Brown's Daily Word 4-1-14

    Praise the Lord for this first day of April. It is going to be a brilliant and balmy day here in the Southern Tier of New York, the Empire State.  There are several patches of crocus around the Church grounds, in full bloom.  There are several Rhododendron bushes by my study.  There were some colorful spring birds on the these bushes that were gleeful and playful.  I thought they were playing hide and seek.  In 19 days we will celebrate the Glorious Resurrection of Jesus our Lord.  In the meantime, as we journey with Him to Jerusalem, we reflect on His suffering.  There is so much suffering and sadness in the world.  There is so much tragedy and senseless violence.  In the midst of it all we serve a Savior who is described in the Bible as the suffering servant.  He who new no sin became sin for us. 

    When I read narratives of the Passion I see that Jesus, our Lord, is in control.  He is in charge.   It is written, "No man taketh it (my life) from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.  This commandment have I received of my Father."  John 10:18  He is in control.  It's not just that Jesus is in control of himself, but that He is in control of the events themselves.  It's not just that he's able to handle his own adrenaline; he's able to dictate the result.  It's not just he's able to act wisely under pressure, he's able to determine the outcome.  Jesus isn't just able to respond skillfully to what he finds, he already knows what he will find, and has already mapped out the permanent solution to the deepest human problem of all.  Jesus stands out in this because he is in control of the entire sweep of human history.  This was true even as He went through His own death.

    He is the One in whom all beauty and wisdom and strength and courage come together.  We need to think more about the power and beauty and majesty of Jesus Christ.

    Jonathan Edwards, the great American theologian, captured an incredible complexity and beauty in Jesus our Lord, in the sermon called "The Excellency of Christ", preached in 1734, where he said:

And here is not only infinite strength and infinite worthiness, but infinite condescension and love and mercy as great as power and dignity.  So if you are a poor, distressed sinner whose heart is ready to sink for fear that God will never have mercy on you, you need not be afraid to go to Christ for fear that he is either unwilling or unable to help you.  Here is a strong foundation and inexhaustible treasure.  Here is infinite grace and gentleness to invite and embolden a poor, fearful soul to come to it.  If Christ accepts you, you need not fear that you will be safe for he is a strong lion for your defense, and if you come you need not fear but that you shall be accepted.  For he is like a lamb to all that come to him and receives them with infinite grace and tenderness. It's true he has awful majesty, he is the great God, infinitely high above you, but there is this to encourage and embolden the poor sinner, that Christ is man as well as God.  He is a creature as well as the Creator, and he is the most humble and lowly in heart of any creature in heaven or earth.  You need not hesitate one moment but may run to him and cast yourself upon him.  You will be graciously and meekly received by him.  This is our Lord Jesus Christ, the proper man who is also God.  The only innocent one, the one who trusts God.  The sovereign God in the flesh.  How can we fail to run to him?  How could we take him for granted?

    Jesus clearly does stand out in this chapter, but not least because of the fact that as these events unfolded He was surrounded by people like us.

The One who is in control, the One who is perfect and innocent, the One who trusts God in a way we can't died for us.  He suffered for us, though he was innocent and we are guilty.  He trusts for us, even though we are utterly unreliable. He died for us, even though he is the perfect Son of the Father and we are utterly undeserving.  When Jesus was upon the Cross He was recognized by a terrorist, by his Gentile executioner, and by the universe itself.  We are invited  to join them in acknowledging this Jesus as the Lord of the universe and the one to whom we owe everything.  We bow before this Jesus, the innocent one who has taken our guilt.  The Lord of the universe brought about his own death that we might live. This is the heart of the gospel.  This is the center of history.  This is God dying in our place.

How could we take this Jesus for granted? "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us."

In Christ,

  Brown

http://youtu.be/VbpEOlksKSw

Brown's Daily Word 3-31-14

    Praise the Lord for this the last day of March.  Easter Sunday was celebrated on March 31 a year ago today.  The Lord blessed us with a wonderful weekend.  It was  great to be in the house of the Lord yesterday.  I preached at Union Center and Alice preached at Wesley.   We had a special celebration  for the youth.  Fourteen youth were confirmed.  It was a great celebration and thanksgiving.  There was a mega dinner reception after the worship for the family and friends of the youth. 

    A few years ago a beautiful woman from our church, died suddenly.  Since she was an organ donor several people received her organs.  They received a new beginning.  The family of the woman who died received thank you notes of gratitude for the organs they received. 

    I also read about Michael Brady some time ago.  Michael  was a stuntman for Universal Studios. He specialized in skydiving.  Michael was in Benson, Ariz., preparing to parachute onto the top of a moving train.  Climbing up the ladder on the side of the train to check some rigging, Michael accidentally fell, hitting his head and dying instantly.  Michael's body was taken to the University Medical Center in Tucson.  His heart was placed inside the body of another man, Bill Wohl, who had been kept alive for the previous 159 days by a temporary artificial heart. 

