Praise the Lord for this Saturday in Central New York. It is frigid
everywhere. It is, however, a light and momentary affliction because next
week it will be warming up. I woke up early this morning and listened to
the best of Handel, including parts of Handel's "Messiah". I am
getting ready for worship tomorrow. Sunday school will be at 10:00 AM,
followed by worship at 11:00 AM. My wife, who loves winter,
is planning to drive toward Binghamton this morning, braving the cold winds to
go out shopping.
Praise the Lord for this beautiful and holy Lenten Season. We join the Church
around the world and around the corner in recalling and remembering the Passion
and suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is written, "But God commendeth
(demonstrates) his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us." (Romans 5:8) "Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or
nakedness, or peril, or sword?" (Romans 8:35) "Nay, in all these
things we are more than conquerors through him that loved (loves) us. For I am
persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any
other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:37-39)
I was
talking with some of my family back in Orissa yesterday, who shared with me
that Christians from different denominations are coming together in worship and
witness during this Lenten season to remember the Passion of Christ. These are
believers who underwent tremendous persecution in 2008. In one historic area
over 100,000 Christians gathered to share in the fellowship of suffering in
Jesus Christ. They expressed their deep solidarity with the suffering
Christians in the Middle East. During this Holy season, we are called to pray
for suffering Christians and Christian martyrs all around the world, for the
persecuted Church is dear to the heart of Jesus.
Praise the
Lord for each one of you, who have blessed us and prayed for us. Praise the
Lord for the way that our church family from Marathon continues to serve the
Lord both in our community and around the world.
I
love the story of the Prodigal Son and the magnanimus and loving Father. This
parable was part of my high school English reading from the King James
Version in 1963, taught in the Public Schools in Orissa, India. The
father had been waiting lovingly for his son to come home. When his
wayward son finally came home, he put a ring on his finger, a coat on his back,
shoes on his feet, and he threw a party. This same father deeply loved the son
who had stayed home, and this loving father went out onto the porch to find his
older son, and said, “Son, I love you. Son, my inheritance is
yours. Why don’t you come inside and see your brother.” We find that the father loved both prodigal sons, the one who stayed home as well as the one who
wandered away.
Pausing
and pondering about the father, we see that the father in the parable
represents God the Father, who loves prodigals like all of us. Some
of us are lost in a far away country and some are lost in
"the house".
My
favorite story about the waiting father is an old classic sermon illustration.
The young son had gone to San Francisco. He was out of money, out of
friends, and out of options. He hit bottom and was at his wit's
end. The lost son wrote a letter home to his parents, who
were living in the Seattle area. He wrote, “Dear Mom and Dad, I have
sinned deeply against you. I have sinned against you and I have sinned
against God and I am not worthy to be called your son. There is no reason
for you to love me or welcome me back home. I am at the bottom of the
barrel and I need to come back home. I hope that you would welcome me.
I have been given a ticket for a train to get me back to Seattle. The train comes past our farm south of Seattle. It comes
around the bend and right past our farmhouse. If you want me to come
home, please put a white towel on the clothesline, out in the back yard near
the tracks. I will then know that you want me to come back home. If
there is no towel there, I understand. I will understand that it is not
right for me to come back home.”
The
young man sent the letter, got on the train, and started heading north.
As he came closer and closer to home, he became more nervous inside and was
pacing up and down the center aisle of the train. As the train came closer
and closer to his farmhouse, he couldn’t bear it anymore. He was
momentarily sitting next to a man, and he said to him, “Sir, around this
next corner, this next bend, there is going to be a farm house of the
left. A white house. An old red barn behind it. A dilapidated
fence. There will be a clothesline in the back yard. Would you do
me a favor and look and see if there is a white towel hanging on the
clothesline? I know it sounds peculiar, but I can’t bear to look.” The train came closer and closer to the bend and started to go
around the bend, and the young man’s heart was racing as fast as it
could. The man said, “Look, look, look. Open your eyes.” The whole
clothesline was covered with white towels. The oak trees were covered
with white sheets. The barn roof was covered with sheets. The old
dilapidated fence was covered with white sheets. There were sheets
everywhere. The father and mother so deeply wanted their son to come back
home.
So
it is with God our heavenly Father in His relationship with you and
me when we have wandered away from Him, (and we do), when we take our
God-given inheritance and get wrapped up in the things of this world so that we
forget God, we live and feel as if God does not exist. Sometimes, we
come to our senses and we come back home to an intimate loving relationship
with God and his family. God is so happy when we do.
It
is also true that sometimes, though we have stayed at home in the
church, that our hearts may calloused and hard (not to our children,
grandchildren and friends). Yet our hearts may become calloused and
hard to those outside the church, and sometimes we start to feel that our
sins are less "sinful" than their sins. Sometimes our
hearts become sour, loveless, and acidic to people who are very different than
we are. Sometimes, in those instances, we wake up and come to our senses
and we come back home to God, a loving God who wants so deeply for us to come
back and live as loving children within his house.
Please
join me in praying for our dear friend, Roger Vick, a faithful servant and
joyful singer of Jesus.
In Christ,
Brown
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