The Bungee Cord

Hello,

The Bible tells a story in Mark 4 when Jesus went with his disciples in a boat to cross to the other side of the Sea of Galilee after he had spent the day teaching crowds of people who had gathered at the seashore.

Some years ago, I went on a trip to the Holy Land that was actually a course offered by one of the Lutheran seminaries. As part of the trip, we spent some time around the Sea of Galilee, which in my mind is a misnomer. To call it a sea is a bit of an exaggeration. It is only 7-8 miles wide and 14 miles long. It sits in a valley of sorts, so when you look across it, you can see the other side. Also, because it is in a valley, it finds itself in a natural wind tunnel where storms can hit without much notice, and the fury of the wind is magnified.

On this trip we also got to see a boat from the days of Jesus that had been unearthed in 1986 near the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Because it had been covered in soil, it had remained a good deal intact. It was around 27 feet long, 7 feet wide, and about 4 feet deep. The mast for the sail would have been in the middle of the boat, and the boat was steered by a rudder in the back. Steering was difficult because there was no keel on the underside of the boat.

Seeing this boat, and seeing the Sea of Galilee, I had a deeper appreciation for what the disciples were feeling that night when they left one shore to cross over to the other. The waters must have been relatively still when they set sail, but turned vicious as a storm sprang up. The Bible tells us that this was no small storm, but rather the boat was taking in water and was starting to sink. Without a keel the boat was at the mercy of the wind, taking it where the wind blew and rocking it mercilessly. No wonder the disciples panicked.

And no wonder they were astonished to find Jesus asleep. Why wasn’t he helping them? How could he not see the danger that was exploding around them? Didn’t he see what was happening to them? And so, they awoke him and said to him, “Do you not care that we are perishing?”

Recently, I have shared the anxiety of the disciples. Although not out on a small, keel-less boat on the Sea of Galilee, when I listen to the news that is sweeping down upon me, I get a sinking feeling….warnings about AI’s potential lethality, the war in Iran, the teetering of our economy, the cost of essentials, the blind braggadocio from leaders, the pommeling of storms and fires, sabers being rattled between countries…I find myself being chilled by the frigid, stormy water that my emotional boat is taking in, and on my knees, I find myself crying out, “Lord, do you not care that we are perishing?”

And that is when I realize something that both the disciples and I had forgotten, and that is that Jesus was in the boat with them, and likewise he is in the boat with us. Jesus wasn’t standing on the seashore either completely unaware of the travail his disciples were experiencing or simply a spectator to the battle that was going on. No, he was in the boat with them….their fate would be his fate. He was included in the “we”.

That is also the case with us as we find ourselves tossed and turned in the storms of our lives. God does not stand on the shores of heaven in complete oblivion, or as a distant spectator. In Jesus, God hopped into this life with us, feet first, taking on the storms that we endure, and just as he did from the Galilean boat, he stilled the worst storm of all, death, when the walked out of the earth-hewn tomb.

So, it is not a pollyannic platitude to say that Jesus cares when the storms hit. He has shown us that he cares, cares with his very life. When the storms brew to boiling around us and cause us to fear…look and see…see that Jesus is with us…see how Jesus commands the storms…and feel faith and hope settle in you….as Jesus shows you…shows you…. that he cares!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

See less

Shared post

 The Bungee Cord

Hello,

How fun is it to be caught in a traffic jam for two hours? Let me tell you.

A couple of days ago, I was on my return trip home from visiting my father who is in a care facility in Davenport, Iowa. I was cruising along until I neared Joliet when everything just stopped. A parking lot on Interstate 80. I found myself surrounded by eighteen wheelers…front, back, and side, breathing in their fumes from their exhaust and being shook by the rumbling of their engines. The worst thing about my position amidst the trucks was that I could not see anything ahead of me, so, I had no idea how backed up tings were. For two hours it was a pattern of stopping, creeping, stopping creeping. I was beginning to wonder if I would be stuck there all day.

Ever feel like life is that way, caught in a traffic jam, stuck and seemingly going nowhere? Creeping your way through life surrounded by walls of rumbling trucks? Blinded by the towering semi in front of you? I know that I have. Patience evaporates. Hope withers. Gloom sets in. Anger mounts. Despair creeps in.

Psalm 121 speaks to those times in life.

I lift up my eyes to the hills—

from where will my help come?

2 My help comes from the LORD,

who made heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot be moved;

he who keeps you will not slumber.

4 He who keeps Israel

will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD is your keeper;

the LORD is your shade at your right hand.

6 The sun shall not strike you by day

nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will keep you from all evil;

he will keep your life.

8 The LORD will keep

your going out and your coming in

from this time on and forevermore.

We are not unaccompanied in those moments. There is one who abides with us in those traffic jams of life, and that one is the one who created all things, seen and unseen (Nicene Creed). That one is the one who has taken hold of you with a cross-born love that won’t let you go when you feel yourself slipping. That one is the one for whom even the darkness is light (Psalm 139). That one is the one who takes on the scorching heat of the sun and blankets you when the night chills. That one is the one who stayed with you when you drove yourself into the jam, the one who remains with you no matter how long the jam may capture you and will glide with you when you are freed from the jam.

If you have ever been caught in one of those highway jams, you know the relief that you feel when the parking lot begins to move, and when you see the end if the jam in sight. But even more so, you know the exhilaration that comes with finally being able to press the accelerator as you revisit the speed limit again. That is the joy that is felt in this life when sins are forgiven, when relationships are restored, and when disease is in the rear-view mirror. And for those life jams that persist, because of the one who took all of life’s jams to the cross and broke out of them on Easter morning, you and I can live with the certain hope that the day will come when even the most motionless of jams, death, will break apart and we will soar in a delight beyond anything we have felt before.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

See less

Shared post

 The Bungee Cord

Hello,

The last time I was in Memorial Stadium to watch a football game at the University of Illinois was in 1976, fifty years ago. But I am going to revisit the stadium this weekend to watch the Fighting Illini play. I am wondering what it will be like. I’ve heard that many updates have been done. The concours area which I remember being crushed limestone has, I believe, been upgraded with concrete floors and nice concessions areas. A huge luxury/press box has been built above the home team stands. The brand-new scoreboard brags about being the largest screen of all of the college stadiums.

