thing…to live and die transformed by the grace of God……to fill every moment of time with eternity, with divine hope and peace bubbling over, ….to pour Christlike courage and mercy to overflowing in every heart, …….and to be created anew to abide with God forever. That’s being saved.

Am I saved? Are you saved? I guess the one who can best answer that question is the one who is holding the saved in his hands. “Jesus, am I saved? “ By the blood that dripped from the cross, by the tomb that was empty after three days, by the promise-filled water that splashed over my head, by the presence filled bread and wine that weekly slides down my throat….the answer is more than clear to me. “You are my son…my daughter, my beloved, the one in whom I am well pleased.” Saved!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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 The Bungee Cord. 10-23-23

Does Jesus need you?

I did a quick search of the Gospels in the English translation of the New Testament, and I discovered the only thing that Jesus ever said he needed was the ass (donkey, that is) on which he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. As you might recall, Jesus told the disciples to go into the town and they would find an ass (donkey, that is), and they should bring it to him, and if anyone asks what they were doing with the ass (donkey, that is), the disciples should say, “The Lord has need of it.” The only thing the Bible tells us that Jesus needed was an ass (donkey, that is).

Does Jesus need you? Although it feels good to be needed, I have to say that based on Scripture, Jesus does not need you. Unfortunately, I believe that when many people consider Christianity, what they hear is, “Jesus needs you.” I have been in countless church leadership meetings where people have looked at red colored balance sheets, empty pews, Sunday school children, leaky roofs, and vacant leadership positions and they have said, “We need to get more people to join our church.” As a matter of fact, a study was taken some years ago of people who did not go to church, and the most common response to why people didn’t go to church was, “All the church wants me for is my money.” I have to say that I don’t blame them for absenting themselves from Christian worship, or from Christ himself, if the truth is that Jesus needs me for my money.

However, the truth is that Jesus doesn’t need you for anything.

But maybe you need Jesus? Steve Green, in his song says you do, “People need the Lord.” The problem with that is that relationships based on “need” tend to be less than fulfilling. They tend to be what the professionals call, “Codependent”; relationships where people don’t build each other up, but dry each other up. When I was young, I thought that I would be happy if I could find a woman to marry me, but until I realized that I didn’t need to be married in order to be happy, then I was ready to be married. The relationship that I have with my wife, although like all marriages is not perfect, it is one where we each bring something of great value to it and that is what has made our marriage a blessing for forty-two years. It is a blessing to be in a relationship where my place in it is not because I am needed……but because I am loved.

That is what grace is all about. Grace isn’t about need. It is about love. Jesus did not enter humanity, die, and rise from the dead because he needs us. Jesus did all that he did, from the before creation began, because he loves us. And it is that love that Jesus has for us that transforms our lives from a black and white TV to, as NBC used to say with its peacock, a life of living color. And although it is certainly true that Jesus, and only Jesus, can forgive our sins and break the shackles of death, those things are not the foundation of our relationship with Jesus. The foundation of our relationship with Jesus is the thump in our heart when we encounter the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, the Alpha and the Omega, the one who says to us, “You are the apple of my eye.” As corny as it may seem, it’s love at first sight. Jesus loves us when he looks into our eyes, and we love God when we look into the eyes of Jesus, the Son of God.

Jesus may not need you, but Jesus certainly loves you, loves you so much that day after day he stretches out his arms to embrace you, arms that he stretched out on the cross. So, if you happen to pass by a church from which your ears have picked up a voice saying, “We need you.”, let me invite you to walk into that church with your hands covering your ears, and take a look at the cross that is in the front of the church, uncover your ears, and hear what Jesus is saying to you, “I love you.” And when you hear that Sunday after Sunday, watch your life explode with vibrant and living color.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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 The Bungee Cord. 10-15-23

Hello,

It has been said that the first casualty of war is the truth. As I listen to the TV discussions by analysts about the war that is about to explode in Israel and Gaza, I find myself agreeing with that saying about the truth, because I regularly hear lies. The lies that I hear are not things that are said by one side or the other trying to justify their case. No, the lies that I hear are said by both sides as they speak about warfare, itself. The lies of which I am speaking are two commonly spoken phrases: “boots on the ground” and “collateral damage.”

“Boots”, of course, can be replaced and “collateral damage” can be rebuilt, and since both of these phrases are used to refer to people, these phrases are lies. The “boots” in this phrase are someone’s child whose parent lays awake every night hoping not to get a visit from a couple of people dressed in a uniform. The “boots” are someone’s daddy or mommy who hasn’t been tucking that child into bed. The “boots” are someone’s beloved that the other can’t imagine living without. The “boots” are not boots; they are people.

And the “collateral damage” is not buildings and streets that happen to have been destroyed, which that phrase implies in my ears. No, the “collateral damage” is people. The “collateral damage” is a grandmother who serves the family secret recipe to a room full of people who share her name. The “collateral damage” is a child who jumps rope or casts a fishing pole. The “collateral damage is a taxicab driver trying to eke out a living. The “collateral damage” is not buildings and roads, the collateral damage is people.

