For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Psalm 103:11
There is no word in Hebrew for “infinity,” but the concept is present when the Psalmist announces that God has removed our transgressions as far as the east is from the west, and His steadfast love is as high as the heavens.
Declining Life Expectancy: Life expectancy in the US has declined for the past 3 years. Given that: 1) no other industrialized nation is seeing this happen; 2) the two biggest killers – heart disease and cancer – are going down; 3) life expectancy of those 80+ is climbing; and 4) the last time it dropped even two years in a row was over sixty years ago, people are alarmed. What is happening? The spike is being caused by a sharp increase in the number of 25 – 45 year old’s who are ending their life via suicide, opioids, other forms of addictions and liver disease.
Meditation: Last week I preached on Psalm 1, which is an atypical Psalm in that it is not a prayer, but rather a meditation on meditation. I fielded enough questions about Christian meditation this week that I feel the need to say more. If you want to read (or listen) to the sermon, click here. For a longer exploration of Christian meditation, see Tim Keller’s book, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God.(New York: Dutton, 2014).
Our Influx Capacity: I spent last week at Q – the Christian TED conference. One of the presenters, a former Silicon Valley engineer who now works in R & D at Airbus, started by telling us to stop being impressed with self-driving cars and to start getting ready for flying ones. He also said that in order to survive the Fourth Industrial Revolution we need to be able to embrace an “ever-increasing velocity of change.” I suspect this is a techie impressed with tech, but I also fear there is a bit of truth in what he is hyping.
Julian the Apostate. The early church was famous for their care of the poor, as we are reminded by the great quote from Julian the Apostate. (Note: Julian was no fan of the church, thus the name.) “Atheism [i.e. Christian faith] has been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers, and through their care for the burial of the dead. It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar, and that the godless Galileans care not only for their own poor but for ours as well; while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them.” (One more note, Julian calls Christians “atheists” and “godless” because they rejected the polytheism of the time).
The Bible Project: If you are not familiar with the Bible Project – thoughtful, brief, animated explanations of various books and biblical concepts – you need to be. It is one of the more unique and helpful resources to pop up in the last few years. Click here to see for yourself.
Without Comment:
- In 1980, 8.6% of first births were to women over 30. By 2015 this was 31%.
- There are 315,000 Protestant churches in the US and 25,000 Catholic and Eastern Orthodox ones. Somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 close each year, with about 4,000 new ones starting. In order to match population growth, church planting in the US needs to double.
Death is Not Changing, But Funerals Are: Aging Baby Boomers are changing funerals, just as they changed everything else they touched. Cremation and services held anywhere but a church are spiking. One of the more troubling things I see is the way much of what is new seems designed to allow people to avoid facing their own mortality. Count me among those who are shocked at how many people are shocked when they face their own death.
$1.2T: According to an article recently published in The Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion, “religious organizations spend $9.2 billion on social programs annually, and deliver a staggering $1.2 trillion in benefit to the US economy.”
Quotes Worth Requoting:
- We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it. Madeleine L’Engle
- We have not the right to despair because despair is a sin, and we have not the reason to despair quite simply because Christ is risen. Richard John Neuhaus.
Closing Prayer: O Lord our God, teach us, we ask you, to ask you aright for the right blessings. Steer the vessel of our life toward yourself, you tranquil haven of all storm-tossed souls. Show us the course wherein we should go. Renew a willing spirit within us. Let your Spirit curb our wayward senses, and guide and enable us unto that which is our true good, to keep your laws, and in all our works evermore to rejoice in your glorious and gladdening presence. For yours is the glory and praise from all your saints, for ever and ever. Amen. –Basil the Great (330-379)