Jesus – Page 6 – Blessings on the Journey

Death, Faith, Fear, God's Providence, Grace, Healing, Hope, Jesus, Methodism, Music, Spirit, Trust, Tumor, United Methodist Church

Tears

Posted on June 14, 2011June 14, 2011 by narciejeter

Annual Conference this year was both a whirlwind and a marathon. Busy-ness or business was everywhere and it was both challenging and inspiring, a call to action and a test of will as we waited/persevered to the end.

I’m starting to think I’ve become more and more emotional as I grow older. There were several times over this past week when I felt tears come to my eyes. Some of those times were times of happiness and thanksgiving – feeling the Spirit move as Telley preached at Annual Conference, Josh’s ordination, the prayerful and powerful way our South Carolina delegation laid hands on Dad and prayed over him after unanimously deciding he would be our episcopal nominee. There were so many great moments from the teaching to the preaching to the videos shared like this:

It was also a great time to camp out for Imagine No Malaria and to train some amazing Students In Mission (SIM) to commit their summers to being in mission = ministry with. Much to be joyful about!

Sometimes the tears were both thankful and a little bit of just overwhelming gratitude. It was surreal being back at Annual Conference this year. Last year, I came in for two days right before the brain surgery and although some probably thought I was insane for coming, for me, it was my church. The conference – both lay and clergy – are our people and that’s where we as a body share our joys and concerns. I didn’t realize going into this how much being back at conference would bring up for me in terms of last year’s struggle.

We sang the song, “In Christ Alone” during the opening worship and those words and all of us a large body singing together was such a powerful witness and testimony to the love and providence of God. (A video and lyrics are below.) I’m glad we also sang this song during the ordination. What a powerful song for our commissioned members and ordinands.

My mom’s birthday is June 11th and the brain surgery (left frontal craniotomy) was on her birthday last year. There’s a part of me that would love to forget that date and not have any mark or reminder of it. There’s another part of me that knows that it was everyone’s prayers and the grace of God that brought me through and it should be celebrated. Don’t know which one is winning yet. The jury is still out. I get teary just typing about it. Does that mean I haven’t fully dealt with it yet? Could be. Too soon? Maybe, but not entirely. Does that mean that was a mucho grande big deal and it’s still crazy to me that all of that happened a year ago and wasn’t just a bad dream? Yes. It’s hard to believe that that was me and if I didn’t have my lovely scar that I worry about getting sunburned, I might forget.

It’s hard to process things. There’s a certain grief and emotion that swells up when you least expect it sometimes. And it happens to all of us. I was sitting in the Memorial Service for ministers that have gone to be with God over the past year on Mom’s birthday on the anniversary of my brain surgery and I just couldn’t do it. I got through the sermon but the slide show of the pictures just did me in. It’s always been a powerful service to me since in my mind the South Carolina Annual Conference is my home/my church and I know that one day there will be a service for each of us. And there goes a Sandi Patti song and slides of the pastor that helped during my Gandaddy’s funeral and I have to head on out. Even in the midst of the thanksgiving for life, even in the midst of the joy of the swelling of the Spirit, even in the midst of realizing that nothing can pluck any of us from God’s hand – there’s still both the realization that something really scary and really serious happened and a something that’s even beyond the word thanksgiving that describes that depth of feeling behind all that could have been and is now.

As I think about those that have faced such devastation in the storms and floods this year, those that have lost loved ones, those that are facing moves and transitions, those that are searching for hope and a rock to lean on when it feels like the walls are closing in around you – I know that the great Comforter is at work in our world and is blowing, inspiring and surrounding us every step of the way. I am grateful that it is in Christ alone our hope is found and that we will never be turned away from it. It’s available to each of us.

What are you grieving today? What are your struggles? When’s the last time you felt that ground swell of emotion? How do we see the Spirit at work in our world? What are the fears and frustrations that we’ve held on to and not given over to God? What are those buttons of grief that can be turned in to sources of joy in our lives?

We are given songs or videos or movies or sermons or scriptures or friends or emails or a beautiful tree or the melody of the ocean or the stillness and quiet to claim as our promise from God. It’s there waiting for us. May we open ourselves to the Word God would speak to us this day. May we claim it and know it and feel it to the depths of our souls. May we know and trust.

