Words of Fire Blog

Wednesday's Word: When Is Easter?

4/3/2013

I was standing in the checkout line at the grocery store last Wednesday. The lady in front of me had all the trimmings for a Harvey-sized Easter basket. The young checkout clerk looked curiously at the basket, yellow plastic grass and mounds of candy, and asked "When is Easter, anyway?"

"Easter Day showed that God was alive, well and caring...the resurrection is like the first day of a new creation." Alistair McGrath

Isn't Easter the most imporant day of the Christian calendar? Have we done such a poor job of telling His story that the world has forgotten?

"The end is life. His life and our lives through Him, in Him. Existence has greater depths of beauty, mystery, and benediction than the wildest visionary has ever dared to dream. Christ our Lord is risen indeed." Frederick Buechner

Perhaps we are so immune to the pain all around us that we forget that the hurting the helpless and the hopeless need to see the scarred hands and feet of the risen Christ. Perhaps we need to remind the world to dream the greatest dream of all: that life is possible; that living is not optional, and that death is not the end of the story.

"From the resurrection of Christ...a new and purifying wind can blow through our present world...To live in the light of the resurrection, that is what Easter means." Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When is Easter? Easter should be every day that we proclaim the hope and life of the Resurrected Christ to a dark and dying world.

Wednesday's Word:Transition

7/25/2012

God be in my head,
And in my understanding;
God be in my heart,
And in my thinking
God be at my end and at my departing.
George Herbert

I used to hate the word "transitioning." I found that people who used it just
didn't want to be blunt. They refused to see reality. They preferred the polite
term to the direct one "dying."

I'm now eating my words.

A transition is another step on the road. It's a change. It's an alteration. It's
not an end.

A death, on the other hand, is the end. It's final. It's the last stop. There is nothing more.

I came to my linguistic epiphany on July 10, 2012, when my godmother "transitioned" into the next phase of her existence. She has taken the next step on the road--the one that my faith tells me leads to heaven. Cancer helped her get there faster than any of us expected.

I don't find that the word "transition" in any way diminishes my grief. Rather, it feeds my faith. I saw firsthand how her body failed, but her spirit did not. I witnessed a woman who could, herself, see her journey taking another turn. She did not face this transition with dread or timidity. She took her last breath on this side of mortality, but my faith assures me that she has much more living to do.

I look forward to seeing her, and others who are now in the "great cloud of witnesses" when I, too, take the next step on the journey. Meanwhile, I will grieve this loss, knowing that it is heaven’s gain.

Wednesday's Word: Hope

6/13/2012

"Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake,
so the waves  swept over the boat.” Matthew 8:24

Today has turned out to be incredible. It began with strong winds and dark clouds. Now the sky is full of low hanging white cotton balls; azure blue waters roll by in seamless harmony. I just want to sit and take it all in: Gaze at the sky. Be mesmerized by the clouds. Hear God’s whisper along the wings of
the wind.

Don’t many of our days begin with calm and end in chaos?  We are on blue waters that suddenly threaten to engulf us—with no warning, with no chance of escape, with no life guards on duty.

That’s exactly what happened to the disciples. There was no warning. All of a sudden, the water that they trusted became the death that they feared. Worse still, Jesus was sleeping—seemingly unconcerned with their plight.

What do you do when the day has turned from sunny to stormy? From warm into wild?  I must confess that I am all too often like the disciples, who immediately entered panic mode. I believe that God has forgotten me; abandoned me; left me to perish in the storm of sickness, the squall of failure, the tempest of broken dreams and lost loves. We find ourselves drowning in the fierce waters of depression, despair and desolation. We don’t think that we can be saved.

But the story tells us otherwise. It is precisely when we are afraid that the water to be stronger than our faith that Jesus walks towards us--holding out His hand, offering us His help.  He is ever near us to save us.  He will not let the waters overtake us.

How can I be sure of this? Do I dare believe? His story tells that I can be sure, that I can believe, and that He will save me.

Tell the story: You will be giving hope. Tell the story: You will be offering a life preserver to a drowning soul.

Wednesday's Word: When Is Easter?

Wednesday's Word:Transition

Wednesday's Word: Hope

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