Good morning,
The Lord blessed us with a beautiful day yesterday. I took a walk for over three miles. Sunita walks to her work every day in Washington, one mile each way. Our grand daughter Micah loves to walk and run.
Praise the Lord for Friday; Sunday is coming. We will gather for our Saturday evening worship tomorrow at 6 PM. On Sunday morning we will celebrate the Lord's Supper during the morning worship services. Weekends were created for worshipping the Lord and glorifying Him. Jesus Christ indeed is the Lord of the sabbath.
I love Psalm 71 because of its deep sorrow and trouble mixed with unbounded hope in the Lord. The Psalmist knew trouble and he knew heartache, but he refused to choose to turn his back on Almighty God.
Let us read the following passionate words from David's heart. "Your righteousness reaches to the skies, O God, you who have done great things. Who, O God, is like you? Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again. I will praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praise to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you-- I, whom you have redeemed. (Psalm 71:19-23 NIV)
The Psalmist said, " Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up." We can choose to know that because of God's untainted love for us He will restore our lives back to us again no matter what may come about. We are His people and He will never forsake us. We can choose, like so many other men and women of faith who have gone before us, to believe God and sing, "It is well with my soul."
One of the favorite hymns of our church is "It Is Well with My Soul". Many people have sung that familiar song, but few realize the depths of grief and the tears of sorrow that blotted the page on which it was written. The man who penned those famous words was Horatio Spafford. He was a man who had known both good times and bad. He had a very successful law practice in Chicago, and numerous real estate holdings. After suffering the loss of his son, the Chicago fire of 1871 took his land holdings.
Mr. Spafford, a man who loved Jesus with all of his heart, had planned a trip to Great Britain to join his friends, the evangelist D.L. Moody and an outstanding singer, Ira Sankey, in one of their revival campaigns, in 1873. As he and his family prepared for the trip, he had to remain behind for some last minute business arrangements. Mr. Spafford sent his wife and their four beautiful daughters ahead on the ship, planning to join them later in Europe. While Mr. Spafford's wife and four daughters were aboard the S.S. Ville du Havre a terrible accident occurred. The ship was struck by the Lochearn on November 22nd and sank in twelve minutes. Mrs. Spafford survived the accident, but her four children did not. When she reached the European mainland, she cabled her husband with the sad message, "Saved alone".
Mr. Spafford soon boarded a ship to go to meet his wife. While crossing the sea, near the place where the tragedy occurred and his four daughters drowned, Spafford penned the words to the well-known hymn -- "It Is Well With My Soul". The beginning phrase of this hymn echos the pain and suffering that the Spafford's felt from this accident.... "When peace like a river attendeth my way...when sorrows like sea billows roll..."
In spite of their horrible tragedy they chose to be comforted by the knowledge that God's deep love for His children shines brightly over the deepest tragedy. Mr. Spafford continued to write... "Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul."
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYFjikyp7mQ
Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church. Endicott
53 McKinley Avenue, Endicott.
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott
Saturday February 26, 2011
6PM Coffee Fellowship
6:30 PM Worship Service
Worship Music: Laureen Naik
Speaker: Rev. Earle Cowden
Friday, March 4, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Brown's Daily Word 3-3-11
Praise the Lord for this new day. It is going to be sunny and bright. It is spring time in Orissa, India. The mango trees, the cotton trees, and all wild spring flowers are in full bloom. "Cooku" is the spring bird that ushers the brilliant spring season.
We had a very blessed Wednesday evening gathering of sweet fellowship and sharing. I saw geese flying north yesterday making "holy honks". The daffodils and the tulips by the parsonage are popping up. Praise be to Jesus.
In the summer of 1996, as a family we visited Stratford on Avon in England. This is the birthplace of William Shakespeare. During my undergraduate days I studied English literature. My studies concentrated on the works of William Shakespeare and the Romantic poets. William Shakespeare based most of his works on the Biblical themes. Guilt is an interesting word; it is the opposite of innocence. William Shakespeare, though he lived in what many of us would describe as a pristine and unspoiled age, had such an incredible grip on the effects of guilt upon our lives when guilt is dismissed or not dealt with in an appropriate and godly way.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, we see how Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, suffer because of their insistence on dealing with their guilt and shame in their own way. For those of you who are like me and are much more familiar with Sports Illustrated or the comic section of today’s newspaper than Shakespeare, let me give you an abbreviated version of the destruction that came upon Macbeth and his wife because of their sin and guilt. In the Shakespearian tragedy, Macbeth is really a noble figure in the beginning of the story. As time progresses Macbeth develops a hunger for power and prominence, but there is only one problem that stands in his way, King Duncan. For Macbeth to realize his dream and satisfy his thirst for power, Duncan must be deposed as king.
Macbeth’s wife, Lady Macbeth, comes up with a plan to kill the king and make way for her husband to become the king. Macbeth is unsure at first. He is fearful, not convinced that murdering Duncan is the right thing to do. Macbeth and his friend, Banquo, seek out the advice of three counselors who are much like the false prophets of the Old Testament who tell the people whatever they want to hear. They tell Macbeth that he deserves the throne and that he will soon become king. The seed of wicked ambition began to grow in Macbeth’s heart. Macbeth should have recognized the bad advice for what it was, but instead he began to be obsessed with the thoughts of power. Rather than rejecting their advice, Macbeth finds his mind constantly dwelling on their evil suggestions.
While Macbeth is obsessing on thoughts of power and killing the king, his wife is busy calling upon the powers of darkness so that she and her husband can pull off the devilish deed they have planned. As soon as the murders are committed Lady Macbeth and her husband are overwhelmed with guilt for what they have done. Because they don’t deal with their guilt in the right way, they dive even deeper into the darkness and commit more murders. At one point Lady Macbeth mocks her husband’s guilty feelings by saying that he is sick in the head. Instead of recognizing her husband’s need for forgiveness she says, "You do unbend your noble strength to think so brainsickly of things. Go get some water and wash this filthy witness from your hand." All of the water in all the world wouldn’t wash away the guilt Macbeth felt in his heart. Pontius Pilot had tried washing his hands of his responsibility for the death of Jesus years earlier, but instead of leading to his cleansing it led to his insanity.