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm

What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless Babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save

Til on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live, I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again

And as He stands in victory
Sin?s curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From a life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny

No power of hell, no scheme of man
Could ever pluck me from His hand
Til He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I stand

I will stand, I will stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground, all other ground
Is sinking sand, is sinking sand
So I stand

Campus Ministry, Cross, Easter, Grace, Hope, Jesus, Movies, pride, Sermons, Suffering

Easter?

Posted on April 25, 2011April 25, 2011 by narciejeter

We say that as Christians we’re an Easter people, a Resurrection people. I believe that and have given an enthusiastic “He is risen. He is risen indeed!” I don’t know if it was because Easter was so late in the season this year but I started off pretty well at the beginning of Lent in trying to be intentional about this journey to the cross, but as the semester began to draw to a close and the to do list piled up, our car was totaled and we were depending on just one car, three of us had strep throat, and we moved everything out of my grandparent’s house, Easter somehow got lost in the shuffle and all the upheaval of life.

A clergy friend of mine posted the other day that Lent and Holy Week are her favorite time of the year. I love spring and the flowers and the sun out more (even though we haven’t seen that as much yet). I love the smell and feel in the air as people begin to come outside and play volleyball in the sand at Winthrop Lake, go on walks in the evening, and enjoy time on your front or back porch. The transition from winter to spring is an amazing one and I know that very easily makes a symbolic leap to death and the resurrection. So don’t get me wrong, I love this time of year, but I can’t say that I enjoy Good Friday. It’s like Saving Private Ryan or Schindler’s List where it’s not something that you watch every day to lift your spirits, but it’s something you know you need to watch at least once to recognize the sacrifice and the weight of what was cost.

I hate to pick favorite anything’s but Advent and Christmas are probably hands down my favorite time of year. It’s such a powerful witness to me that the great God of the universe decided to come as a baby and dwell among us. Emmanuel, fully human and fully divine, is such a super big deal. You can’t have Easter without that in-breaking of the kingdom where God became a vulnerable baby right here in all of our human frailty and all the kaleidoscope of human experience. In some ways it’s the same reasons that I love watching The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston the night before Easter every year. There’s something about when Moses says,” I want to know God,” as he longs to go on the mountain, and something sacred and special about this God who speaks and delivers the people. There’s something about Ramses in the movie when challenged to cry out to his gods for help saying about Moses’ God, “His God, is God.” A God that could have anything or do anything God wants, that chooses to be in relationship with God’s people, that chooses to bring deliverance and justice, and that chooses to be present in the midst of suffering – that is something more powerful than any adjective could describe.

In thinking about Easter, I think a lot of my unease is around Good Friday. It’s easy for us to lift up the tiny baby Jesus a la Ricky Bobby or in pictures and greeting cards, but you don’t see people sending out greeting cards or putting giant pictures of Jesus still hanging on the cross, crucified with the nails and the blood and the crown of thorns. It’s easy to believe in this present and loving God that chooses to be with us, it’s a little harder to take the responsibility that all the suffering he did on the cross was for us. That’s a little more weighty and pricks our pride a bit for those that think works or merit or self-seeking is what makes things happen, which is why I think we often rush straight from Palm Sunday right on to Easter and the resurrection. We know it ends well and it’s all good and grace for us, but it’s hard to hear the words from Gethsemane, “Father, take this cup from me.” It’s hard to read about the suffering much less watch anything like the Passion where we get an up-close and personal look. If we really believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. If we believe that this innocent man was martyred for us, how does that change how we live our lives? Does it? Sometimes Easter makes the sacrifice look easy and the grace that’s thrown out in bushel-full’s seem simple. But then I think about Peter and the other disciple running as fast as they can to the tomb and Mary weeping there. This was real and personal and not something just long ago, but something that affects each of us as Jesus calls our name.

How would you describe Easter? How would you describe what Jesus did? Using real life language, what would you say? In thinking about how to describe the Easter story to Enoch and Evy in ways that they understand, do I just pop in a Veggie Tales video on Easter or read them a children’s book or hope they pick up something at church? How do we explain to the world what Easter means, not just the cute little baby Jesus, but the full scope of the story?