But more than seeing what is new, I look forward to seeing what was there when I went there. I look forward to seeing the students in the “Block I” section wearing shirts that when all of the students have taken their place there is a huge “I” in the stadium. I look forward to seeing those students’ flip cards during half-time to make pictures that align with the band as it marches around and does it’s show. I look forward to hearing the band trumpet out “Oskeewow Illinois!” when we score and see the cheer leaders do a push-up for every point each time a score happens. It isn’t quite heaven, but going there again feels pretty much like going to heaven to me.

I’ve been a rabid University of Illinois fan ever since I went there, even though I only spent my first two years of college there, transferring to Valparaiso to prepare me for seminary. The University of Illinois has always been dear to my heart, because it was there that my heart came alive with life. It was there that I found myself among people who treasured me as a friend. It was there that people saw in me a value that I had a hard time seeing before. It was there that I stretched out my wings and people lifted me up to fly, and they were also there to catch me when I tumbled to the ground. Despite the struggles that came along with those first years of dawning independence, I hold great memories and thanks for the years that I spent there. I am really looking forward to going there this week!

It is with the same sort of anticipation that I find myself “going to heaven”, the real heaven, when my days in this life are over. I look forward to experiencing with magnified amplitude the wonderful things that I have experienced in this life: the warmth of love that comes with deep friendship, the restfulness of peace that comes with the embrace of God, and the explosion of joy that is sung around the eternal wedding feast. And I look with excited anticipation to experience new things that I have never experienced before: the silence that comes when pain and suffering is no more, the hope that becomes tangible when death is unknown, the surprise of delight when faith becomes sight, and the wonder of living where no clock ticks the rhythm of time.

It has been 69 years since the waters of Baptism splashed over my, and I had my eyes opened to see a glimpse of heaven, and Sunday after Sunday since then I have tasted the foretaste of the feast to come at the communion rail. Each time when I partake in the Lord’s Supper, I experience a measure of the hug that awaits me in heaven. And each time I experience the peace that surpasses all human understanding when I pray, I look forward to being in the total presence of the one whose has listened to my prayers and be awash in that divine peace.

Although I have no immediate plans on venturing to heaven, I do, with even greater anticipation than my visit to the University of Illinois, look forward to going there!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

See less

Shared post

 The Bungee Cord

Hello,

What do the following people have in common?

The unrepentant person.

The lazy person.

The ungrateful person.

The prideful person.

The manipulative person.

The answer: people who Christians are not meant to help…..at least according to a person who posts “reels” on Facebook.

The first time I watched and listened to this post, I thought it must have been a joke. Surely the young man who was confidently putting his perspective of the Christian life must be trying to see how many people he could get riled up over something that makes no sense. After all, if I were to answer what all the aforementioned people have in common, my answer would be that those characteristics are common to everyone, including the one who was posting them on-line.

After all, who among us is not guilty of unrepentance and keeps on doing the thing that brings pain to the world? How much sleep have you or I lost over the children throughout the world who are starving, while we worry about weight control?

Who among us can say we are free of laziness? Just consider all of the things that we buy to make our lives easier, or how much our time is consumed on ourselves that we don’t have the energy to reach out to others, or even reach out to God in Sunday morning worship?

Who among us can say that we live life in total gratitude? Think of how the commercials that bombard our eyes work on our sense of what we “need” in life, making us people full of “grabitude” (my word) instead of gratitude.

Who among us can say that we are free of an inflated ego? When one listens to the conversations that often take place in living rooms and church parlors, people hold onto their opinions with eagle-like talons, pridefully convinced that they are right.

Who among us doesn’t engage in manipulation? We all know what buttons to press on those around us. The world teaches us well how to get our way, and there are books and conferences that instruct us how to manipulate others for our advantage.

If the young man on the reel is speaking the truth, then it seems to me that we, as Christians, and thereby God, himself, need help no one.

It may be true that these supposedly precluding characteristics may be more obvious in some people than others, but when it comes to such characteristics, I don’t believe that degree really matters, it is kind of like “being a little pregnant”.

As I listened to this reel several times, it became clear to me that this young man was not joking around. I felt myself wanting to tell him that it would do him well to look into a mirror rather than a camera lens. It is true that he justified his position with Biblical passages, but as it is with Biblical justification, sinful eyes can find words to justify their beliefs as they read the Bible.

I find myself driven to write this Bungee Cord to tell you that I do not believe that there is any reason not to help someone, or to believe that God would impose any reason to not help you. Jesus came to save sinners….each and every one of them. Jesus did not measure the amount of sin in a person’s life; Jesus came to rid all sin from a person’s life. Jesus came to put his name on each person and erase the name of the sin that had staked their claim on them. There is no person that Jesus is not meant to help, and likewise, then, there is no person that we are not meant to help.

Rather than cancel some people out of God’s loving grace, we might begin out efforts to help all people by praying for them, opening our hearts to them, and seeking how we might best help them. Obviously, help requires wisdom. So, know this, no matter who you are, you are someone to whom Jesus reaches out his hand in love, and therefore one to whom the body of Christ, the church, extends a hand. And for those of us who bear Christ’s name, Christian, the best way to assure us of our part in helping others might just be to look in a mirror.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

See less

Shared post