Entries tagged with "resurrection" | This Side of the Pulpit

This Side of the Pulpit » Entries tagged with "resurrection"

My Thoughts on a Funeral

May 13th, 2010 | Add a Comment

Pastor Eric Brown attended a non-Lutheran funeral yesterday, and by coincidence, I attended a different non-Lutheran funeral. He posted his thoughts and beat me to the punch. First I’ll post mine, then quote his. The funeral was led by a hospice chaplain. The majority of the service was his sermon, which I found to be well delivered and spot-on for the hearers and situation. I couldn’t have done a better job in addressing such a diverse crowd of believers and unbelievers–and probably would have done a worse job. While he addressed many things in the deceased life, he didn’t eulogize her, and the majority of his sermon was based on Psalm 23. He made some points about shepherding that I had never heard before, and frankly, found suspicious. But the most … Read entire article »

Filed under: The World

Merry Christmas!

December 28th, 2009 | 2 Comments

It has been quiet around here because things haven’t been quiet elsewhere. We had a lovely white Christmas, apart from the high winds and blowing snow and canceled Christmas Eve service. Sigh. I hated to do that, but it was very dangerous around 4 pm. We are simply not equipped to deal with it in these parts–DOT-wise and common-sense-wise. A dear member passed away at midnight on Christmas Eve and his funeral is tomorrow. He had suffered a massive stroke sixteen years ago and was not expected to live then. Since then there have countless set-backs, yet he bounced back every time. While the family has been ready for this for over a decade, it still comes as a shock to many of us. God be praised for the mercy He … Read entire article »

Filed under: Theology

What is to Come

December 9th, 2009 | 4 Comments

In the first Odd Thomas novel by Dean Koontz the character Stormy believes that this life with all of its struggles and hardships is the easy part, the trial run for the adventure, the real battle that is waged in the next. It’s basic training for what will come, she says. There is truth to that, though not in the way it first appears. The next life will have no sin, no suffering for the redeemed of the Lord. Sorrow and sighing will flee away, Isaiah 35 tells us. With an eye to verses like that, it is impossible to think that this is basic training for the world to come. This is the war, then is the rest. And Scripture speaks this way as well. ”For we do not wrestle against flesh … Read entire article »

Filed under: Theology

Health Care and our Christian Witness

November 10th, 2009 | Add a Comment

So I think I have a case of the blog-writer’s block. In efforts to cure it, how about Health Care? I’ve got seriously mixed feelings. The problem is we have several fundamental tensions involved, centering around the question of the role of the government and so-called rights of Americans. Namely, do we have some sort of right to health care? History does not help us much. We cannot go back even 100 years and see how much government provided, controlled, or denied health care to its citizens because there simply wasn’t that much that physicians actually did to cure people. We’ve come a long way, baby. Theologically speaking, God established the governments to protect and defend its citizens, allowing us to live a “quiet and peaceable life.” How this is carried out is … Read entire article »

Filed under: The World, Theology

Whereof We dreamed as Children…

October 1st, 2009 | 1 Comment

And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. (Ecc 12:12 KJV) There’s a sequel to Winnie-the-Pooh and House at Pooh Corner. We can add to the thought above that there’s no end to the making of money by publishers. Yet the trustees of Milne’s estate have approved the book. But they also approved the Disney adaptations, as well, so we’ll have to see just how faithful the book is to Milne’s original. The AP article about the release says, in part: In the final chapter of “The House at Pooh Corner,” Christopher Robin asks for understanding, “whatever happens,” and makes Pooh promise he won’t forget about him, ever. Pooh does, and Milne then makes a promise of his own … Read entire article »

Filed under: Theology

Death of Small Towns

July 29th, 2009 | Add a Comment

In the last post I may have implied that my town is one of the many that are slowly dying. Is that true? Enid certainly has seen more prosperous days. In many ways we have never recovered from the oil bust of the mid 1980s, at least compared to Oklahoma City, which today is growing by leaps and bounds. Compared to surrounding towns, Enid is thriving. They are textbook cases of rural decline. I think Enid is holding its own. What I wrote about yesterday can be seen in every large city, if you look in the right neighborhoods. In small cities like Enid (pop. 45,000ish) you just don’t have to look as far, and the strories of the golden years are closer, just next door. That the way of men, of … Read entire article »

Filed under: Theology

Geronimo Cars and Resurrection

July 28th, 2009 | Add a Comment

The Geronimo Motor Company was founded in Enid, OK in 1917. It built two models of the Geronimo, a six-cylinder and a four-cylinder at the rate of one car per day. The original factory still stands in Enid: A few years later, the moved the factory to the (then) outskirts of town, which happens to be a block and a half south of my church. No sign of it remains. Business was going well with the Geronimo until a fire consumed the factory on August 14, 1920. The plant was only partially insured and the owner was unable to rebuild. Around 600 Geronimos were manufactured in total. Only one car is known to exist today. I thought I had heard or read about the Geronimo somewhere before. I was pretty excited to read about … Read entire article »

Filed under: Theology

Or as a Poet Says:

April 20th, 2009 | Add a Comment

Seven Stanzas at Easterby John Updike Make no mistake: if He rose at allit was as His body;if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the moleculesreknit, the amino acids rekindle,the Church will fall. It was not as the flowers,each soft Spring recurrent;it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddledeyes of the eleven apostles;it was as His flesh: ours. The same hinged thumbs and toes,the same valved heartthat–pierced–died, withered, paused, and thenregathered out of enduring Mightnew strength to enclose. Let us not mock God with metaphor,analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;making of the event a parable, a sign painted in thefaded credulity of earlier ages:let us walk through the door. The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,not a stone in a story,but the vast rock of materiality that in the slowgrinding of time will eclipse for … Read entire article »

Filed under: Theology, Writing&Books

“Ain’t no Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down”

April 20th, 2009 | 3 Comments

I asked a small child if Jesus’ body is in the grave. She responded, “Yes. He died on the cross, but He lives in heaven now.” A small child, of course. Perhaps a slip, a momentary confusion. Let’s hope so. But I wonder. This is how so many think of our death: bodies left behind to turn to dust, but the self, the awareness, the Real Me in heaven with Jesus forever. Our funeral liturgy is full of references to the resurrection. The prayers at the committal are for God to bless the body until the resurrection. But I do not think people hear those prayers anymore. We are gnostic, the body a shell, the material things temporary, the spirit world is our home. That is not Christianity, not if you leave … Read entire article »

Filed under: Theology