"Blessed Are Those That Mourn"

February 22, 2012 was the official beginning of the season of Lent.  At Ardmore Presbyterian Church we hold an evening "Service of Covenant Renewal."  The following are excerpts of Pastor James' remarks.  His texts for the evening was Matthew 5:1-10 and Psalm 126. 

After we first moved here, my wife signed up to receive text messages from one of the local television stations.  So a few times a day, her phone buzzes with the latest headlines in the Philly area.  More often than not, the texts are filled with bad news.  The media reports that someone did something hurtful or hateful or simply stupid.  Perhaps, it is another shooting or another flash mob or another scandal.  On occasion, Sara will forward a headline to me.  Sharing the news, even bad news, can be a comfort.  It’s nice to know we aren’t alone.

While recently reading one of those forwarded texts, I realized that I wasn’t angry or upset.  I just was saddened.  I grieved the waste of talent and ability.  I grieved the lost opportunities.  At the end of the text, the television station gave me an option, “Reply STOP NEWS to quit.”  If only it was that easy.  I would love to hit reply on my cell phone to stop the bad news from coming.  It would be great to push a button and know that no child would go hungry tonight, that wars would end, and that cures for diseases would be found. 

However, there is no app for that.  

We aren’t powerless.  Humanity is capable of great acts of compassion and sacrifice.  Each of us should do our part.  Nonetheless, it will never be enough.  Injustice, suffering and hatred will remain.  Despite our human efforts, death will always be an enemy.  The very things we wish to preserve slip through our fingers. 

For me, the worst part is when I discover that even our efforts are tainted.  Our actions are accompanied by selfishness, accommodation, and sin.  Exhausted by the magnitude of the challenge, we fall to our knees and cry.  And Jesus calls us blessed. 

For those of us who grew up reading Peanuts comics, “Good grief” was Charlie Brown’s cry of desperation.  It was meant to ironic, but Jesus means it seriously.  “Blessed are those who mourn” (Matt 5:4). 

On a certain level, those who mourn actually know the truth about this world.  If someone cannot feel the pain of another person, they are essentially alone.  There is something hellish about the one who walks through life surrounded by self-built walls, comfortably numb.

However, being blessed isn’t simply feeling another’s pain.  That’s not Jesus’ word to us.  “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”  Jesus declares that there is an end to grief.  Jesus stands with us at the grave.  He whispers into our ears.  Don’t worry.  This is not the whole story.  My love cannot be stopped by this.  I will never leave you.

The nails that pierced his hands are gone.  The cross on which he hung is no more.  But Jesus himself is not lost to history.  He is alive.  The grief we have today must be understood in that context.  Lent is not simply forty days of dreariness.  The empty tomb declares that our grief happens in the embrace of hope.  And God’s hope will never disappoint.

Pastor's Pen: Songs of the Season

‘Tis the season, and the music of the season is already in the air.  You certainly hear it in worship, but you might also hear it on the radio and in the mall.  The Christian carols compete these days with Frosty and Rudolf, but if you listen carefully, you still can hear what happened in Bethlehem so long ago. 

Interestingly, those carols shape how we hear the story even more than the Scriptures do.  According to the gospel of Luke, the angels responded to Jesus’ birth by proclaiming their praise of God.  However, most of us, remembering the carol, believe that the herald angels did not only speak but sang their announcement.  According to the gospel of Matthew, an unspecified number of magi came from the East to offer presents to the newborn.  From the carol, we know that there were three, and moreover, they were kings.  I am not personally bothered by such discrepancies.  For the most part, they are trivia that you can share at your next Christmas party.  However, there is one carol that I sing under protest or at least with a caveat.

In the third verse of “Away in a Manger,” we sing

“The cattle are lowing

The poor Baby wakes

But little Lord Jesus

No crying He makes”

The gospels do not mention whether or not Jesus as a baby cried.  I assume that the author of the carol wanted to emphasize that Jesus was somehow different from other babies, and the assumption is that “good” little babies don’t cry.

Unfortunately, I disagree.  I believe that Jesus was fully divine.  However, Jesus was not like Clark Kent waiting for the right moment to become Superman.  He was fully human.  He got hungry like other babies.  He wet himself like other babies.  He cried like other babies.  The Scriptures say that Jesus “did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself…” (Philippians 2:6-7). 

Frankly, I am grateful that Jesus knows my humanity in its fullness, especially my weakness.  At the death of his friend Lazarus, we read, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).  In order to face the challenges that come, I want to know that even my hunger, pain, and sorrow has been redeemed by what Jesus Christ has done.

Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, love divine;

Love was born at Christmas,

Star and angels gave the sign.

Merry Christmas,

James Hodsden

Su Voz: Are We Alone?

Su Voz is a devotional produced by the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cuba.  Elisa Menocal is a member of Ardmore Presbyterian Church, and she is serving this year as a translator there.

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ARE WE ALONE?
MATTHEW 28:16-20
“…I am with you always...”
Matthew 28:20

The composer Tchaikovsky was a celebrity in his own country as well as the world over. And yet his success could not free him from the unhealthy anxiety which tormented him.  He felt alone and in great distress.  He wrote about the score of a melody in D minor. “Only the lonely heart can understand my anguish.”
 
Many people suffer from loneliness:  the widow who spends many long hours by herself, the prisoner who lies in his cell, the husband whose wife left him, the woman left alone in her apartment, the child whose parents are about to divorce, the mother whose children have left her side, the patient in the hospital at night, etc.
 
Are you one of those who feel alone?  Do the hours seem to go by in slow motion? 