Macbeth, though on the way to possessing all the power he ever wanted, is now powerless over his own mind. He starts having problems sleeping. He has tormenting nightmares and begins hearing voices. His wife can’t sleep because of the guilt upon her heart. She begins to feel desperate because she doesn’t think her husband is adequately covering his tracks or hiding his feelings in front of others. Lady Macbeth begins going into trances and recreating the murders while walking in her sleep.
There is no other way to describe what is going on in the Macbeth household than to say that everyone is losing their mind. The sin within is rotting away their soul. What happened to this "noble" man? Quite simply put, he sinned and refused to repent with a broken heart before God for what he had done. The best that Macbeth can do to help deal with his guilt, because he refuses to go to God, is to wash his hands over and over again. Both he and his wife incessantly wash their hands to try and cleanse themselves from their sin, but there is only One who can wash our sin whiter than snow my friend. Macbeth, tormented by his guilt, cries out to his idols and asks, "Will all Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clear from my hand?"
Things went from bad to worse for Macbeth and his wife. His actions would have gotten him the modern-day diagnosis of being psychotic. He sees things and people who are not there, but people that he had murdered. He is flooded with paranoia and anxiety. He acts crazy in front of his guests. He is spinning out of control.
Though Macbeth becomes king he still cannot find any satisfaction. He craves more and more power. Macbeth kills his friend Banquo. He can’t ask for God’s blessing. Even though he knows he needs God’s blessing, he has an even greater sense that his sin is separating him from God.
Unwilling to face his guilt, he turns away from God back to the wicked counselors of his day. Macbeth tells them to summon their master, the devil himself. Do you see what sin and guilt will do to us if we refuse to bow before the throne of grace, confess our sin, and repent of our wrongdoing? We will sink deeper and deeper into sin and depravity.
Lady Macbeth becomes so tormented and depressed that eventually she dies. Some have suggested that she even committed suicide. Macbeth is left alone, and although he decides life is meaningless, still he pursues even more power.
Macbeth had the innocent wife and child of the noble Macduff murdered. Macbeth was once considered an honest and noble man. What happened? Shakespeare ends his play with Macbeth dying at the hands of Macduff. The tragic story of a once noble soul eaten away by sin ends in his ultimate destruction - not just the destruction of his life, but also his character.
What do we do with our guilt? Do we compulsively wash our hands or take showers to try and wash it away? Pontius Pilate and Macbeth ought to be proof that this will not suffice. A solution that takes guilt and sin and removes it as far as the east is from the west from those who will come to God with a repentant and broken heart.
10:1-18,"The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming-not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ’Here I am-it is written about me in the scroll- I have come to do your will, O God.’ First he said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them" (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: "This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds." Then he adds: "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more." And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roArM2ldIZ0
Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church. Endicott
53 McKinley Avenue, Endicott.
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott
Saturday February 26, 2011
6PM Coffee Fellowship
6:30 PM Worship Service
Worship Music: Laureen Naik
Speaker: Rev. Earle Cowden
We had a very blessed Wednesday evening gathering of sweet fellowship and sharing. I saw geese flying north yesterday making "holy honks". The daffodils and the tulips by the parsonage are popping up. Praise be to Jesus.
In the summer of 1996, as a family we visited Stratford on Avon in England. This is the birthplace of William Shakespeare. During my undergraduate days I studied English literature. My studies concentrated on the works of William Shakespeare and the Romantic poets. William Shakespeare based most of his works on the Biblical themes. Guilt is an interesting word; it is the opposite of innocence. William Shakespeare, though he lived in what many of us would describe as a pristine and unspoiled age, had such an incredible grip on the effects of guilt upon our lives when guilt is dismissed or not dealt with in an appropriate and godly way.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, we see how Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, suffer because of their insistence on dealing with their guilt and shame in their own way. For those of you who are like me and are much more familiar with Sports Illustrated or the comic section of today’s newspaper than Shakespeare, let me give you an abbreviated version of the destruction that came upon Macbeth and his wife because of their sin and guilt. In the Shakespearian tragedy, Macbeth is really a noble figure in the beginning of the story. As time progresses Macbeth develops a hunger for power and prominence, but there is only one problem that stands in his way, King Duncan. For Macbeth to realize his dream and satisfy his thirst for power, Duncan must be deposed as king.
Macbeth’s wife, Lady Macbeth, comes up with a plan to kill the king and make way for her husband to become the king. Macbeth is unsure at first. He is fearful, not convinced that murdering Duncan is the right thing to do. Macbeth and his friend, Banquo, seek out the advice of three counselors who are much like the false prophets of the Old Testament who tell the people whatever they want to hear. They tell Macbeth that he deserves the throne and that he will soon become king. The seed of wicked ambition began to grow in Macbeth’s heart. Macbeth should have recognized the bad advice for what it was, but instead he began to be obsessed with the thoughts of power. Rather than rejecting their advice, Macbeth finds his mind constantly dwelling on their evil suggestions.
While Macbeth is obsessing on thoughts of power and killing the king, his wife is busy calling upon the powers of darkness so that she and her husband can pull off the devilish deed they have planned. As soon as the murders are committed Lady Macbeth and her husband are overwhelmed with guilt for what they have done. Because they don’t deal with their guilt in the right way, they dive even deeper into the darkness and commit more murders. At one point Lady Macbeth mocks her husband’s guilty feelings by saying that he is sick in the head. Instead of recognizing her husband’s need for forgiveness she says, "You do unbend your noble strength to think so brainsickly of things. Go get some water and wash this filthy witness from your hand." All of the water in all the world wouldn’t wash away the guilt Macbeth felt in his heart. Pontius Pilot had tried washing his hands of his responsibility for the death of Jesus years earlier, but instead of leading to his cleansing it led to his insanity.
Macbeth, though on the way to possessing all the power he ever wanted, is now powerless over his own mind. He starts having problems sleeping. He has tormenting nightmares and begins hearing voices. His wife can’t sleep because of the guilt upon her heart. She begins to feel desperate because she doesn’t think her husband is adequately covering his tracks or hiding his feelings in front of others. Lady Macbeth begins going into trances and recreating the murders while walking in her sleep.
There is no other way to describe what is going on in the Macbeth household than to say that everyone is losing their mind. The sin within is rotting away their soul. What happened to this "noble" man? Quite simply put, he sinned and refused to repent with a broken heart before God for what he had done. The best that Macbeth can do to help deal with his guilt, because he refuses to go to God, is to wash his hands over and over again. Both he and his wife incessantly wash their hands to try and cleanse themselves from their sin, but there is only One who can wash our sin whiter than snow my friend. Macbeth, tormented by his guilt, cries out to his idols and asks, "Will all Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clear from my hand?"
Things went from bad to worse for Macbeth and his wife. His actions would have gotten him the modern-day diagnosis of being psychotic. He sees things and people who are not there, but people that he had murdered. He is flooded with paranoia and anxiety. He acts crazy in front of his guests. He is spinning out of control.
Though Macbeth becomes king he still cannot find any satisfaction. He craves more and more power. Macbeth kills his friend Banquo. He can’t ask for God’s blessing. Even though he knows he needs God’s blessing, he has an even greater sense that his sin is separating him from God.
Unwilling to face his guilt, he turns away from God back to the wicked counselors of his day. Macbeth tells them to summon their master, the devil himself. Do you see what sin and guilt will do to us if we refuse to bow before the throne of grace, confess our sin, and repent of our wrongdoing? We will sink deeper and deeper into sin and depravity.
Lady Macbeth becomes so tormented and depressed that eventually she dies. Some have suggested that she even committed suicide. Macbeth is left alone, and although he decides life is meaningless, still he pursues even more power.
Macbeth had the innocent wife and child of the noble Macduff murdered. Macbeth was once considered an honest and noble man. What happened? Shakespeare ends his play with Macbeth dying at the hands of Macduff. The tragic story of a once noble soul eaten away by sin ends in his ultimate destruction - not just the destruction of his life, but also his character.
What do we do with our guilt? Do we compulsively wash our hands or take showers to try and wash it away? Pontius Pilate and Macbeth ought to be proof that this will not suffice. A solution that takes guilt and sin and removes it as far as the east is from the west from those who will come to God with a repentant and broken heart.
10:1-18,"The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming-not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ’Here I am-it is written about me in the scroll- I have come to do your will, O God.’ First he said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them" (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: "This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds." Then he adds: "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more." And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roArM2ldIZ0
Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church. Endicott
53 McKinley Avenue, Endicott.
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott
Saturday February 26, 2011
6PM Coffee Fellowship
6:30 PM Worship Service
Worship Music: Laureen Naik
Speaker: Rev. Earle Cowden
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Brown's Daily Word 3-2-11
Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this first Wednesday of March. We will gather for our mid-week service at 6 PM for a special meal prepared with much love. We will meet for study and sharing at 6:30 and the choir will meet at 7:30 PM.
It was in the Advent season of 1989 that the Spirit of The Lord, which ushers in freedom, began to blow across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The strongholds of communism began to crumble. The Lord began to do His thing; the Berlin Wall collapsed. The communist regime, after 70 years of tyranny and oppression, was dismantled. The revolution came from within. The church was praying and living the Gospel in the midst of great oppression.
We are witnessing before our very eyes the movement of the Lord in the countries of the Middle East, ( Egypt, Tunisia, Iran, Libya and the rest) the breeding ground of persecution against Christians. It is a place of tyranny, terrorism, oppression, and the accumulation of wealth by few tyrants, the epicenter of the propagation of hatred against Christians. The Lord is doing something new and powerful. The strongholds of hatred, violence, and ignorance are crumbling before our very eyes. Blessed be His name. Let us be praying that the Lord of Freedom would open the doors for the Gospel of truth and liberty, that these might permeate the lands which are written about in the Bible.
One of the great men, a theologian and pastor, I admire is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. (The following articles is gleaned from various writings on Bonhoffer ) Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born into a family where faith was not much of a concern or topic of conversation, but as a 14 year old, Dietrich Bonhoeffer announced that he was going to be a pastor and theologian. His family was stunned and his older brother tried to persuade him that he was making a huge mistake. His brother said that the church was powerless, irrelevant, and unworthy of Dietrich’s commitment. Dietrich responded to his brother, "If the church is really what you say it is then I shall have to reform it."
The day came when the young man began his university studies in theology at Tuebingen, and then he went on to complete his studies at Berlin. His doctoral dissertation exposed his brilliance and he was becoming better known beyond the borders of Germany for his theological papers.
In 1930 Bonhoeffer went to the United States as a guest lecturer of one of its best-known seminaries. He was dismayed at the casual, lax attitudes with which American students approached theology. Unable to remain silent any longer, he informed the pastors-to-be, "At this liberal seminary the students sneer at the fundamentalists in America, when all the while the fundamentalists know far more of the truth and grace, mercy and judgment of God."
Dietrich was a gifted scholar and professor, but deep in his heart – he was a pastor. By 1933 he had left university teaching behind and was a pastor to two German-speaking congregations in London, England. By now the life-and-death struggle for the church in Germany was under way as Hitler welded more and more influence on all aspects of German culture. Bonhoeffer began to struggle with the idea – “Does the Church live by the Gospel alone or can the Church and the State become intermingled so that the Church supports the ideologies of the State?” These were tough questions when you have a leader like Adolf Hitler swaying Church leaders. Bonhoeffer came to the conclusion that the Church must live by the Gospel alone and avoid intermingling with the State or it would be rendered no Church at all.
An older professor of theology who had conformed to Nazi ideology in order to keep his job told Dietrich, "It is a great pity that our best hope in the faculty is being wasted on the church struggle." As the struggle intensified, it was noticed that Bonhoeffer’s sermons became more confident of God’s victory, and more defiant.
At the same time that Bonhoeffer was becoming more defiant of Hitler’s influence on the Church there was another sermon being preached in the Church of Germany. On January 25, 1934 Adolf Hitler called hundreds of pastors and leaders from the churches in Germany to a personal conference in Berlin. He was concerned about a possible split among the pastors concerning his policy over the German church. He criticized and threatened them, reminding the ministers that the economy in Germany was in great recovery and that he needed their unified support. He told them, "You confine yourself to the church. I will take care of the German people." Hitler was persuasive, he mesmerized the pastors and the Church became silent during the Nazi holocaust. The pastors aligned themselves with Hitler, they placed the Swastika on their pastoral robes, and in doing so they turned their backs on the cross of Christ.
Martin Niemoller, who along with Dietrich Bonhoeffer founded the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany, rose up in opposition to Hitler during the meeting. He said, "We are not concerned with the churches in Germany. Jesus Christ will take care of them Himself. We are concerned with the heart and soul of our nation." With that courageous statement in the face of a tyrant you would have thought that the pastors would have applauded him. Instead, Niemoller was ushered out of the meeting by several pastors and harshly condemned for causing trouble and ruining the possibility of building a relationship with the powerful leader of Germany. It was the men of God who silenced the very voice of God in Germany.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, “When Christ calls a person, He bids him to come and die.” Dietrich would live that statement as his opposition brought more and more attention and persecution from Hitler’s henchmen. Bonhoeffer would not back away from his belief that there could be only one Fuehrer or leader for Christians, and it was not Hitler. Lutheran bishops and pastors remained silent in the hope of preserving institutional unity. In the face of weak leadership Bonhoeffer warned his fellow ministers that they ought not to pursue converting Hitler; what they needed most was to be converted themselves. An Anglican bishop who knew Bonhoeffer well in England later wrote, "He was crystal-clear in his convictions; and young as he was, and humble-minded as he was, he saw the truth and spoke it with complete absence of fear." Bonhoeffer himself wrote to a friend about this time, "Christ is looking down at us and asking whether there is anyone who still confesses Him."
The plot thickened and although Bonhoeffer had been a pacifist early in the war, he was now convinced that Hitler would have to be removed. He joined with several high-ranking military officers who were secretly opposed to Hitler and who planned to assassinate him. The plot was discovered in April 1943. Bonhoeffer would spend the rest of his life – the next two years – in prison before he was executed. Bonhoeffer always believed that God’s providence places us where we are and that we are to share the Gospel regardless of our situation. His ministry for two years was to fellow prisoners awaiting execution. One of Bonhoeffer’s fellow prison mates was Captain Payne Best, an Englishman, who survived the prison camp to pay tribute to the prison-camp pastor: "Bonhoeffer was different, just quite calm and normal, seemingly perfectly at his ease… His soul really shone in the dark desperation of our prison. He was one of the very few men I have ever met to whom God was real and ever close to him."
Bonhoeffer was taken out of the prison and taken to Flossenburg, an extermination camp in the Bavarian forest. On April 9, three weeks before American forces liberated Flossenburg, he was executed. Today the tree from which he was hanged bears a plaque with only ten words inscribed on it: “Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a witness to Jesus Christ among his brethren.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a powerful example of living life “outside.” “When Christ calls a person, He bids him come and die.” He must die to the world’s ways of living, die to the world’s ways of speaking, die to the world’s ways of thinking, die to his own passions and pleasures, die to his own selfish desires. Christ bids us all to come and die so that we might live, fully live, in Him and Him alone.
In Hebrews 13:10-16.it is written: "We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat. The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. (Hebrews 13:10-16 NIV)
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3-SwidavfU
Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church. Endicott
53 McKinley Avenue, Endicott.
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott
Saturday February 26, 2011
6PM Coffee Fellowship
6:30 PM Worship Service
Worship Music: Laureen Naik
Speaker: Rev. Brown Naik
Praise the Lord for this first Wednesday of March. We will gather for our mid-week service at 6 PM for a special meal prepared with much love. We will meet for study and sharing at 6:30 and the choir will meet at 7:30 PM.
It was in the Advent season of 1989 that the Spirit of The Lord, which ushers in freedom, began to blow across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The strongholds of communism began to crumble. The Lord began to do His thing; the Berlin Wall collapsed. The communist regime, after 70 years of tyranny and oppression, was dismantled. The revolution came from within. The church was praying and living the Gospel in the midst of great oppression.
We are witnessing before our very eyes the movement of the Lord in the countries of the Middle East, ( Egypt, Tunisia, Iran, Libya and the rest) the breeding ground of persecution against Christians. It is a place of tyranny, terrorism, oppression, and the accumulation of wealth by few tyrants, the epicenter of the propagation of hatred against Christians. The Lord is doing something new and powerful. The strongholds of hatred, violence, and ignorance are crumbling before our very eyes. Blessed be His name. Let us be praying that the Lord of Freedom would open the doors for the Gospel of truth and liberty, that these might permeate the lands which are written about in the Bible.
One of the great men, a theologian and pastor, I admire is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. (The following articles is gleaned from various writings on Bonhoffer ) Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born into a family where faith was not much of a concern or topic of conversation, but as a 14 year old, Dietrich Bonhoeffer announced that he was going to be a pastor and theologian. His family was stunned and his older brother tried to persuade him that he was making a huge mistake. His brother said that the church was powerless, irrelevant, and unworthy of Dietrich’s commitment. Dietrich responded to his brother, "If the church is really what you say it is then I shall have to reform it."
The day came when the young man began his university studies in theology at Tuebingen, and then he went on to complete his studies at Berlin. His doctoral dissertation exposed his brilliance and he was becoming better known beyond the borders of Germany for his theological papers.
In 1930 Bonhoeffer went to the United States as a guest lecturer of one of its best-known seminaries. He was dismayed at the casual, lax attitudes with which American students approached theology. Unable to remain silent any longer, he informed the pastors-to-be, "At this liberal seminary the students sneer at the fundamentalists in America, when all the while the fundamentalists know far more of the truth and grace, mercy and judgment of God."
Dietrich was a gifted scholar and professor, but deep in his heart – he was a pastor. By 1933 he had left university teaching behind and was a pastor to two German-speaking congregations in London, England. By now the life-and-death struggle for the church in Germany was under way as Hitler welded more and more influence on all aspects of German culture. Bonhoeffer began to struggle with the idea – “Does the Church live by the Gospel alone or can the Church and the State become intermingled so that the Church supports the ideologies of the State?” These were tough questions when you have a leader like Adolf Hitler swaying Church leaders. Bonhoeffer came to the conclusion that the Church must live by the Gospel alone and avoid intermingling with the State or it would be rendered no Church at all.
An older professor of theology who had conformed to Nazi ideology in order to keep his job told Dietrich, "It is a great pity that our best hope in the faculty is being wasted on the church struggle." As the struggle intensified, it was noticed that Bonhoeffer’s sermons became more confident of God’s victory, and more defiant.
At the same time that Bonhoeffer was becoming more defiant of Hitler’s influence on the Church there was another sermon being preached in the Church of Germany. On January 25, 1934 Adolf Hitler called hundreds of pastors and leaders from the churches in Germany to a personal conference in Berlin. He was concerned about a possible split among the pastors concerning his policy over the German church. He criticized and threatened them, reminding the ministers that the economy in Germany was in great recovery and that he needed their unified support. He told them, "You confine yourself to the church. I will take care of the German people." Hitler was persuasive, he mesmerized the pastors and the Church became silent during the Nazi holocaust. The pastors aligned themselves with Hitler, they placed the Swastika on their pastoral robes, and in doing so they turned their backs on the cross of Christ.
Martin Niemoller, who along with Dietrich Bonhoeffer founded the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany, rose up in opposition to Hitler during the meeting. He said, "We are not concerned with the churches in Germany. Jesus Christ will take care of them Himself. We are concerned with the heart and soul of our nation." With that courageous statement in the face of a tyrant you would have thought that the pastors would have applauded him. Instead, Niemoller was ushered out of the meeting by several pastors and harshly condemned for causing trouble and ruining the possibility of building a relationship with the powerful leader of Germany. It was the men of God who silenced the very voice of God in Germany.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, “When Christ calls a person, He bids him to come and die.” Dietrich would live that statement as his opposition brought more and more attention and persecution from Hitler’s henchmen. Bonhoeffer would not back away from his belief that there could be only one Fuehrer or leader for Christians, and it was not Hitler. Lutheran bishops and pastors remained silent in the hope of preserving institutional unity. In the face of weak leadership Bonhoeffer warned his fellow ministers that they ought not to pursue converting Hitler; what they needed most was to be converted themselves. An Anglican bishop who knew Bonhoeffer well in England later wrote, "He was crystal-clear in his convictions; and young as he was, and humble-minded as he was, he saw the truth and spoke it with complete absence of fear." Bonhoeffer himself wrote to a friend about this time, "Christ is looking down at us and asking whether there is anyone who still confesses Him."
The plot thickened and although Bonhoeffer had been a pacifist early in the war, he was now convinced that Hitler would have to be removed. He joined with several high-ranking military officers who were secretly opposed to Hitler and who planned to assassinate him. The plot was discovered in April 1943. Bonhoeffer would spend the rest of his life – the next two years – in prison before he was executed. Bonhoeffer always believed that God’s providence places us where we are and that we are to share the Gospel regardless of our situation. His ministry for two years was to fellow prisoners awaiting execution. One of Bonhoeffer’s fellow prison mates was Captain Payne Best, an Englishman, who survived the prison camp to pay tribute to the prison-camp pastor: "Bonhoeffer was different, just quite calm and normal, seemingly perfectly at his ease… His soul really shone in the dark desperation of our prison. He was one of the very few men I have ever met to whom God was real and ever close to him."
Bonhoeffer was taken out of the prison and taken to Flossenburg, an extermination camp in the Bavarian forest. On April 9, three weeks before American forces liberated Flossenburg, he was executed. Today the tree from which he was hanged bears a plaque with only ten words inscribed on it: “Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a witness to Jesus Christ among his brethren.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a powerful example of living life “outside.” “When Christ calls a person, He bids him come and die.” He must die to the world’s ways of living, die to the world’s ways of speaking, die to the world’s ways of thinking, die to his own passions and pleasures, die to his own selfish desires. Christ bids us all to come and die so that we might live, fully live, in Him and Him alone.
In Hebrews 13:10-16.it is written: "We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat. The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. (Hebrews 13:10-16 NIV)
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3-SwidavfU
Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church. Endicott
53 McKinley Avenue, Endicott.
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott
Saturday February 26, 2011
6PM Coffee Fellowship
6:30 PM Worship Service
Worship Music: Laureen Naik
Speaker: Rev. Brown Naik
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Brown's Daily Word 3-1-11
Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this the first day of March. Praise the Lord for the gracious invitation He has given us that we might seek to live in fellowship with Jesus day-in and day-out. It is written," that this is the message that we have heard from the beginning that we should love one another and that love is modeled for us in the life of Jesus. "
In 1 John 3: 12-16, John contrasts two lives, the life of Cain and the life of Jesus. John said that we are not to be like Cain who killed his brother for selfish reasons, but that we are to imitate Jesus who laid down His life for you and for me. When we hear the story of Cain, who murdered his brother, contrasted with the story of Jesus, who offered His own life, a sinless, spotless, perfect life, for the lives of sinners like me, it is not hard to figure out that Jesus is the model that we should emulate. The juxtaposition of Cain and Jesus is the contrast of the life of hate and murder versus the life of love and self-sacrifice.
Even the most hard of heart can easily conclude that it is more noble to emulate the life of love and self-sacrifice. Especially in this society where self-love is much more prominent than self-sacrifice we need to have an example whom we can follow. "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." John Stott wrote, "The Cross is an example to copy, and not simply a revelation of love to admire."
David Livingstone, the great missionary to Africa, once said, "People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice that is simply acknowledging a great debt we owe to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny? It is emphatically no sacrifice. Rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, danger, foregoing the common conveniences of this life - these may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing compared with the glory which shall later be revealed in and through us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk, when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left His Father's throne on high to give Himself for us."
It is inconceivable to most to think that David Livingstone never made a sacrifice. A study of his life would probably convince you otherwise, but Dr. Livingstone was able to say that what others saw as a sacrifice he saw as a privilege. Dr. Livingstone understood John's lesson in sacrificial love lived out in everyday life.
In verses 18-20, John encourages us once again by saying, "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything."
We are called to live sacrificially in sharing the Gospel with all people. There is a wonderful blessing that arises from loving our brothers and sisters in a sacrificial way. We gain assurance that we belong to the Lord and we will one day be at rest in God's presence. When we choose to live sacrificially and love our brothers and sisters then we are at rest, peace permeates our souls, and we have confidence that we belong to the Lord.
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSKnkqAOhpA
Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church. Endicott
53 McKinley Avenue, Endicott.
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott
Saturday February 26, 2011
6PM Coffee Fellowship
6:30 PM Worship Service
Worship Music: Laureen Naik
Speaker: Rev. Brown Naik
Praise the Lord for this the first day of March. Praise the Lord for the gracious invitation He has given us that we might seek to live in fellowship with Jesus day-in and day-out. It is written," that this is the message that we have heard from the beginning that we should love one another and that love is modeled for us in the life of Jesus. "
In 1 John 3: 12-16, John contrasts two lives, the life of Cain and the life of Jesus. John said that we are not to be like Cain who killed his brother for selfish reasons, but that we are to imitate Jesus who laid down His life for you and for me. When we hear the story of Cain, who murdered his brother, contrasted with the story of Jesus, who offered His own life, a sinless, spotless, perfect life, for the lives of sinners like me, it is not hard to figure out that Jesus is the model that we should emulate. The juxtaposition of Cain and Jesus is the contrast of the life of hate and murder versus the life of love and self-sacrifice.
Even the most hard of heart can easily conclude that it is more noble to emulate the life of love and self-sacrifice. Especially in this society where self-love is much more prominent than self-sacrifice we need to have an example whom we can follow. "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." John Stott wrote, "The Cross is an example to copy, and not simply a revelation of love to admire."
David Livingstone, the great missionary to Africa, once said, "People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice that is simply acknowledging a great debt we owe to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny? It is emphatically no sacrifice. Rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, danger, foregoing the common conveniences of this life - these may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing compared with the glory which shall later be revealed in and through us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk, when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left His Father's throne on high to give Himself for us."
It is inconceivable to most to think that David Livingstone never made a sacrifice. A study of his life would probably convince you otherwise, but Dr. Livingstone was able to say that what others saw as a sacrifice he saw as a privilege. Dr. Livingstone understood John's lesson in sacrificial love lived out in everyday life.
In verses 18-20, John encourages us once again by saying, "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything."
We are called to live sacrificially in sharing the Gospel with all people. There is a wonderful blessing that arises from loving our brothers and sisters in a sacrificial way. We gain assurance that we belong to the Lord and we will one day be at rest in God's presence. When we choose to live sacrificially and love our brothers and sisters then we are at rest, peace permeates our souls, and we have confidence that we belong to the Lord.
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSKnkqAOhpA
Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church. Endicott
53 McKinley Avenue, Endicott.
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott
Saturday February 26, 2011
6PM Coffee Fellowship
6:30 PM Worship Service
Worship Music: Laureen Naik
Speaker: Rev. Brown Naik
Monday, February 28, 2011
Brown's Daily Word 2-28-11
Good morning,
Praise the Lord for the last day of February, 2011. Our daughter Laureen traveled to Boston this weekend to take our grand daughter Micah, who came down with us to spend a few days here in New York, home. Laureen will be driving back to New York today. Jessica and Tom have gone to Panama for a short vacation. Jessica wrote me a note saying it was in the 90's in Panama.
The Lord blessed us with a full weekend of worship, praise, and fellowship. It is a huge blessing to be in the House of the Lord with His people to worship the Lord of lords and the King of kings.
Every time I read the story about Father Maximillian Kolbe I am provoked to love the Lord and serve Him with greater obedience. Father Maximillian Kolbe was forty-five years old in the early autumn of 1939 when the Nazis invaded his homeland. He was a Polish monk who founded the Knights of the Immaculate, a Franciscan order whose headquarters was in Niepokalanow, a village near Warsaw. There 762 priests and lay brothers lived in the largest friary in the world. Father Kolbe presided over Niepokalanow with a combination of industry, joy, love, and humor that made him beloved by the plain-spoken brethren there.
On September 1, 1939, the Nazi blitzkrieg broke over Poland. The skies above Niepokalanow were filled with bombers on their way east toward Warsaw. Soon however, Niepokalanow itself was the target. As flames roared in the night and glass shattered, the brothers in the friary prayed. On September 19, a group of Germans arrived at Niepokalanow on motorcycles and arrested Father Kolbe and all but two of his friars. The monks were loaded into trucks, then into livestock wagons, and two days later arrived in Amtitz, a prison camp.
Within a few weeks the brothers were released from prison and headed back to the friary. Sensing the anxiety of some of the brothers, Father Kolbe gathered a group of them before a chalkboard. "I insist that you become saints," Kolbe said with a smile, "and great saints! Does that surprise you? But remember, my children, that holiness is not a luxury, but a simple duty. It is Jesus who told us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. So do not think it is such a difficult thing; actually, it is a very simple mathematical problem." On the blackboard he wrote "w = W," grinning widely as he did so. "A very clear formula, don't you agree? The little 'w' stands for my will, the capital 'W' for the will of God. When the two wills run counter to each other, you have the cross. Do you want to get rid of the cross? Then your will be identified with the will of God, who wants you to be saints. Isn't that simple? Now all you must do is obey!"
At nine o'clock on the morning of February 17, Father Kolbe was again arrested by the Nazi SS. After being held in Nazi prisons for several months, Father Kolbe was found guilty of the crime of publishing unapproved materials and sentenced to Auschwitz. Upon his arrival at the camp in May 1941, an SS officer informed him that the life expectancy of priests there was about a month.
Years of slim rations and overwork at Niepokalanow had already weakened Kolbe. Now, under a load of wood, he staggered and collapsed. Officers converged on him, kicking him with their shiny leather boots and beating him with whips. He was stretched out on a pile of wood, dealt fifty lashes; then shoved into a ditch, covered with branches, and left for dead. Miraculously Father Kolbe recovered from the beating and was later moved to another barracks and reassigned to different work. All the while he continued to minister to his fellow prisoners. As Father Kolbe would work with the prisoners he would raise his emaciated arm and make the sign of the cross. Each time he thought to himself,
"The cross. Christ's cross has triumphed over its enemies in every age. I believe, in the end, even in these darkest days of Poland, the cross will triumph over the swastika. I pray I can be faithful to that end."
One morning when Father Kolbe was roused from bed there was a tension in the air. After roll call, Camp Commandant Fritsch ordered the dismissal of all but Barracks 14. While the rest of the camp went about its duties, the prisoners from Barracks 14 stood motionless in line. They waited, hours passed. The summer sun beat down. Some fainted and were dragged away. Some swayed in place but held on; those the SS officers beat with the butts of their guns. Father Kolbe, by some miracle, stayed on his feet, his posture as straight as his resolve.
By evening roll call the commandant was ready to levy sentence. The other prisoners had returned from their day of slave labor, now he could make a lesson out of the fate of this miserable barracks. Fritsch began to speak, the veins in his thick neck standing out with rage. "The fugitive has not been found," he screamed. "Ten of you will die for him in the starvation bunker. Next time, twenty will be condemned." The prisoners were terrified. There was nothing worse than the starvation bunker. Anything was better - death on the gallows, a bullet in the head at the Wall of Death, or even the gas chambers. All those were quick, even humane, compared to Nazi starvation, for they denied you water as well as food. The prisoners had heard stories from the starvation bunker in the basement of Barracks 11. They said the condemned didn't even look like human beings after a day or two. They frightened even the guards.
Commandant Fritsch walked the rows of prisoners choosing the ten that he wanted to die. After the ten had been chosen the cry rang out, "My poor children! My wife! What will they do?" "Take off your shoes!" the commandant yelled at the condemned. Suddenly there was a commotion in the ranks. A prisoner had broken out of line, calling for the commandant. It was unheard of to leave the ranks, let alone address a Nazi officer; it was cause for execution. "What does this Polish pig want of me?" Fritsch yelled.
The prisoners gasped. It was their beloved Father Kolbe, the priest who shared his last crust, who comforted the dying, who heard their confessions and nourished their souls. Not Father Kolbe! The frail priest spoke softly, even calmly, to the Nazi butcher. "I would like to die in place of one of the men you condemned." Fritsch stared at the prisoner #16670. "Why?" he snapped. Father Kolbe said, "I am an old man, sir, and good for nothing. My life will serve no purpose." His ploy triggered the response he was hoping for. Fritsch asked, "In whose place do you want to die?" "For that one," Kolbe responded, pointing to the weeping prisoner who had bemoaned his wife and children. Fritsch glanced at the weeping prisoner. He did look stronger than this tattered #16670 before him. For the first and last time, the commandant looked Kolbe in the eye. "Who are you?" he asked. The prisoner looked back at him, a strange fire in his dark eyes. "I am a Catholic priest."
The commandant ordered his assistant to replace the weeping man with Father Kolbe and the men were led away to the starvation bunker. As the condemned men entered Barracks 11, guards roughly pushed them down the stairs to the basement. "Remove your clothes!" shouted an officer. Christ died on the cross naked, Father Kolbe thought as he took off his pants and thin shirt. "It is only fitting that I suffer as He suffered to gain the glory He gained."
As the hours and days passed, however, the camp became aware of something extraordinary happening in the death cell. Past prisoners had spent their dying days howling, attacking one another, clawing the walls in a frenzy of despair.
But now, coming from the death box, those outside heard the faint sounds of singing. For this time the prisoners had a shepherd to gently lead them through the shadows of the valley of death, pointing them to the Great Shepherd. And perhaps for that reason Father Kolbe was the last to die.
On August 14, 1941, there were four prisoners still alive in the bunker, and it was needed for new occupants. A German doctor named Boch descended the steps of Barracks 11, four syringes in his hand. Several SS troopers and Brono Borgowiec were with him - the former to observe and the latter to carry out the bodies. When they swung the bunker door open, there, in the light of their flashlight, they saw Father Kolbe, a living skeleton, propped against one wall. His head was inclined a bit to the left. He had a ghost of smile on his lips and his eyes wide open, fixed on some faraway vision. He did not move.
The other three prisoners were on the floor, unconscious but alive. The doctor took care of them first, then, in a moment, Father Kolbe was dead. (The above story was taken from Chuck Colson's book, The Body."
The story of Father Maximilian Kolbe embodies the teachings of love taught by Jesus. Jesus said, "Greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his life for his friends." Father Kolbe was not a man who had a death wish, he was a man whose will was to respond to the needs of those around him as Jesus, his Savior, would respond. As a result, he offered his life for another.
In 1 John 3:11-24. it is written, "This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have the confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. (1 John 3:11-24 NIV)
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qEjRLlL9iE
PRAYER (traditional language)
Keep us, O Lord, constant in faith and zealous in witness, after the examples of thy servants Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer; that we may live in thy fear, die in thy favor, and rest in thy peace; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church. Endicott
53 McKinley Avenue, Endicott.
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott
Saturday February 26, 2011
6PM Coffee Fellowship
6:30 PM Worship Service
Worship Music: Laureen Naik
Speaker: Rev. Brown Naik
Praise the Lord for the last day of February, 2011. Our daughter Laureen traveled to Boston this weekend to take our grand daughter Micah, who came down with us to spend a few days here in New York, home. Laureen will be driving back to New York today. Jessica and Tom have gone to Panama for a short vacation. Jessica wrote me a note saying it was in the 90's in Panama.
The Lord blessed us with a full weekend of worship, praise, and fellowship. It is a huge blessing to be in the House of the Lord with His people to worship the Lord of lords and the King of kings.
Every time I read the story about Father Maximillian Kolbe I am provoked to love the Lord and serve Him with greater obedience. Father Maximillian Kolbe was forty-five years old in the early autumn of 1939 when the Nazis invaded his homeland. He was a Polish monk who founded the Knights of the Immaculate, a Franciscan order whose headquarters was in Niepokalanow, a village near Warsaw. There 762 priests and lay brothers lived in the largest friary in the world. Father Kolbe presided over Niepokalanow with a combination of industry, joy, love, and humor that made him beloved by the plain-spoken brethren there.
On September 1, 1939, the Nazi blitzkrieg broke over Poland. The skies above Niepokalanow were filled with bombers on their way east toward Warsaw. Soon however, Niepokalanow itself was the target. As flames roared in the night and glass shattered, the brothers in the friary prayed. On September 19, a group of Germans arrived at Niepokalanow on motorcycles and arrested Father Kolbe and all but two of his friars. The monks were loaded into trucks, then into livestock wagons, and two days later arrived in Amtitz, a prison camp.
Within a few weeks the brothers were released from prison and headed back to the friary. Sensing the anxiety of some of the brothers, Father Kolbe gathered a group of them before a chalkboard. "I insist that you become saints," Kolbe said with a smile, "and great saints! Does that surprise you? But remember, my children, that holiness is not a luxury, but a simple duty. It is Jesus who told us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. So do not think it is such a difficult thing; actually, it is a very simple mathematical problem." On the blackboard he wrote "w = W," grinning widely as he did so. "A very clear formula, don't you agree? The little 'w' stands for my will, the capital 'W' for the will of God. When the two wills run counter to each other, you have the cross. Do you want to get rid of the cross? Then your will be identified with the will of God, who wants you to be saints. Isn't that simple? Now all you must do is obey!"