There’s a line to a song that I heard the other day that says “there’s no hope without suffering.” There’s no hope without suffering. I don’t know if that’s wholly true all the time, but I do believe that the hope born from suffering is a real and sustaining hope indeed. What kind of resurrection hope are we offering our world? This isn’t a hope that tells you that everything in life is going to be easy or rainbows and butterflies. It’s much like our South Carolina motto, “While I breathe, I hope.” This is a hope that says that no matter what, even on the darkest of days, that God is with you. Sin and death have been conquered and new life, eternal life, abundant life, is offered in Christ. No more do we have to make the same mistakes over and over, but through the power and grace of God and the Spirit that intercedes for us, we have the promise of something more in this life and a story unfolding far more magnificent, magical, and miraculous than any royal wedding, any Lifetime or Hallmark movie, or anything we may try to do on our own. Beyond any “greatest story ever told” this God of Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter, and everything in between – this God is seeking us and calling us to live this resurrection life out loud in the world by loving God, loving our neighbor, and loving ourselves to know that we don’t have to do it all, but we just have to depend on the One who did it for us.

Still love this song for Easter…

Want to see a fun Easter flashmob RISE UP? http://blog.lproof.org/2011/04/glorious-resurrection-day.html

Campus Ministry, Community, Exercise, Fear, Grace, Jesus, Sermons

Hebrews 12:1-2

Posted on August 26, 2010April 1, 2011 by narciejeter

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right had of the throne of God.”

In this season of campus ministry – you can’t just sprint. When people talk about ministry and life in general you’ll often hear comparisons of a sprint versus a marathon. If we’re constantly sprinting – we’re going to give out – run out – tag out.

I have a couple of friends right now training for marathons and they have their run keepers set on twitter and facebook so that everyone is keeping track of their training. This is amazing to me. I have a hard enough time talking myself into any exercise, much less training for a marathon. I admire their commitment – their dedication.

I relate to the part of these verses that says “let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely…” Sometimes it does feel like there our weights holding us down. What are we carrying with us? What is holding us back with all its might? Is it unresolved hurt or anger? Is it a feeling of unworth or mistrust? Is it a sense of betrayal not just of a loved one but even in thinking about God? Is it fear?

There can be a lot that weighs us down especially in the middle of the night as we wrestle with those things that we don’t want to acknowledge in the day light. When everything is stripped away – what holds us back from running the race set before us?

We are not called to live a sedentary life. But exercise and training can sometimes get beastly, especially when you’re not prepared. Nobody is saying that the race is easy. Sometimes you need to spend the big bucks on the right running shoes or suffer the consequences. And in the race of life – sometimes you need to put in the extra time digging into scripture and forming community with one another.

How are we equipped in this life? How are we ready? How do we get geared up like Rocky for the fight ahead? We have to dig into the Word of God. We have to earnestly seek the Lord by prayer and supplication. We have to open our eyes and our heart to the leading of God and the many ways God answers us in miraculous ways every day.

We also don’t have to run the race alone. No one has to sit in their dorm room alone or has to hide in their office during lunch time. Sometimes it feels that way and again – it’s not always easy. But we have to band together as community – as church – with each other or we have little shot of making this trek on our own.

Hebrews 10:24-25 says “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” In our busy world that seems to burst with “stuff” to do and weights pulling at us from all sides, boy do we need to get countercultural sometimes and ban together and get to know each other.

In a society where one could argue we have more opportunities than ever to connect, there are still so many of us that feel like we have to do everything on our own – by our own strength, our own merit, our own smarts, our own everything. To run this race with perseverance – we’ve got to drop our pride at the door and be willing to step out and reach out to the others running the race with us. If we just sit with each other on Sunday mornings or Wednesday nights or whenever – and we don’t actually get to know one another – how are we being church with one another?

Sometimes even with encouragement and building each other up, it still gets to be too much. A student the other day mentioned how he and his roomate had decided last semester they were going to exercise 5 days a week. They would hold each other accountable and they would encourage each other. He then said they lasted about a week and a half. Hey – for some of us – that’s not bad, but a week and a half…sometimes on our own – even if there’s a whole group of us – it ain’t gonna happen if we’re just doing it on our collective strength.

Bottom line – just like the verse says – we’ve got to keep looking to Jesus. Because none of us are going to run this race perfectly. None of us are going to always have the nice, shiny, non-scuffed up running shoes and the perfect form. Sometimes things get tough and we need to know who to look to. Jesus – the One who sustains us, the One who knows us inside and out, the One who walks before us and beside us each step of the way. Do the training – dig into scripture, find a community that can support and lift you up – but always look to Jesus – who continues to strengthen our faith through both lifes sprints and marathons.