My sense is that these lies are told because the truth makes war inconceivable. If we told the truth, it would be awfully hard to solve our problems, big or small, with sanctioned killing. If we told the truth, who could have sent 12,000 “boots” into a barrage of bullets and cannonballs at Gettysburg? If the truth was told, who would drop an atomic bomb on a city and create “collateral damage”? Who would plant land mines where children play if the truth was told?

Of course, there is another truth that is even more profoundly destructive, and that is that we live in a broken world where sin pollutes the thoughts and feelings of every person, including me. Including you. It is this unwelcome truth that ignites the wars where all sorts of truth are maimed, wounded, and killed.

Jesus said, “And you will hear of wars and rumours of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet.” (Matthew 24.6). When Jesus said this, he did not mean that wars needed to take place to pave the way for his return, as if there was some divine silver lining to war. No, what Jesus was telling us was that as shocking as war might be, as long as sin has a voice in our hearts and minds, we ought not to be alarmed to see sin raise its ugly, deadly head.

But Jesus also said, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”(John 8:32). When God sent his Son, Jesus, God spoke the truth with deafening power. When Jesus hung on the cross God proclaimed the truth that no matter who a person might be, what they might do, or what lies in their heart no one is a “boot” to him that can be replaced. Each person is irreplaceable to God, that is why Jesus died for everyone. When Jesus cried out from the cross, “It is finished!”, God proclaimed that no one would be counted as “collateral damage.” That is the truth! That is the truth about you and me. That is the truth about your neighbor and your enemy. That is the truth about your friend and your foe. No “boots”. No “collateral damage”. Only beloved for whom Jesus died and rose.

And so, as we find ourselves unsurprised by yet another war raging in our world, I find myself praying that the truth, God’s truth, would drown out the voice of sin in my heart and in the hearts of all people and free us all from the prison of lies that brings nothing but pain, suffering and death….and war.

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” St. Augustine.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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 The Bungee Cord 10-10-23

Hello,

Have you ever asked yourself, “Why is forgiveness of sins so important?”

I’ve been on the road this week to see my folks in Davenport, and to see two of my sons in Denver. A lot of time on the road, but well worth the time!

In my travels from Davenport to Denver, I stopped for an overnight stay In Lincoln, Nebraska. Lincoln, as any college football fan would know is the home of the University of Nebraska, Cornhuskers. I was born in Nebraska, Wayne, Nebraska, and both of my folks grew up in Eastern Nebraska. That meant, that when I grew up in Illinois, when there was a Big Red (Cornhusker Game) on T.V., we watched it. The Cornhuskers, in my growing up years, were a perennial powerhouse, and since there was no other big team to root for in Nebraska, the stadium was sold out every game. The fans were rabid fans!

In these past years, the Cornhuskers have fallen on some hard football times. But even though the team is not a powerhouse anymore, the fan base is as ruckus and loyal as before. The reason that I know that they are as ruckus as before is by the hotel that I stayed in on my way to Denver. As it turned out, the hotel was not too far from the Stadium. It was a national chain hotel, and from the outside, it looked like every other hotel of this name in which I had stayed. But on the inside, it was quite different! My room was set up in the same configuration as the rest, but, to put it softly, it was rather beat up. The wall paper was coming off the top corners of the walls. The carpet had clearly had its share of beer spilled on it. The desk and dresser wore the bruises of many drunken knicks. The bathroom shower was a bit more than a trickle, and the bed headboards looked like they had received their share of wrestlers tumbling into them.

It was clear to me that this hotel had been the stomping ground for many a Nebraska football game, and the hotel chain had decided that it wasn’t worth their money to keep it up to the standards of the brand. I am sure that they found out that if something was repaired or updated, it was soon broken and scarred. It was a football hotel where the sins of the occupants were not removed, but were piled on top of each other with every use of the room.

Why is the forgiveness of sins so important? This hotel tells us why: unforgiven sins effect the lives of those who come in contact with those sins. They mar up the world with dents and scrapes. They leave behind sour beer and vomit that others have to walk on. They plug up showerheads so no cleansing water can come out. Like a football hotel that the owners have given up on, lives that do not receive a thorough cleansing of sin degrade the lives of all those who encounter them.

That is why forgiveness of sins is so important, and that is why God’s daily promise of forgiveness is so important. In my tradition of Christianity, we remember that Martin Luther said that every day, Christians can wake up, mark the sign of the cross on their chest and remember God’s promise that each day begins with a clean slate of forgiveness. Even though we are like Nebraska football fans, messing up our lives like hotel rooms, God does not give up on us. To God, it is worth it to renew and update our broken lives over and over again. So worth it is it to God that God paid the ultimate price of the death of Jesus, his son, to make sure that the sins of our lives are completely washed away….every day….no matter what. So clean does Jesus’ forgiveness make our lives that you and I can begin each day with God’s declaration that our lives have passed “the white glove test.”

Those of us who have travelled know that a clean, neat room gives an ambiance for a refreshing rest and a invigorating spirit, but a messy and marred room just keeps sapping the energy and the life right out of you. God knows that too. So today, hear from the mouth of one hanging on a Golgotha cross, the mouth of one who trampled to death every sin that creeps on the earth when he walked out of the grave, the mouth of the one who spoke his word unmistakably to you in baptism, and the mouth of the one who unites himself with you in the bread and wine of Communion…… “Your sins are forgiven…removed…take up your pallet and walk!”

Have a great week,

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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