Bungee Cord 2-25-13

Hello,

     Saturday I woke up at 12:00, noon.  I don’t know that I have ever slept the morning away.  I went to bed at 10 p.m., and when I opened my eyes to tackle the day, it was noon

     Lest you dub me lazy, the important thing for you to know is that I have been in a battle with the respiratory flu for the last two weeks.  Two weeks ago, today, it hit me like a Mack truck, sending me coughing and sputtering, flat on my back  Unfortunately, the flu’s timing did not match the season of worship services that comes with the beginning of Lent.  So, I wasn’t able to do what I should have done….stay in bed….and like all of you would have done, I did what I needed to do and brought my cough and hack with me to the pulpit.

     The weird thing about this battle with the flu is that the enemy’s war plan has been to attack in waves.  Just when it seemed that I have taken the upper hand, viral reinforcements have come along to see if they could bring me back to my knees, and they did.  So it was on Friday.  After a series of battle engagements, and thinking the conflict was over, the flu caught me off guard with an apparent offensive surge. 

     Not that it is a rare occurrence (a sign of the wild life that I live); I decided to hit the rack at 10:00 on a Friday night, thinking that a good night’s sleep might be the best defense against this surge.   Apparently my thinking was coming from my body’s central command center, telling me that I needed rest….and rest I got.

    Maybe it is not without coincidence that my unintentional bed-rest came at the beginning of Lent.  After all, the entire purpose of Lent is to draw away from the daily rigor of life in order to regain our strength and purpose.  For some of us, life is a fierce battle where each day brings with it new and determined reinforcements.  For others of us, the battle may not be as bombastic, but using guerilla warfare techniques the fight hits us unaware with limited but corrosive attacks. 

     Just like my battle with the flu, there comes a time when a message comes from central command saying, “rest!”  Take a rest from the hectic, high-pressure battlefield that life can become.  Step off the people mover, and sit down….sit down in a quieted time, uncluttered by demands and drive….and rest….rest in the presence of the one whose strength is unlimited,  and who has turned the full force of his power to fight on our side…to fight against guilt’s accusation with forgiveness, to fight against failure with eternal victory….to fight against the weariness of confusion with shepherding care.

     It may not seem that we can find the time to rest, but there comes a time for all of us that whether we want to or not, rest is unavoidable.  Lent, these 40 days in which we are engaged, calls us to do what we need to do……rest.  Come…..and rest….rest in the Lord.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor JerryNuernberger

The Bungee Cord 2-17-13

Hello,

     This is the first winter that we have lived in our house on top of the ridge, and this winter has confirmed the wisdom of two of the purchases we made as we moved in: a tractor, and a four wheel drive pick-up.  In the past several weeks we have had our fair share of snow up here, snow that doesn’t accumulate in Greensburg where it is warmer because of its lower elevation.  Four inches, six inches, three inches, and even now we are getting another 8-10 inches of snow.  The snow comes in waves, but unlike the snow in South Dakota where we used to live, it doesn’t pile up as warmer weather also comes in spurts to melt it away.

     Even though we know that the melting is coming, we still find ourselves needing to plow our lane every time it snows.  We have a nearly half mile lane that winds its way up our hill whose incline is too steep for a car to traverse without being plowed.  Thus the need for our tractor for which we have a plowing blade.  A wise investment.

    In addition to the utility uses of our four wheel drive pickup, our Ford Ranger has also proved its worth in this winter’s snows.  On those days when I have left for work and the ground was clear only to find it downy white in the afternoon when I returned home, simply by switching it into four wheel drive my pick up gets me up the hill as if it was going down hill instead of up.  Snow be not proud….I have a four wheel drive pick up!

     The other day, however, I discovered that my pick up has come in winter handy in a way that I had not anticipated.  As I was brushing the several inches of snow off the front windshield, my eye caught movement near the front driver’s side tire.  As I looked down I saw the source of that movement: a field mouse that had dropped out from the engine and was scurrying its way through the snow and through my feet.  I didn’t screech or yell, but I have to admit I jumped a bit by the surprise of a mouse darting through my feet.  Apparently when I last parked my truck, the warmth of the engine was just what this little field mouse needed to survive another bitter, cold night.  In terms of proving itself a worthy purchase, that mouse would have more than agreed with me on its winter value; a life saver.

     I don’t know that the Bible ever likens the Church to a Red Ford Ranger pickup, but it seems to me that the image is a good one.  Sometimes life can bring wave upon wave of snow, dropping a couple of inches here and a foot there, and what we need is something with sure footing to get us up a hill….and the church is that….when you take your seat in one of the pews, you can feel the traction of the Lord who trudged up Calvary’s hill grab the ground underneath you.  And then there are those times when you’re lost in a storm, a storm whose fury is out to get you, and what you need is a place of warm shelter….and the church is that…when you nestle into your seat the warmth of God’s forgiveness, the blanket of the people’s compassion, the shelter from the oppressive, attacking winds provides just what you need to save your life and strengthen you to face the world again.

     To what can the kingdom of God be compared?  How about a Red Ford Ranger Pickup.

It’s snowing again! 

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 2-11-13

Hello,

     Note to self: do not drink 4 cups of coffee before donating white blood cells.

     A couple of months ago our church had a blood drive at which I bled a unit of blood that would be put to use to save someone’s life.  This was my first donation since moving to Pennsylvania, and as I had expected there isn’t much difference from state to state in the blood donation procedures. I was, however, surprised a couple of days later to get a phone call from the local Red Cross telling me that I had an exceptional platelet count, and they were wondering if I would be willing to come in for a platelet donation.

     Back in the ‘80’s when we lived in St. Paul, Minnesota, I participated in platelet donation, but for a variety of reasons had not done so since then.  As you may know, the procedure for donating platelets involves having a line placed in one arm that extracts your blood into a machine that separates white and red blood cells, and then there is a second line placed in the other arm that returns the red blood cells back to you and leaves the white ones behind in a collecting bag.  The whole process from hook up to unhooking takes about 3 hours.

     My appointment was set for 1:15 for this past Tuesday,  and I was told to hydrate well before I arrived.  So along with a very nutritious Wendy’s hamburger, I drank a big glass of pop before I walked into the Red Cross.  I suppose that the big glass of pop would not have been anything of significance except for the fact that I had had several cups of coffee in the morning while I was at work.

     I took my seat in the reclining chair where a TV was suspended in front of me to occupy my attention for the next 3 hours, and with a few misses of my veins and a few re-sticks, within a half an hour I was sending my blood into the separating machine.  “You can move your hands,” the technician told me, “but don’t move your arms.”  I don’t know if it was the realization that these words carried that I would have to be motionless for the next three hours that triggered some unconscious fear, but suddenly I found myself well aware of all the coffee and pop that I had drank summoning me to visit the little boy’s room…..which I would not be able to do for about three hours.

     To cut to the chase, let me say that it was a very difficult three hours.  The minutes passed more slowly than the minutes pass when sitting in a dentist’s chair having major work done on your molars.  I tried not to look at the clock, because every glance only seemed to magnify the pressure that I was feeling in my bladder.  Knowing that my blood was desperately needed due to the decrease of donors in this cold/flu season, I was determined not to plead for mercy and ask to have my donation cut short.  To say that my three hours of being “strapped” to the arms of that chair were agonizing is probably a bit hyperbolic, but to say that it was a battle with misery would not overstate the case.  When the bell rang on the machine stating my mission was complete, they couldn’t get me unhooked fast enough for me to run to the restroom.

     It seems to me that we have become so used to talking about the three hours that Jesus spent “strapped” to the cross, that we do so with a rather casual appreciation of what he went through for us.  Not to say that the discomfort that I endured for three hours in my reclining char came anywhere close to the excruciating pain that Jesus endured for three hours on the cross, but this Lent I wont say those words “they nailed him to the cross” with apathy.  If my experience of giving blood brought the level of misery it did for me, I cannot even imagine the level of misery that Jesus’ experience of shedding his blood brought to him.  Yet Jesus went willing to that cross to shed his blood so that every power or deed that would wish to claim you or me would be bled to death and only God’s claim would remain.

     These 40 days of Lent that lead us to Easter are meant to be days of honest reflection: honest reflection on the pain that we cause ourselves, those near and far from us, and especially God…but also honest reflection on the nearly incomprehensible love of God that he would send his Son, Jesus, to shed his blood on a cross so that we would be given a place in his heart forever.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 2-4-13

Hello,

     If you watched the Super Bowl last night, you saw what I saw.  The lights went out in the middle of the game.  Mysteriously. Instantly.  Inconveniently.  Just after an exciting kick off return, the game stopped more abruptly than Dale Earnhardt, Jr. hitting his breaks.   But the lights were not the only thing that  were snapped off .  So also were the announcers, silenced in the middle of a sentence.  One can imagine the panic that shook the TV truck as they tried to cover time that was selling for 3.8 million dollars per thirty  seconds.  When it happened, no one knew why.  No one knew how long the darkness was going to hover.  No one knew exactly what to do.  Players milled around. Coaches yelled at people who were supposed to be in charge.  Building personnel scrambled and announcers stumbled over pregnant pauses. Patience was called for.  20 … maybe  30 minutes and the lights might come back on…. but no one could say for certain.

     Although the hype that comes with the Super Bowl game might lead us to think otherwise, there really are far more significant times in life when the lights going out creates a deeper crisis: “we can’t do anything more for you,”, “please clean out your desk,” “mom…dad…are you sitting down?”, “there’s been a terrible accident”, “what a mess I have made”.  Far more significant are these light outages.  With these the fear, confusion, despair, and impatience is painfully real and heart crushingly deep.  Seconds pass like hours.  “Just wait” are words of torture.  “Hold on.  There’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” falls upon the ears of those whose hands have been sapped of their strength as reason to give us.  The darkness that delayed the Super Bowl doesn’t contend with the thick darkness that slams upon life, real life.

     To that darkness and the confusion, despair, and pain that it brings comes an a word to us from the one who shattered the darkness of creation with the words “let there be light”…from the one whose birth in Bethlehem brought the light into the darkness with a power that no darkness could overcome….  from the one whose Friday’s cry “it is finished” finished off the convicting fuel of sin and whose Sunday’s steps out of a death sealed grave ignited a flame of everlasting life fueled by the never ending mercy of God……….. from this One comes the words, “Fear not.  I am with you.”

     The good news…. the powerful good news of Jesus Christ is that the one in whom there is no darkness actually cares about you and me to enjoin himself to our flickering lives.  It may seem that such news is too good to be true, and many through the centuries have said so:  “No god would take on the cares of his creation”.  “It is only the wishful thinking of weak, scared people who believe such a thing.”  “I see famine, war, hatred, disease…..where’s the beef….where is God?”

     These critiques of the Christian faith are not new.  They are as old as the Bible itself, and so hear the Bible’s (or as I would rather say “God’s) response to them, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” (1 Cor. 1:22-25) 

     “Fear not.  I am with you,” are God’s powerful words, power that reveals itself in a peace that surpasses all human understanding when those words take hold of our hearts.  I have witnessed their power in my life and in the lives of many for whom darkness has interrupted their lives with real, bone chilling fear, and so I put my trust in them as I turn new corners….not knowing what I will encounter there, other than when I am there God’s Word “will be a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”  So, also, it will be for you.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger