Reflections:
The shade was deep, the breeze was cool and I was safe … or so I thought. I don’t have much experience with palapa’s on the beach and it shows … literally. I have a picture of my sunburn, but I thought you’d enjoy the beach picture more.
I am fair skinned and have ducked the sun most of my life. My saying has always been, “I have three colors; red, white and … peel.” I know that UV is invisible and harmful in large doses. I know that you can get a sunburn on an overcast day. But I was in serious shade cast by a totally opaque object. How could I get such a serious sunburn? I had not accounted for the power of reflected light. After a little web research, I now know that sand reflects 15% of the sun’s UV radiation and evidently at multiple angles.
What about the power of reflected … love? 1 John 4:19 says, We love because He first loved us. There are myriad meanings for love in our society, but all that is truly love … is reflected love. A little earlier in the same chapter, John wrote, Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. When we love selflessly, sacrificially we are redistributing the love that God has shown into our lives. We cannot create that love, but we can reflect it.
In 2005, Spain, using Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology accounted for half of the potential electricity produced in the world. Its accomplished through thousands of mirrors reflecting the sun’s energy to a focused point, usually superheating and vaporizing liquids to run steam turbines. The power of reflected light grows as it is combined from multiple sources. Again … what about the power of reflected love? 1 John 4:12 gives us the answer, No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. Don’t underestimate the power of reflected love or your capacity to be useful in what God is doing in this world.
Presumed Dead
Joseph Sterner III was pronounced dead four times; twice as a POW in the Pacific Theater during WW 2, once in his early sixties … and once for real. Despite those two initial reports, Sterner survived the war, returned home, married and raised five children. Stresses associated with his war experience took their toll and Joseph separated from his family. Then in 1986, his truck was found abandoned in Pittsburgh and he was presumed murdered. After an extensive search and investigation, Sterner was declared legally dead.
Ten years later, the 72 year-old Sterner contacted the family lawyer looking for his vital records so that he could get medical benefits from the Veteran’s Administration. It was the same lawyer who had filed the death petition on behalf of his family.
Jesus Christ, was not presumed dead, He was dead. Then … there He was alive again! Talking, eating drinking and teaching His baffled, befuddled, dumbstruck disciples. One modern skeptic claimed Jesus only swooned on the cross, but later revived in the coolness of the tomb. I wonder if that cynic considered the report from John 19:39 that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wrapped Jesus’ body in “a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.” I don’t think being wrapped in 34 kg of spices would aid in reviving someone who was comatose!
Sober Celebration
- the fragrance of lilies in almost lethal doses,
- aisles of swaying palm-branched children
- a live donkey lumbering through our carpeted sanctuary (that could have gone drastically wrong)
- majestic anthems from the choir
- stirring sermons about the realities of King Jesus.
Most all of it was tasteful, well-intentioned and meaningful. But there was always a dissonant note in the music of my soul. The refrain echoed every year … “How could they?” How could the jubilant thronging crowd turn so quickly? How could they cry “Hosanna to the Son of David!” and “Crucify him!” only days apart? How could the reverently intone, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” and with the same lips mock him? How could the crowd be so fickle? What about His close confidants? It was the same Peter who confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” who later swore “I don’t even know the man!” And why was Jesus’ inner circle so taken off guard by the way events unfolded? The Bible says … And Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. Mark 8:31 The sense of the passage is that it was a repeated warning … but there was the repeated promise also “and after three days rise again.” How did their faith so quickly bleed out? How did they suffer such a tragic failure to hope?
Above the Lines
The Rush of Life: