Who Can It Be Now?

Luke 11:9-10 (NRSV)

So I say to you, "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened."

Revelation 3:20 (NRSV)

Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.

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It's not the future that I can see,
It's just my fantasy

Oh...Who can it be now?

Men at Work, "Who Can It Be Now?" from "Business as Usual" 1981

This piece from Luke contains the promise that when we knock the door will be opened. Revelation reveals to us that Jesus is the one at the door knocking, and when we answer He will come and eat with us.

Who can it be knocking at my door? Scripture tells us that we are supposed to knock. We are supposed to pray for the coming of the Lord in our lives. We are promised that those who ask will receive and those who seek will find. What's funny about this is that we are not promised that we will be given what we ask nor will we find what we sought.

Scripture promises that when we ask and seek we will receive and find things which benefit us. Since no parent will give a child gifts that are bad for them, "how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" With apologies to Janis Joplin, we are not promised we will get a Mercedes Benz.It is rather as The Rolling Stones promised, you can't always get what you want but you just might find you get what you need.

This is the future, this is the fantasy which is available to us all. Jesus knocks upon the doors of our lives. To receive all of the joy of a Christian life, we need to answer the door. When we do and when Jesus enters; he will come and eat with us and us with him. We are told we will partake of a banquet with the Messiah.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

It All Begins with a Celebration!

Exodus 5:1

Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, so that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness.’ ”

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I just want to celebrate, yeah, yeah, another day of living, yeah
I just want to celebrate another day of livin', yeah
I just want to celebrate another day of life

"I Just Want to Celebrate" by Rare Earth

So that's how it all begins. Yes, Israel is oppressed in Egypt. Yes, Egypt is in fear of Israel and their sheer numbers. Yes, there is one to set free the nation, Moses. Yes, there is one who stands in his way, Pharaoh.

Moses shows up and says "Let my people go, we just want to celebrate another day of life." Well, I'm not going to go into the entire Exodus to make a tremendous theological point, I want to make a smaller wonderful point instead.

The Lord wants us to celebrate! The Lord wants us to celebrate our worship! How often is worship truly a celebration? There's a continuum here. Worship can be drier than leather left to cure in the desert for a full summer, and worship can be so over the top that it's entertainment instead of celebration. These extremes are just that. One binds people (while trying to bind the Holy Spirit) and the other tries to be so "relevant" that it means nothing.

Maybe Moses and Rare Earth have something together. Moses calls for a celebration to worship the Lord. Rare Earth celebrates another day of living. Let us celebrate living in the light of the Lord and let's do it one day at a time. Each day, every day.

Beware the extremes, because the Lord is the most extreme God we can ever celebrate. Our additions are just gilding the lily.

Faithful Friends

Luke 5:18-20

Just then some men came, carrying a paralyzed man on a bed. They were trying to bring him in and lay him before Jesus; but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the middle of the crowd in front of Jesus. When he saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.”

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I'll be there for you
When the rain starts to pour
I'll be there for you
Like I've been there before
I'll be there for you
'Cuz you're there for me too...

"I'll Be There for You" written by Phil Solem and Danny Wilde, recorded by The Rembrandts. This song served as the theme to the NBC television series "Friends."

Jesus was in town healing the people. The scene could be described as a melodrama-there's the good guy-Jesus, the bad guys-the Scribes and Pharisees who will describe Jesus as blasphemous, and even the femme fatale-the sick and injured who needed healing. Melodrama also has one more important character, the crowd. The audience provides dramatic punctuation to the proceedings--and this crowd fulfilled that qualification.

So a group of men bring their friend to be healed. They rip a hole in the roof to lower their paralyzed friend into Jesus' lap. Jesus was so impressed with the friend's faith that he had to do something. When the rain starts to pour, when the roof begins to crash in, when stricken with paralysis-good friends are hard to find, but they were there for him.

So he forgave the man's sins. He didn't heal him, he forgave him his sins. Suddenly the crowd is in shock. They've seen healings before, but never did it turn into absolution of sin! Is that even possible?

Jesus calls the man "friend." What a friend we have in Jesus. A friend who will be there when the world crashes all around us. When the rain starts to pour, when the roof begins to crash in, when stricken with paralysis-a friend who is able to forgive our sins. Thanks be to God Jesus is there for us.

Jesus is there for us, let us be there for Jesus too.