The Bungee Cord. 8-26-24

Hello,

I am sitting in the Denver airport awaiting my flight back home after my visit to my son ‘s for his 40th birthday. (Actually, it was my birthday, but he decided to join his birthday to mine for a grand celebration!). About thirty people came to his house for the party. Most of them were about my son’s age, but there were a few of us “seasoned” folks there, too. I was sitting down on a bench talking to the young woman who lives across the street from him, when her three-year-old daughter hopped on her lap. As she was hugging her daughter, she said to me, “My daughter and I have been talking a lot about heaven lately, and she has a question for you.”

Uh oh!

And with a question deep in her eyes she looked straight into my eyes and said to me, “Where is heaven?”

I didn’t think I could answer her by saying, “I’m retired.” So, I tried to turn my brain on very quickly, and I said to her, “Well, I don’t think heaven is so much a place, but rather being with someone.”

Her three-year-old questioning eyes deepened, and then I said, “When I go to heaven, I know that when I get there, I will find myself sitting on God’s lap.” And as she was sitting on her mother’s lap and in her embrace, I went on to say, “Doesn’t it feel great to sit on your mommy’s lap? The great thing about being alive is that God gives us great people who love us and we get to sit on their laps for a while. And the great thing about when we die is that we get to sit on God’s lap forever!”

Now her eyes were deeply puzzled, and she asked me, “How can we all fit?”

“Well, God is that big!”

It seems that her grandmother had recently died, and she was struggling with her loss. Life is full of firsts for a three-year-old, and this first seemed to be full of captivating feelings of sadness. Of course, you don’t have to be three to experience firsts in life, and even when things are a first, their power, as in the case of death, still can captivate us with sadness.

Where is heaven? Maybe you have found yourself asking that question. Or maybe you wonder if heaven even exists? If you listen to some Christians talk, they seem to know more about heaven than earth. But me, I find myself quite daunted by the concept of heaven. Eternity is impossible for me to conceive, and in some ways is frightening. I don’t believe it is up, and that there’s a man upstairs waiting for me there. I don’t believe that there is some eternal spirit within me that escapes from this body and passes through pearly gates. I don’t believe that only good people go there, because if that were so, no one would be there, including me.

This is what I believe. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” (1 John 3:1,2)

I am a father, and now I am a grandfather, and I remember and know the power that comes with a child sitting on their parent’s (or grandparent’s lap). I remember the power to bring tears of hurt and pain to an end that comes with sitting on a loved one’s lap. I remember the power of peace and delight that comes from reading a book together on a loved one’s lap. I remember the power of hope and joy that comes from being embraced by a loved one while sitting on their lap. I remember the solace and trust that comes from singing a song to a beloved child sitting on your lap. A lap of a loved one is full of power!

Where is heaven? Does heaven exist? By the resurrection of Jesus, who ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty we know this: it is sitting eternally on God’s lap.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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 The Bungee Cord. 8-19-24

Hello,

This past weekend the Little League team representing my hometown, Hinsdale, Illinois, played in the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. They ran into two buzz-saws and lost their two games, but it was a thrill to see a bunch of kids from my old haunt playing a game that I loved to play when I was younger.

Fifty-four years ago, I, too played on a Little League team representing Hinsdale. Things were different back then. Little League Baseball was so big in Hinsdale, everywhere for that matter, that we had two Little League Leagues in our town: the American League, and the National League. The league that you were in depended on whether your address number was an even number or an add one. I lived at 705 S. Grant Street, kitty-corner from Robbins Park, so I was in the National League, playing for the Pirates, and I was on the National League team representing our town.

I still remember pitching against the American League All-Star team where I hit a home run and struck out my best friend who was the opposing team’s catcher. We advanced to the next round, but that was as far as we got. No Williamsport for us. Who knows how far we might have gone if we had combined our leagues’ talents.

The time has passed so quickly. It doesn’t seem like fifty-four years ago when summers consisted of hanging out at the local swimming pool, riding your bike, playing pick-up games at the park, and kicking up the dirt on the Little League field. We lived for the two games per week that we played Little League baseball, and when the season was over and the all-star team was selected, we dreamed of a trip to Williamsport. Our lives got all wrapped up in baseball, and losing the regional game seemed like the end of the world.

Life was so simpler as a kid, and so was my faith back then. Going to church every Sunday without question, learning Bible stories with my friends without critique, and praying at bedtime with absolute confidence that God would answer my prayers to my liking. But things are different now. Days are more complicated, and so is my faith. The faith that I had as a twelve-year-old has been morphed by the events of my life, the widening of my experiences, and the deliberations of my thinking into a much more mature faith.

I still go to church every Sunday, not due to a thoughtless routine but driven by a discovery of peace and hope that I have found there. I still read Bible stories, not because someone I respect puts them in front of me, but rather when I read them with thought and critique, I have found that they contain power to change my life. I still pray, but not in order to get gumballs from God, but rather to feel the eternal embrace of God. When troubles happen, my faith does not give me simple answers, but I do see the presence of God in my struggles. When good things happen, my faith does not tell me that I am better than someone else, but rather despite anything that I have done to have something good happen, I am still dust, just like everyone else, who, just like everyone else, is inconceivably loved by a God who has given God’s very self for all. I live daily with a faith that is saturated by the grace of God.

I hope that my faith has opened my ears to the voices of others: their pain, their stories, their hopes, their dreams. I hope that my faith has opened my eyes to see what others go through: their struggles, their resiliency, their compassion, their frustrations, their anger, their loneliness. I hope that my faith has opened my hands to reach out to others: when they fall, when they dance, when they beg, when they wipe tears from their eyes.

So much has changed since I stood on the Little League mound, took my place in the batter’s box, and fielded ground balls at shortstop. Little league has changed. The world has changed. I have changed. My faith has changed. I thank God that throughout all the changes, God has been seeing me through the changes, working on me to bring about change, and has shown me that I can trust him in all the changes that are to come….in life….and in death.

“Play ball!”

Have a great week,

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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 The Bungee Cord. 8-12-24

Hello,

Is Batman a superhero?

This past Thursday evening, I was at Foggy Mountain Inn, a “resort” (not as fancy as the name implies) and restaurant for Trivia, which is held there every other Thursday. About ten of my daily pickleball group gather for some food and fun for this Trivia, and this past Thursday we won! We beat seven other teams with our expertise on general knowledge.

We won, even though we lost on a question that had a questionable answer. “What fictional superhero first appeared in Detective Comics #27 on May 1, 1939.” Our group discussed the possible answer, and the person next to me said, “Batman”, and my immediate response to him was, “That can’t be the answer, Batman is not a superhero.” So, we guessed Superman. Which was wrong. The answer was Batman.

I am not a big comic book fan, nor am I a follower of superheroes, but in my definition, a superhero is called such because they possess super powers. What super power does Batman possess? Indeed, he has all sorts of gadgets and smarts, but nothing that any other person does not also have. Bullets don’t bounce off of him. He can’t fly or become invisible. He can’t live underwater or stretch his arms as if they are rubber bands (or gum bands if you live in Pennsylvania). How is Batman a superhero?

When “Mike and Mike” was on ESPN, they had an ongoing debate as to whether Batman is a superhero. I agreed with the Mike who said that Batman was not.

Was/Is Jesus a superhero?

Some who have heard that Jesus could do such things as heal lepers, feed 5000 people, still a storm, raise Lazarus from the dead, and a whole lot more might be inclined to label Jesus as a superhero. But I would not give that label to Jesus. Jesus is/was not a superhero. Jesus is/was the Messiah.

The Bible tells us that Jesus did miraculous things, things that other humans could not do. But the reason I do not think those things mean that Jesus was/is a superhero is that Jesus’ deeds were/are far more than super heroic, they were/are messianic. The Bible tells us that Jesus, who was as completely human as you and I, was also as divine as God Almighty. And as such, Jesus’ mission on earth was not to wrestle with a never-ending lineup of evil forces with superhuman power, but Jesus had come to gather all of the evil forces in the universe like a black hole unto himself and take them to the grave, forever. When Jesus died on the cross, he died like any non-super human, and when Jesus took his last breath, so did everything that was evil. No longer could anything evil speak a claim on anything or anyone. And when Jesus was raised from the dead, there was only one with the breath to say of you or me, “this one is mine”.

Superheroes fight evil. Jesus brings evil to an end.

When I am standing in front of a mirror and see the scars from the pain that I have caused in the world, pain that I haven’t even meant to cause, Superman and all his superpowers will not be able to save me. When I am facing the people that I love the most and see the struggles they encounter because of my failures, Aquaman and all his superpowers will not be able to save me. When I see the fears in my heart and the hearts of others as the reality of our human smallness sinks in, Captain America with all of his super powers will not be able to save me. And when I have been sealed in a coffin and buried six feet deep (or cremated and spread over the Butterfly Hill) Batman, superhero or not, will not be able to save me.

But I am sure, because of the cross and the grave, when these things happen to me, and they will, there is one who can and will save me: Jesus, the Messiah.

You, too.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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