At nine o'clock on the morning of February 17, Father Kolbe was again arrested by the Nazi SS. After being held in Nazi prisons for several months, Father Kolbe was found guilty of the crime of publishing unapproved materials and sentenced to Auschwitz. Upon his arrival at the camp in May 1941, an SS officer informed him that the life expectancy of priests there was about a month.
Years of slim rations and overwork at Niepokalanow had already weakened Kolbe. Now, under a load of wood, he staggered and collapsed. Officers converged on him, kicking him with their shiny leather boots and beating him with whips. He was stretched out on a pile of wood, dealt fifty lashes; then shoved into a ditch, covered with branches, and left for dead. Miraculously Father Kolbe recovered from the beating and was later moved to another barracks and reassigned to different work. All the while he continued to minister to his fellow prisoners. As Father Kolbe would work with the prisoners he would raise his emaciated arm and make the sign of the cross. Each time he thought to himself,
"The cross. Christ's cross has triumphed over its enemies in every age. I believe, in the end, even in these darkest days of Poland, the cross will triumph over the swastika. I pray I can be faithful to that end."
One morning when Father Kolbe was roused from bed there was a tension in the air. After roll call, Camp Commandant Fritsch ordered the dismissal of all but Barracks 14. While the rest of the camp went about its duties, the prisoners from Barracks 14 stood motionless in line. They waited, hours passed. The summer sun beat down. Some fainted and were dragged away. Some swayed in place but held on; those the SS officers beat with the butts of their guns. Father Kolbe, by some miracle, stayed on his feet, his posture as straight as his resolve.
By evening roll call the commandant was ready to levy sentence. The other prisoners had returned from their day of slave labor, now he could make a lesson out of the fate of this miserable barracks. Fritsch began to speak, the veins in his thick neck standing out with rage. "The fugitive has not been found," he screamed. "Ten of you will die for him in the starvation bunker. Next time, twenty will be condemned." The prisoners were terrified. There was nothing worse than the starvation bunker. Anything was better - death on the gallows, a bullet in the head at the Wall of Death, or even the gas chambers. All those were quick, even humane, compared to Nazi starvation, for they denied you water as well as food. The prisoners had heard stories from the starvation bunker in the basement of Barracks 11. They said the condemned didn't even look like human beings after a day or two. They frightened even the guards.
Commandant Fritsch walked the rows of prisoners choosing the ten that he wanted to die. After the ten had been chosen the cry rang out, "My poor children! My wife! What will they do?" "Take off your shoes!" the commandant yelled at the condemned. Suddenly there was a commotion in the ranks. A prisoner had broken out of line, calling for the commandant. It was unheard of to leave the ranks, let alone address a Nazi officer; it was cause for execution. "What does this Polish pig want of me?" Fritsch yelled.
The prisoners gasped. It was their beloved Father Kolbe, the priest who shared his last crust, who comforted the dying, who heard their confessions and nourished their souls. Not Father Kolbe! The frail priest spoke softly, even calmly, to the Nazi butcher. "I would like to die in place of one of the men you condemned." Fritsch stared at the prisoner #16670. "Why?" he snapped. Father Kolbe said, "I am an old man, sir, and good for nothing. My life will serve no purpose." His ploy triggered the response he was hoping for. Fritsch asked, "In whose place do you want to die?" "For that one," Kolbe responded, pointing to the weeping prisoner who had bemoaned his wife and children. Fritsch glanced at the weeping prisoner. He did look stronger than this tattered #16670 before him. For the first and last time, the commandant looked Kolbe in the eye. "Who are you?" he asked. The prisoner looked back at him, a strange fire in his dark eyes. "I am a Catholic priest."
The commandant ordered his assistant to replace the weeping man with Father Kolbe and the men were led away to the starvation bunker. As the condemned men entered Barracks 11, guards roughly pushed them down the stairs to the basement. "Remove your clothes!" shouted an officer. Christ died on the cross naked, Father Kolbe thought as he took off his pants and thin shirt. "It is only fitting that I suffer as He suffered to gain the glory He gained."
As the hours and days passed, however, the camp became aware of something extraordinary happening in the death cell. Past prisoners had spent their dying days howling, attacking one another, clawing the walls in a frenzy of despair.
But now, coming from the death box, those outside heard the faint sounds of singing. For this time the prisoners had a shepherd to gently lead them through the shadows of the valley of death, pointing them to the Great Shepherd. And perhaps for that reason Father Kolbe was the last to die.
On August 14, 1941, there were four prisoners still alive in the bunker, and it was needed for new occupants. A German doctor named Boch descended the steps of Barracks 11, four syringes in his hand. Several SS troopers and Brono Borgowiec were with him - the former to observe and the latter to carry out the bodies. When they swung the bunker door open, there, in the light of their flashlight, they saw Father Kolbe, a living skeleton, propped against one wall. His head was inclined a bit to the left. He had a ghost of smile on his lips and his eyes wide open, fixed on some faraway vision. He did not move.
The other three prisoners were on the floor, unconscious but alive. The doctor took care of them first, then, in a moment, Father Kolbe was dead. (The above story was taken from Chuck Colson's book, The Body."
The story of Father Maximilian Kolbe embodies the teachings of love taught by Jesus. Jesus said, "Greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his life for his friends." Father Kolbe was not a man who had a death wish, he was a man whose will was to respond to the needs of those around him as Jesus, his Savior, would respond. As a result, he offered his life for another.
In 1 John 3:11-24. it is written, "This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have the confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. (1 John 3:11-24 NIV)
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qEjRLlL9iE
PRAYER (traditional language)
Keep us, O Lord, constant in faith and zealous in witness, after the examples of thy servants Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer; that we may live in thy fear, die in thy favor, and rest in thy peace; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church. Endicott
53 McKinley Avenue, Endicott.
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott
Saturday February 26, 2011
6PM Coffee Fellowship
6:30 PM Worship Service
Worship Music: Laureen Naik
Speaker: Rev. Brown Naik
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