Here and Never Silent

Those who have known me for even a short time, can testify to the fact that Mark Aikins loves his church!

But maybe they walk away scratching their heads wondering, "How come?" Could it be that Mark is kinda sentimental? That church makes him remember happy occasions from his childhood? Or is the guy a bit soft in his head...or feels inadequate and needs a psychological "crutch"?

I'm not beyond admitting that sentiment and memories and emotional neediness sometimes come into play, but lately it has been striking me that one of the most important reasons for my ecclesiastical love affair has a lot to do with the actual presence of Christ Himself.

I often plug my church to friends and co-workers with such talking points as: "the people are so warm" and "the teaching is so super" and "the worship is so meaningful" and "they take God and His Word so seriously" ...but the unanswered question in all of those advertisements is: "What is the key factor that makes all of those things TRUE?

Jesus is there.

This fact was driven home to me a couple of weeks ago in a message shared in Sunday School by a visiting pastor from North Dakota, Doug VanderMeulen. Pastor Doug reminded us that when the Old Testament spoke of the promised "new covenant" in passages like Ezekiel 37, one of the assurances from God that the prophet passed on to us was "They will be my people, and I will be with them and will be their God." He helped us recall that one of the titles of the incarnate Son of God is "Immanuel"--God with us.

Jesus Himself even promised His disciples: "Where two or three of you are gathered together in my name, behold--there am I in the midst of them." While it is certainly true that the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are present everywhere, there is a special promised sense in which they are present in the midst of His gathered people!

There is also a true, yet mysterious, sense in which the living Word who was from the beginning, is present in the Holy Word of Sacred Scripture. As the Bible is read, preached and sung in our services of worship, by faith we understand that Jesus is there reading it, preaching it, and singing it to us! This is an amazing realization, yet one that should hardly surprise us. The Bible is much more than a "how-to manual." For thousands of years, God moved through various human instruments to communicate with us--to reveal Himself to us! And the Lord Jesus continues to use those scriptures to teach us and make us holy like Him.

Want another amazing idea to chew on? Not only does every page of the Bible point toward Jesus Christ as the divine God-man, it actually reveals the heart and mind of Christ, how He thinks and feels and longs after God and His people. The book of Psalms especially unveils the passionate feelings and thoughts of Jesus and stands as a model for the thought-life and emotional life of every Spirit-filled believer.

Yes, Jesus is there at my church, in a surprisingly real, manifold, mysterious, satisfying way. Indwelling His people, hearing their prayers, teaching and preaching to them, singing the timeless truths of His merciful gospel.

Coram Deo,
Mark

Hold Life Closer

Life is an endless wonder. I turn my living eyes around me here in my living room to consider the kitten we recently inherited, named Sunny…I stroke her soft fur as it vibrates with her incessant purring. She does her kittenly best to interrupt my keystroking with her sensual nuzzling, which I reward with a moment or two of loving caresses.

My eyes continue to rove around the room, here, or at work, or on the road in my car, and my vision enjoys ever and anon the panoply of living wonders that surrounds me: the lush greenery of full-blown springtime that approaches the sunbathed fruitfulness of summer; the scurrying creatures that maintain their habitat among us oddly clothed bipeds with our elaborate dwellings and our monstrous machines; the known and unknown human beings populating my home, my neighborhood, my town, my company, my church—each one with his or her own unique life story and point of view as complex and scandalous and charming and unbelievable as my own.

I know I take my own life for granted, even life itself, wondrous gift that it is. I know that to do so is a bad thing. Life is too precious to be taken for granted. It ought to be appreciated, savored, cherished, made the most of. Why? Because it is fragile and will be over far too soon. This is a motivation for treasuring life that all of us agree upon. Death is a reality, therefore, enjoy life while you can.

But when Jesus came into the physical universe as one of us, He offered us a higher, grander, truer reason for us to cherish life. He came to be among us, not just to give us a great example of how to live life and how to face death. Jesus’ life and death accomplished a great deal more than an example for us to follow. The Incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of God’s Son was God’s way of restoring the fullness of life as it was originally intended to be.

Death became a horrific reality because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience, but because of Jesus’ obedience to all of God the Father’s requirements, death itself was overthrown. Jesus was raised from the dead because death had no claim upon the innocent, perfectly righteous Lamb of God. And now, for every human being who depends upon Christ alone for a right standing before God, death no longer has any claim upon us either.

My love of life is no longer motivated or haunted by a fear of death to come. I can laugh in the face of death—its sting has been ripped out. Because my Jesus faced death and judgment in my place, I can hold His gift of life close to my breast like a warm kitten, knowing that its joy will never end.

The Word (a poem)

The eternal Word, the beloved Word,

The divine Word from the beginning,

Who before all things made the heavens ring

And who set the bright planets spinning,

Ere the dawn of time through the darkness shined

So that lost mankind would be ransomed—

What a wondrous plan, to become a man,

Entering the world He had fashioned!

Even though His own people chose to frown

At the gracious Word of their Maker

And refused to welcome Immanuel,

Grace a remnant called as partakers

Of a power divine making suns to shine

In the spacious skies of God’s favor—

Each adopted heir will enjoy his share

Of that Kingdom, reigning forever.

The beloved Word, the rejected Word

On the cross was cursed and abandoned—

Spotless sacrifice, sent to pour the price

Out upon our souls for their ransom!

With Your blood I’m written in Your story,

Soon to share forever in Your glory.

(drawn from John chapter one)

Mark Aikins

5/15/12

A New Page in a New Journal

Don't you love it when you get started on something new?

Oh, sure, you probably enter in with some hesitation, perhaps a few jitters...but then the fun begins.

Well, this morning in church I began taking sermon notes in a brand new journal--not just one of those cheap-o spiral bound notebooks, but a real, genuine, leather (like) bound volume. If you're like me, you want to write something down that is significant, something that a person could conceivably benefit from ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred years from now.

And that was one of the points this morning's guest speaker had on his agenda. His name is Naphtally Ogallo and he is a Reformed Baptist pastor from the land of Kenya.

Pastor Ogallo was, I believe, the first black preacher to preach from our church's pulpit in the eleven or so years I've attended there. When he opened his mouth to speak, you could tell he wasn't from around here, but that didn't matter. He began by apologizing for his accent, but to me, everything he said came across with crystal clarity.

The Sunday School hour was spent showing us projected images of his home church and the flock he leads in Africa in a village called Eldoret. Aside from the tent-structure of their sanctuary and the dark skin of the men, women and children in the church, it appeared to be very much like our own congregation. But one of the sharp contrasts that will stick in my mind was the fact that over 80 percent of the attendees at this pastor's church are among the unemployed.

This fact alone is enough to give me pause as I consider the use to which our support funds are being put as they cross the ocean and find their way into the hands of the Eldoret church. Pastor Ogallo must see to the needs of his own family (a wife and two children), as well as care about the survival needs of the vast majority of families who gather with his own to worship God.

As he drew instruction and encouragement from the Scriptures this morning, he told of Paul's experiences, motivations, warnings and encouragements when addressing the Ephesian elders at their final meeting, as related in Acts 20. During that council, Paul instructed the elders in the expectation that they would never see his face again in this life. I'm sure that fact alone was enough to make those early church leaders give greater attention to what the great Apostle had to say.

Perhaps the same might be said about our meeting this morning as Pastor Ogallo passed Paul's instructions on to us. Our church has supported this wonderful African gentleman for some 20 years and never had seen him face to face until today.

I, for one, am determined to put his exhortations into practice, as if they are the final ones we will ever hear.

Standing in the Gap...Coram Deo,
Mark