    Six months and one day after getting a new heart, Bill Wohl received a letter from Michael Brady's family with a picture of Michael enclosed.  Bill was surprised to find that he had the heart of a 36-year-old Hollywood stuntman.  "I looked at this picture," Bill said, "at this incredibly good-looking, super-fit, super athletic guy, and I thought, 'Are you kidding me?  That's whose heart I've got?'"  Before his heart transplant, Bill Wohl had been a Type-A, overweight, money-obsessed businessman pursuing a jet-setter lifestyle.  Today, he works part-time, spending most of his new-found energy winning speed and performance medals in swimming, cycling and track.  Recently interviewed by a reporter in his Scottsdale condo, Bill Wohl leaned forward in his chair, glanced up at the bronze, silver and gold medals he has won, lowered his voice, and said, "Every day, all day, I thank God for Michael Brady. When I ride, when I work out…the biggest thing is to honor him."

    A new heart changed him.  14 young people confessed Jesus Christ in public yesterday.  They offered their hearts to Christ.  It is a mystery and grace of following Christ.   Four  young adults gave their testimony yesterday to encourage the young people on their journey with Jesus.  These young adults love Jesus and they follow Him today.  Their hearts belong to Jesus, they testified.  When we surrender our hearts to Jesus, His heart beats within us.  The biggest thing  of our lives is to honor Jesus Christ. 

    Bill Wohl traveled to see Michael Brady's family, with the strong heart of that young man beating in his chest, invigorating his body, pumping blood to every cell.  He met Michael's parents.  He learned their son was a man who loved God and cared about people.  Then, he met Michael's brother, Chris.  At their first meeting, Chris brought a stethoscope.  He held it in his hands and asked Bill Wohl, "Would you mind?  I want to connect with my brother one more time."  Bill said, "Of course.  Yes."  Chris pressed that stethoscope against Bill's chest, and he could hear his brother's beating heart.

    As we journey with Jesus during this Lenten season let others hear the heartbeat of Jesus in us.

 In Christ,

  Brown

http://youtu.be/pl0PPVeyLYw

Brown's Daily Word 3-28-14

   Praise the Lord for this last Friday of March.  It is going to be raining here today, washing away all the dirt .  The Spring flowers are budding fast and furiously.  Our Lord makes all things glorious in His time.  Blessed be His name.  Please join us this evening, those of you live in the area, for our Friday evening Television outreach on Time Warner Cable channel 4 at 7 PM.  We will meet on Sunday at Union Center at 8:30 and 11:00 AM for worship and at 9:50 for Sunday school.  We will meet at Wesley at 9:30 AM for Worship.  We will be receiving the confirmands into the fellowship of the at Union Center during the 11:00 AM worship service.  There will be a mega dinner  reception at the Church Hall following the service.   

    One week from today we will make another "Passage to India".  Thank you for praying for us and thank you for love and affection.  As we  get ready for Easter we reflect on the "Suffering Servant" portrayed so graphically in Isaiah 53.  Max Lucado, in his story, "He Chose the Nails" asks, “What would have happened to the Beast if the Beauty had not appeared?  We  know the story.  There was a time when his face was handsome and his palace cheerful.  But that was before the curse, before the shadows fell on the castle of the prince, before the shadows fell on the heart of the prince.  And when the darkness fell, he hid.  Secluded in his castle, he was left with glistening snout and curly tusks and a very bad mood.

    "But all that changed when the girl came.  What would have happened to the Beast if the Beauty had not appeared?  Better yet, what would have happened if she had not cared?  And who would have blamed her if she hadn’t?  He was such a . . . beast.  Hairy.  Drooling.  Roaring.  Defying.  Ill mannered.  And she was such a beauty.  Stunningly gorgeous.  Contagiously kind.  If ever two people lived up to their names, didn’t Beauty and the Beast?  Who would have blamed her if she hadn’t cared?  But she did.  And because Beauty loved the Beast . . ."

    The story is familiar, not just because it’s an exquisite fairy tale. It is familiar, mostly because it reminds us of ourselves.  Everyone has a beast within.  In the course of human history, this was not always the case.  In the beginning, there was a time when their was no beast within.  All was beautiful and cheerful. But that was before the curse, before the shadows fell across Adam’s garden, before the shadows fell across Adam’s heart.  Ever since that curse, we have been different.  We have a beast unleashed in each of us that makes us beastly, ugly, defiant, angry, and ill-mannered.  We do things we know we shouldn’t and wonder why.


    It is written in (Romans 3.10-12)  “All have sinned and fallen short of God’s standards.” (Romans 3.23)  Satan the adversary, the evil one, the beast, always breaks down the beauty God purposed for us.  He  corrupts our relationship with God, and that corrupts our relationships with each other; it withers our soul. This is a problem that we cannot fix.  Jesus can.  This is what the cross was all about – fixing what is broken, healing what we have diminished, restoring intimacy with God, reconciling brothers and sisters, and healing wounded souls.  The Bible says, “He was wounded and crushed for our sins.  He was beaten that we might have peace.  He was whipped, and we were healed.” (Isaiah 53.5)

    Even more than that, it is about ultimate wholeness.  What if the Beauty had not come?  What if the Beauty had not cared?  We need not dwell on these, "what ifs".  He came.  The sinless one took the face of the sinner so the sinner could become a saint.  Because he emptied himself of all but love, we can be filled.  Because His body was broken, our lives can be whole.  Because He was forsaken, we will never be alone.  Because He was buried for us, we can be raised to be with Him.  Because He reached down to us, we  don’t have to work our way up to Him. Because He became sin, we can experience ultimate wholeness. 

  In Christ,

    Brown

 

http://youtu.be/Rdf0Qyhc82Q