Are you waiting for something without knowing what it is? God knows.  He is sensitive to your loneliness.  During the hours on the cross, the Lord Jesus knew what it meant to feel alone.  He was hanging between the sky and the earth and was receiving the punishment that our sins deserved.  And in the anguish of the moment he cried out:  “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46)  His cry was left unanswered.  But He was there only so that you and I never would have to.  Never again has he been alone.  Jesus Christ lives, He knows you, He loves you, and He is always at your side.

PRAYER:  Receive our prayer, beloved Christ, because we feel your company at all times.  Amen.

Translated by:
Elisa Menocal, M.A.
Visiting Professor of English
Evangelical Theological Seminary
Matanzas, Cuba

God Created the Family

Su Voz
GOD CREATED THE FAMILY
GENESIS 2:15-25
“Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.”
Genesis 2:24

God did not just create man, he also created the family. Because the creation of the woman the creation of the man is nothing other than the creation of the family and of the home.

Our Lord also blessed the formation of the family. His presence in the wedding at Cana symbolized his approval of the formation of a new family.

Today more than ever there is a need for Christian homes, created by the Lord and in which the Lord is served and praised.  A home in which each day God’s presence is sought through family worship, through unity and respect for the family, and through the Christian life in action.

We all want to enjoy a home where we live in peace, where tensions and difficulties are resolved under the loving eyes of its Divine Creator.

PRAYER:  Eternal Father and Creator, today I place my home life in your hands, praying that you bless each one of its members and that you allow us to always walk in your paths.  Amen.
 
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Translated by Elisa Menocal.  Elisa is a member of the Ardmore Presbyterian Church, sent to the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cuba.  She is spending the year there teaching English and translating for the school.

We Are Not Alone

Su Voz  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2011
WE ARE NOT ALONE
JOHN 16: 25-36
“You will desert me...however, I am not alone, because the Father is with me.”

Loneliness is the most desolate word in the Spanish language. It has no regard for a person’s age, race, wealth, or level of intelligence.  Albert Einstein said, “How strange to be a world-renowned figure and yet to suffer from such loneliness.”

God created us to experience intimacy and companionship with others. He declared that it was not good for the man to be alone.  Solitude is the reason that many people end up feeling empty inside.

Jesus also felt lonely and must have felt it quite deeply when His disciples abandoned him.  Nevertheless, the presence of the Father was made clear when He said, “I am not alone, because the Father is with me.”  This closeness with the Lord can be had by all who place their trust in Him and in His Word.

We can forget our feelings of loneliness by opening ourselves up to others; but even more importantly, we must open ourselves up to the Lord. He is always with us and wants us to have communion with Him at all times.

PRAYER: Lord, grant that your company might erase all feelings of loneliness in my life. Amen.
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Elisa Menocal is a member of the Ardmore Presbyterian Church, sent to the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cuba.  She is spending the year there teaching English and translating for the school.

Su Voz: "Seventy Times Seven"

SU VOZ     WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when sins against me?  Up to seven times?”
Matthew 18: 21

We don’t know if Peter’s question was due to honest ignorance or if it was the brazen question of one who wants to define the limits of his responsibilities.  The disciple had already traveled quite a ways with the Lord and had been able to hear his teachings. Nevertheless, Jesus is categorical in his reply:  I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven. Forgiving, absolving, and forgetting are the means through which God demands that we live.   For that to happen requires an urgency of thought, repentance, discernment, and the kind of prayer which makes us walk the extra mile, and to make room for the betterment of our interpersonal relationships.
To forgive up to seventy times seven means to do unto others as we want others to do unto us.  It is to place, above all else, the right of each human being to feel fragile, weak, welcomed and restored, in short, to feel like a HUMAN BEING; because if God is One and if in His Grace He forgives us, how much more are we obligated to forgive one another and to live in peace.

Prayer:  Lord, help us to be forgiving enough that we can become bridges of reconciliation.  Amen.

Translation by:
Elisa Menocal, M.A.
Visiting Professor of English
Evangelical Theological Seminary
Matanzas, Cuba

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Elisa Menocal is a member of the Ardmore Presbyterian Church, sent to the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cuba.  She is spending the year there teaching English and translating for the school.

Su Voz: "The Bible: My Very Own Book"

THE BIBLE:  MY VERY OWN BOOK
John 14: 23-27

…Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching
John 14: 23

Gabriela Mistral was born in Chile in 1889.  A teacher by profession, she eventually became one of the most valued poets in her country. Among her memoirs there is an essay which she titled: “My Very Own Book” is a book which at any time and at any hour is powerful and strong; a companion which has shown me the immense beauty, the simple candor, the terrible truth, through brief passages. Your nakedness frightens hypocrites and your purity is hated by libertines.  I love every part of you, even the fool in the parables.
 
Just think about all of the years we have invested reading pages of little content, while “My Very Own Book” remained asleep.  When we recall how sometimes we used the Bible as an excuse to promote our own ideas, which were neither always true nor convincing, we feel the need to repent.
 
How much good we could do for others if we drew them towards the “Book of My Own”:  the word of God!

Prayer:  Thank you, God, for the Bible:  grant that your Word become “the Book of Our Own”; our daily bread. Amen.


Translated by:
Elisa Menocal, M.A.
Visiting Professor of English
Evangelical Theological Seminary
Matanzas, Cuba


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Elisa Menocal is a member of the Ardmore Presbyterian Church, sent to the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cuba.  She is spending the year there teaching English and translating for the school.