A Wonderful Mystery

We all know that worship is all about experiencing the mystery of God's holiness and presence in our life. We all know that worship is all about celebrating the mystery as we come together at the Lord's Table. But I particularly enjoyed worship this past Sunday because of another mystery - one a little less divine.

I start every Lord's Day at 6:00am. I rise. I go to the church. I pray. I prepare. I make sure the powerpoint is all ready. I make sure the DVD is all queued up. I print out and preach my sermon. This Sunday was just like every other Sunday, and so I left everything neatly in place about 7:30 to go home, shower, walk the dog, and come back to worship.

Worship went great. We opened with "Praise to the Lord the Almighty" (one of my favorite hymns). I greeted the congregation, welcomed them, Psalm 17 called us to worship, and I read the invocation of my pile of neat, white papers stacked neatly atop the pulpit.

I went to my seat and the song leader came up and lead the praise sequence. I went and delivered the children's sermon. Chuck read the Epistle Lesson. Joe sang the Christ Tomlin arangement of "Amazing Grace - My Chains Are Gone," and it was my turn to preach.

When I arrived in the pulpit, my sermon was gone! Where did it go? It was not there. Did I forget to bring it up this morning? I know it was here because I prayed the invocation from the pages. What do I do? I've preached without a manuscript before, but I've always prepared for it. Do I stop and go looking for it? That would be too disruptive. I guess I'll have to wing it from memory. So I preached, and did very well if I do say so myself, but always wondering where the sermon went - confused the whole time about this great mystery.

When the sermon was over Danny (the song leader) came back to the pulpit and lead the responsive sequence, I prayed, we collected our gifts and I went back to the pulpit for announcements, sending and blessing. My eyes must have been wide as saucers. Right where I always leave my sermon was my sermon - Neatly stacked on the right half of the pulpit, just like always. What's going on here? How can this be? Now I am really stupified. It is simply amazing. And once again the mystery proved to be the highlight of my worship!

I Came Across An Interesting Interpretation...

"I read in John 19:23 that the Roman soldiers cast lots for Jesus' clothing. This was because He wore a garment that was seamless. Now, I've always heard and read that only the Rabbis wore such garments. Further, I see throughout the Gospels that people come to Jesus and address Him "Rabbi" or "Teacher". In other words, Jesus dressed like the religious establishment. I also strongly suspect that He was the ruler (chief elder) of a synagogue for a while in Capernaum, because Luke 4:16 talks about Him going into the synagogue and standing up to read "as was His custom". This suggests to me that He was the "senior pastor" of the local synagogue.

I think that, given these things, if Jesus were here in human form today, He would probably wear a clerical collar. I think He would wear vestments when leading worship. Of course, this is just my own opinion, and I don't mean to exclude the ideas of others."

http://irregularchristian.blogspot.com/2008/01/clergy-collar-what-would-jesus-do.html

A Great Week

This was quite a full week. I left Tuesday for our NMI convention and District Assembly. I am not a big fan of all the organizational stuff, but I love the connection, the expression of the church on a larger scale, and the preaching this year was unusually good! I think the thing I always enjoy the most is the fellowship with old friends and current colleagues.

Tuesday night I had wings with Chad and Rachael Kuhn - friends from MVNU, Pizza Hut, and NTS. Rachael is now the regional director for a group called Extreme Nazarene Missions. Google it and see what you come up with. Their most recent project was the Bruno Radi Center in South America. Maybe they could use your help.

Wednesday night, I crashed in my hotel room. I got back from convention around 10:00. On my way home I got a 44oz Mt Dew. I got ready for Thursday. I shaved, showered and even ironed my shirt! Then about 10:30 I settled into my bed with my Mt. Dew in one hand and a good book in the other. I read the whole thing - cover to cover - in just under 2 hours. That was great! I highly recommend the book. Hopefully a review will come soon.

Thursday was a day full of friends. Mark, Wade, Tracy, Steve, the Johnsons, and many others. It was also the ordination service. My good friend Steve Johnson was ordained. MVNU gave him a really sweet sculpture of Jesus laying hands on Peter. They connected it somehow to "Christ always being with us," but we really know that the subject was the ordination of St. Peter, beginning the great apostolic succession of the faith. I am jealous of such a fine gift and icon of Steve's holy orders.

Friday I finally made it home to see Pax and Antonina after a long week away. Sunday was Pax's baptism. Evan and Julia came out to do the service. Evan preached, and preached, and preached, and preached (OK - I'm just giving you a hard time! You know I love you!) and Julia Baptised Pax. It was so great that all the family could be together. Make sure you check out his page - there will be more posted there. Well, it was a full and great week. But this is a new week and I need to get to work.