The Bungee Cord 12-29-14

Hello,

     In a couple of days we will have ended another spin around the sun.  According to the internet, we’ve been travelling at 67,062 miles per hour and spinning at the rate of somewhere around 1000 miles per hour.  That’s quite a ride!  Compare that ride to the ride of the fastest roller coaster in the world,  the Formula Rossa in the United Arab Emirates which races along its track at a top speed of 150 miles per hour.  If you can’t go that far for a thrill, there’s a coaster at Cedar Point, Sandusky, Ohio that hits 120 miles an hour.

     I know the feeling of my stomach in my throat as I have gotten of some roller coasters, a couple of which I have said when I stepped off, “I don’t think that I will do that again!”  There are some people who enjoy that feeling.  They enjoy the racing of their hearts and the sweat gushing from their glands.  But not me.  Put me in a Bumper Car or a water dowsing Log Ride, and I will feel like I have gotten my money’s worth out of my amusement part ticket fee.

     The problem about the ride that you and I have taken this year  around the sun is that there is no getting off.  And unlike amusement park rides, the ride around the sun is never the same.  Well, physically it may be the same, but in reality it takes us over and around new curves, up and down new valleys, and spinning us through new cork screws.  We never know as the ride starts again if it will be smoother or bumpier, calmer or scarier.  All we know is that we’ll be travelling at 67,062 miles per hour and spinning at 1000 miles per hour.

     No wonder we are often pretty tired and worn out as we end each lap.

     When I take my seat on a roller coaster, I make sure that I am firmly clamped in by the safety bar across my lap.  Fact of the matter, I even feel more prepared for the ride ahead if I am fastened to my seat not only across my waist, but also over my shoulders.  As I hear the clicking of the track engaging the car, I jostle the harnesses to make sure they are tight and say, “Ok….here we go!”

     So, as you and I hear the seconds click as the track engages our car to take us into the coaster ride ahead, notice that you are well strapped in…strapped in by the arms of Jesus that were nailed into place for you.  Who knows how wild the ride will be this year, but beyond the fact that we can be certain of the speed and the spin, we can also be certain of this: we will not be thrown out.  So if you are feeling your heart beginning to race and  sweat beginning to rise, fear not.  Jesus will hold you tight through each bend and twist, climb and fall until you arrive at the end of this year’s spin…..where you’ll get to go for yet another ride.  “Ok….here we go!”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (GGAP)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord  12-23-14

The Bungee Cord  12-23-14

Hello,

Merry Christmas from me!  Going to try and give you a real Christmas treat.  I wrote a Christmas Carol some years ago called “Carol of the Holy Family”.  I recorded it on my Mac using Garage Band.  I hope that you can upload it to your computer, even if you’re using a PC….but if not, here’s the words….maybe it is better without my voice and just my pen!

Carol of the Holy Family

Jerry Nuernberger, copyright 2004

 

Jesus, Jesus lying in a midnight stable,

Though you’re tiny yet you’re able

To free us from all our sins.

                Gloria, Gloria

                Gloria in the highest.

                Gloria, Gloria

You will make us clean within

                You will make us clean within.

 

Mary, Mary with a child not conceived by a man

Though you’re mortal, yet it’s God’s plan

From your womb salvation bring

                Gloria, Gloria

                Gloria in the highest.

                Gloria, Gloria

Ponder in your heart these things.

                Ponder in your heart these things.

 

Joseph, Joseph father to this heavenly son

Though you’re humble, when his life’s done

God will right the world through him

                Gloria, Gloria

                Gloria in the highest

                Gloria, Gloria

Peace on earth from heaven break in

                Peace on earth from heaven break in.

 

Final chorus

                Gloria, Gloria

                Gloria in the highest

                Gloria, Gloria

Peace on earth from heaven break in

                Peace on earth from heaven break in.

Have a blessed Christmas.

God’s grace and peace, (GGAP)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

CAN'T SEEM TO ADD THE AUDIO.....I'll try later

The Bungee Cord  12-14-12

Hello,

     When I was 30 I looked like I was 16….maybe 18.

     It was when I was about 30 that I was a pastor in Toledo, and in my ministry there I found myself doing a lot of funerals for people I had never met.  So it was one day that I was asked to do such a funeral.  My practice for these kinds of funerals was to meet with the family at the funeral home before the visitation was to begin in order to get to know the relatives, how they were dealing with the death, and learn a bit about the one who had passed away.  As I came to the door of the funeral home, I was met by a short, stocky man whom I didn’t know.

     “I am Pastor Nuernberger,” I told the man, “and I will be doing Louie’s funeral.  Is Louie’s wife here?”

     I wondered if he heard me….maybe he had a hearing defect….because there wasn’t any reaction to my question in his face.  He just kind of stood there looking at me.

     So, I repeated my introduction, “I am Pastor Nuernberger, and I will be doing Louie’s funeral.  Is Louie’s wife here?”

     He sort of grunted as he waved for me to follow him into the funeral home.  He led me into the visitation room where about a dozen people where sitting in the wooden folding chairs that were lined up for services.  A small, fragile woman was sitting in the front row to whom he led me.

     He trudged up to her as if he was trudging through 10 inches of heavy snow and he said with a gruff voice, “Stella, I hate to tell ya, but this is the pastor.”

     Well, as you and I walk up to the Christmas manger there’s a gruff voice from the world directed at us that says, “Folks, I hate to tell ya, but this is the savior.”  After all…it is just a baby…a baby born in a dinky little dirt roaded town….a baby born in a remote mid-east country at a time in history when people knew little about the composition of the universe and what they knew we now know was wrong…..a baby of a tribe of people whose religion dealt in animal sacrifices and offerings of grain.

     Just like that elderly man who looked at me and saw a wet behind the ears, “16” year old, clerical collared kid come to do a funeral for his sister who was deep in grief and thought, “You have to be kidding me.”, there is a natural tendency for people in our day (maybe including you and me) to see a diaper dirtying, manger laid baby born of simple minded people heralded as the savior of the world and say, “You have to be kidding me.”

     In many ways, that disappointed man who greeted me at the funeral home was right.  I was young, not as young as I looked, though.  What did I know about the struggles of life?  What did I know about tragedy and loss? What did I know about emptiness and grief?

     I hope that I knew enough.  I hope that I knew enough so that I could help that widow as she walked through the valley of the shadow of death, facing a life ahead of her that was completely unlike the life she had lived for decades, wondering if the hole in her heart would be a drain to empty her of any joy.  Even though I may not have looked like it, I hope that my time with that family at that funeral proved to be what they needed and hoped for out of a pastor.  I hope that when she shook my hand and with tears in her eyes said to me, “Thank you, pastor,” that her words were heartfelt.

     I guess that it is the same thing with that Bethlehem born baby, heralded as the saviour of the world.  Did the words that this baby spoke in his adult years to the outcasts and unloved have the power to redirect the river of hope to the hopeless?  Did the hands that he stretched out to lift of those who the world had kicked and beaten down have the strength to push his way through the judgments of the world and stand up those who continue to be crushed by the mighty?  Did the arms that were nailed to a cross have the capacity to gather up all the failures, the disasters, the guilt, and the shame of all who have stumbled through life and lead them through the darkness of death.

     I can’t speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself…speak of whom this one who was Bethlehem born has walked into my life in a way that may not have been as visible as my time with that grieving wife in the funeral home, but just as present….and all I can say with heartfelt truth as I sense his loving embrace, “Thank you Lord.”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 12-9-14

Hello,

     Just under a year ago I was in Bethlehem, the city of David, the Biblical birthplace of Jesus.  The Bible doesn’t give us much of a description of Bethlehem, which in Hebrew means “house of bread”.  Christmas song writers however have painted a picture with their lyrics of a quiet country town where cattle “low” (do any cattle tending Bungee readers know what that means?”) and babies sleep in heavenly peace.  Who knows for sure, but my suspicion is that the truth of life in Bethlehem was not so idyllic. Bethlehem, as was all of Israel, patrolled by Roman armies who kept the peace by ruthless fear.  Also, Bethlehem was under the thumb of King Herod who seems not to have had any hesitancy to spill the blood of his people.  Was all calm and bright in Bethlehem at the time of Jesus birth?  I don’t think so.

     And neither is all calm and bright in Bethlehem today as we near the anniversary of that birth.  Jerusalem is a divided city.  Huge 20 foot walls separate people, Jews from non-Jews.  These walls have become roadblocks, cutting family businesses off from their customers.  These walls have separated olive farmers from their groves, and thus their livelihood. The people of Bethlehem have painted artwork and graffiti on these walls.  One such painting that I saw was of a large purple ribbon, the sort of ribbon one gets for a prize cow at the fair, and inside the circle at the top which on fair ribbons might read “Grand Champion”, these words are painted, “With love and kisses nothing lasts forever”.

     Some of you may have heard of the questioning of the historical accuracy of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem in a book called The Zealot.  This is not a new question.  For centuries some have spoken of the “unlikelihood” of making people return to the city of their ancestors for an enrollment, and the lack of extra-Biblical recounting of such an enrollment in Jesus’ day.  Of course, even these objections do not rule out the possibility of the historical accuracy of the birth story.

     But to me, the preoccupation with asserting or refuting the accuracy of the Biblical account superimposes a modern understanding of history on the Biblical story and misses the truth that the story is making.    The truth that Jesus was to have been born in Bethlehem, which he certainly may have been, has more to do with the revealing of who Jesus was and what Jesus would be.  The Bible tells us that God made a promise to his people that God would provide for them a King who would rule over them, a King who would descend from the stem of David (Bethlehem was the town in which David’s family of origin grew up).   Jesus was the fulfillment of that promise…God keeps his word.   Also, by locating Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, instead of the palace in Jerusalem, we see the truth that God has come, and will come, into the ordinary and common places of life….places filled with manure, places filled with confusion, places filled with danger, places that are not calm, bright, and peaceful.

     In these Advent days, the four weeks before Christmas, if you wonder if you are important enough that God Almighty, the King of the Universe, would even have a flicker of a thought of you pass through his mind…remember Bethlehem.  If you wonder if you life is neat and clean enough that God would want to walk through your life with you…remember Bethlehem.  If you wonder if your life is together enough that God would want to settle in there…..remember Bethlehem.  If you look at your life and see the 20 foot walls that you have built to keep others away and even maybe keep God away…remember Bethlehem.  And on Christmas when you sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem”….remember Bethlehem….and although the picture that the song writer gives of Bethlehem may be a little inaccurate…the song writer got it absolutely, historically accurate….”The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger