What If You Had a Resurrection and Nobody Came?

Well, actually nobody did come.
I mean a Roman guard came, but that's because he had to. (Matt. 27:65-66 NIV) And the next chapter says "Guards" so at some point there was at least one more added, it doesn't say when. (Matt. 28:4 NIV) Maybe it was his relief. If so, bad timing, because they would soon be scared to death!
But, of course, they couldn't be scared to death, because there was so much "Resurrection" power right there at that very moment, or as my Springfield, Missouri friends say, "Holy-Ghost-Pre-Pentacost-White-flame-Fire" Power, that if they did, they'd be immediately resurrected. And depending on how long that process took, how long the earthquake lasted, and how scared they were each time they came to, those guards would probably hold the worlds record for "most consecutive revivals".
So if they "saw" anything, what exactly did they see?
Well, there was an earthquake, so they maybe saw things get shook up. I don't really know what that looked like. I've seen what my hair looks like in the morning, but that's not scary, it's just funny.
to me, at least.
But the Bible does say this in Matt. 28: 2-3:

²There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.

It doesn't say that the guards saw Jesus come out. So they didn't actually see Jesus resurrect, not that they could see anything. I mean, the text says the angel's appearance was like lightning.
Lightning!
I don't think that he was all strobe-light-y or anything, but my opinion is that his was an intense brilliance that cast a light unlike that from the sun or from a fire. And because they weren't used to it, it probably temporarily blinded them.
BUT they might have heard the angel.

⁵The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. ⁷Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."

The women then took off to tell the other disciples, but ran into Jesus before they reached them. The guards, though, were still dazed and confused at the tomb. The bible doesn't say what happened to the angel; he might have still been there ominously hovering over the stunned guards whilst atop the tombstone, like a live, Victorian gargoyle.
However, I like to think he was just sitting there smiling, and as they came to their senses and slowly got to their feet, he motioned to the tomb, now empty, and then slowly motioned to the path that led back to the city.

¹¹While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. ¹²When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, ¹³telling them, "You are to say, 'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.' ¹⁴If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble."

Now, the soldiers that were dispatched to the tomb were soldiers under Pilate's authority, the Governor of Judea. But although he was a Roman, these auxiliary soldiers were locally recruited soldiers; possibly Jews. If so, they knew of the prophecies of a coming Messiah, and may have been familiar with the teachings and life of Jesus in relation to the then known scriptures.
When the priests and the elders told them that they should lie about what really happened, the huge sum of money that they gave them would be for their forthcoming unemployment. Pilate wouldn't waste time punishing useless Jews anyway, since there were so many other locals to choose from. So the guards went back to their lives. Uneventful, unfortunate.
But things were different now. With some of the guards.
Remember, it says:

"While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened."

Only some.

Some witnessed the completion of the sacrificial ceremony and atonement for the sins of all mankind.
And it hits them hard.
As hard as the stone that the angel of the Lord sits upon in front of the tomb.
And as their comrades run off toward the city at the invitation of their magnificent, shimmering visitor, these few turn their gazes toward the direction of a group of Jewish women who run with the same burning desire of truth in their hearts.
A hope against hope that this may indeed be a risen Messiah.
That the Hope of the Ages, the Lord Mighty to Save, now walks the path, a few step hence, to Galilee.
What would keep them from running after Him?
What could possibly fetter their feet?
What chains could hold their hearts?
What would stop them?

Nothing.

They are no longer there. They have all made their choice whether to go to the city or to follow Him to Galilee.
When the women, and later the disciples, saw Jesus,
"they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him."

Where are we in our worship? He is only a few steps ahead.
What would keep us from running after Him?
What could possibly fetter our feet?
What chains could hold our hearts?
What would stop us?

Unfortunately, my list of answers to these questions is long, I'm afraid. God help me.
We are coming the end of the Lenten season; Easter. The Resurrection. I hope to have a shorter list by then.
Maybe no list at all.

And I pray I run to worship Him.

The Race is Not Over Yet

The race is not over yet
So many miles remain, so many turns of the road
The day is not done, the sun has not set
The wait is almost over now
But the race is not yet

Go the distance for the Prize that now awaits you
Well done, good and faithful one
Don’t let your eyes be swayed by those who try to bait you
Well done, my friend, well done

Let your heart be on the mark, let your face be in the wind
Though the day be turned to dark let the Spirit burn within
Though you fall, though you fall
Don’t give up; don’t give up

The race is not over yet
So many miles remain, so many turns of the road
The day is not done, the sun has not set
The wait is almost over now
But the race is not yet

I can hear the sound of voices as they’re cheering at the lines
“Hold on, stay strong; not much longer must you run!”
Let your heart of flesh give in and rest into the heart of God
The end, my friend, lies just within a few more yards

Let your heart be on the mark, let your face be in the wind
Though the day be turned to dark let the Spirit burn within
Though you fall, though you fall
Don’t give up; don’t give up

The race is not over yet
So many miles remain, so many turns of the road
The day is not done, the sun has not set
The wait is almost over now
The wait is almost over now
The wait is almost over now
But the race is not over yet


for my friend Cullette, wherever she may be.
© 2009 Mila Polevia - All Rights Reserved

"Rainbows" or "It's Complicated" or what you will.

I am at the Cannon Beach Christian Conference center, one of my favorite places in the world. Our staff is on a Prayer Summit here for a few days, which, I must admit, has never been all that appealing to me.
Ever.
But I do realize that for some, this is something they look forward to all year. I'm ok with that, because they will meet with God and I would wish that for anyone.
I'm just more of a private, one-on-one prayer-er, or a word like that, that means "I pray". My most profound times of worship have been at times when I have been alone with God. People usually are surprised to hear that of me, being the worship guy at a large church. Oh well.
So when our Childrens Pastor suggested that we "Spend an Hour" with Jesus alone, I was there.

The exercise was to go off alone without any distractions and just spend time with Jesus- no cell phone, no computer, you can bring your bible but don't read what you would usually read for your bible study- no distractions at all.
The room we were in overlooked the beach and Ecola Creek through large glass picture windows which my love seat was in front of. So as the rest of the staff went their own ways to meet with Jesus, I got up, turned the sofa toward the sea and laid out my stuff for an hour with Him, too. I stretched out my legs, rested my feet on the window sill and contemplated how this hour would be spent.

A couple minutes into my meditation, a voice behind me said, "Do you mind if I sit down?"
"Yeah, no problem," I stuttered, gathering my pen, paper and bible from the seat next to me. Looking up I saw no one.

Thank you, Lord, I thought. You're here.

We sat for a bit just staring at the waves. The previous night had brought the tide right up to the sea wall in front of the windows and debris from the river was strewn and floating all over the waterscape. The sky was gray, bespeckled with patches of dull blue. It was beautiful. To me.
A small stream of a rainbow was starting in the middle of the horizon.

"Lord? How do you make a rainbow?"
He looked toward the horizon, lifted His arm and pointed.

"I take my finger and I point to the edge of the horizon. And as I move my finger in an arc toward the center of the sky, an invisible cascade of flowing colors caress the pallid clouds and rest upon the azure palette of the welcoming sky."

My heart felt like it would explode. With my eyes wide and brimming with tears, I looked at my Lord and Savior and asked, "Really?"
He lowered his arm, looked at me, smiled and said, "No, not really."

"The process is complex and it's intricacies far beyond your comprehension. In it's relation to time, you would assume it's development and evolution would take millions of years- to understand. I created this world. I wanted to remind you of that."
"And it is beautiful," he added.

"So it's no accident," I concluded aloud, staring at the newly formed rainbow. He turned his face to me.
"Are you?"
After a long pause, I replied, "I don't know."
"I've been wondering lately 'what's the point', 'what's my purpose', and I haven't found any answers."
Again, my heart felt like it would explode. "Can You tell me?"

He moved forward off the couch and facing me sat on the sill of the picture window.
"The process is complex and it's intricacies far beyond your comprehension. In relation to time, you would assume your development and evolution would take millions of years- to understand. I created this world... for you. If you were not here, it would serve no purpose."

He paused, turned, then pointed to the newly formed second rainbow.

"And it is beautiful," He said turning back to me.

Then closing one eye, He stretched out His arm, took His finger and drew an arc from one shoulder to the other over my head.
"Beautiful."

We are just about ready to enter the season of Lent, a time set aside by man, to focus on the coming commemoration of Holy week and Easter. Lent is never mentioned in the Bible, (The actual word initially simply meant spring and derives from the Germanic root for long because in the spring the days visibly lengthen.) but then again, neither was the Super Bowl.
Many people do many things during Lent, but for me, I try to focus on what Jesus must have going through emotionally and spiritually.

Did He see me?
In my blue Sonoma t-shirt with the pocket and my flannel pajama pants watching Wall-E with my kids.

Did He see me?
Did He kinda smile and think, “I can’t wait to show him heaven, introduce him to Gabriel, have him stand on the sea of glass and sing, and tell him all this was worth it.”

I think He did.

I think He does.

During Lent I think about that.
During the entire year, too, but especially at Lent. I just think.

And I write:

To Me, A Swine
Whole now I stand,
though I strain to see
where the light now stops
a hole should be.
I stand.
No hole
but a heart.
Not mine.
Whole-heartedly given
to a hole-hearted swine.
Deservedly none
standing near’s aware
a hole now holds what I once despaired
was a fantasy
from another world
lay earth-shod
silent:

A string of pearls.

Function VS. Purpose

While I was putting up some Christmas decorations around the house one year, it became very clear to me that the push pins I was using to hang up lights and garland was taking a painful toll on my thumb and index finger. I wished that I had some kind of metal glove that could be as strong as the hand covering on a knights armor, (or Gauntlets) and yet pliable and fitting enough to hold a tiny thumb tack.
But I didn't.
So like every ultra-intelligent, 40-something male, I scanned the living room for something to whack it with.
Well, not just anything; it had to strong, but not too strong. Substantial enough to wield, yet not heavy enough to put a hole through my wall. or hand.
The garage, which housed my rubber mallet, was over 10 yards away and down a massive, winding stairway consisting of 4 concrete, yet most assuredly rickety stairs, so I wasn't about to climb off my towering Playskool footstool to go get it. Instead I reached toward the family computer work station and grabbed the exact thing which both you are thinking and I needed:

A stapler.

Perfect.
And it did work perfectly. It was light to hold, yet solid enough to drive the push pin in. It worked well. And if it worked for the push pins, which I had ran out of, it should work for the small, renegade brads I had.
But it didn't.
The first one I tried to drive lodged in the hinge. As I struggled to remove the stubborn nail, the stapler shattered, leaving it in two irreparable pieces. Great.
The decorations were half hung and the stapler was unceremoniously committed to the trash bin.
I doubt its end would be as tragic if it was used for the purpose for which it was created. But it wasn't. Because I didn't. So it paid for it with its "life", or with its existence in mine. And, sadly, through no fault of it's own.

And the rubber mallets sits unused and unreconciled.

You see, the stapler worked for what I needed it to do- pushing in push pins- so I continued to use it for just that. To me, because it worked for my desired purpose, for that amount of time, I changed its original and primary purpose for my own needs.

It really wasn't fair to the stapler, but you and I both know that the stapler couldn't care less. Not so for anyone under my care as a Minister, more specifically a Minister of Worship and Arts.

Some pastors, quite unintentionally I believe, find and utilize people in their church body to fill an unoccupied, yet much needed ministry position there. I'll call these people "Staplers". They function well in that position, because of their dedication to Christ and to the church and everyone, including the leadership, assume that they are functioning in their purpose. That is, until they reach the natural evolution of that task, which, in the best case scenario, they should have been growing in and are able to mature with naturally. But if it is not their true purpose, the Staplers will shatter as they are being "fixed" or "adjusted", the task will remain undone and the Staplers will be committed to the trash bin. If only someone would have first walked the 10 yards to the garage.

This reminds me of a story I heard from John Stanko:
In a time when people did a lot of walking because of the lack of modern technologies, a man walking to a neighboring town began to see along the side of the highway targets with an arrow smack-dab in the middle of the bulls-eye. They were everywhere- on trees, stumps the sides of buildings- everywhere. Each one with an arrow in its exact center.
With great excitement, he entered the next town and began to inquire as to who this marvelous archer might be. He soon learned that the archer he was looking for lived in a shack at the edge of town. When he reached the shack, he saw, to his wonderment, more of the targets scattered around the the archers property, each in the same condition of those he had seen before entering town. When the man saw the archer coming out of the shack, he inquired if he was indeed the man responsible for all the targets here and the targets the man had seen outside of town.
"Why, yes", the stranger answered. "I am."
"Please, good sir, can you tell me the secret on how you came to be such an amazingly perfect shot?"
The stranger smiled, removed his hat and pushed his hair back, all the while scanning his bulls-eye garden.
"Well, I don't know about secret," he chuckled. "Or even about 'perfect', but what I do is I shoot the arrow, then I paint the target around it!"

That's kinda the same thing, isn't it?
It all looks good on the onset, but at some point the foundation of it all will have to be reconsidered. And at that point, you should stop and start all over again.

You should... but what usually happens is that because your Staplers have been building houses in the "natural evolution" zone without even knowing how to read blueprints, you believe that if they stop, everything will collapse. So you keep on using the stapler for other than what it was intended for. You keep shooting the arrows and painting circles around it, leaving the outsider to comment as Shakespeare's Olivia, "Excellently done, if God did all."

Yet, indeed; did He?

Are you serving in your purpose, or are you simply functioning?
Do you know what your purpose is? why God created you as YOU?

Let me close with another reference from John Stanko:
When you are at your lowest point in life, when there is no one around, when it is so dark that you cannot see the hand in front of your face. The one thing you find you have the strength to do?
THAT is your purpose.

Friends, you've heard it said that if you don't live your life, no one will live it for you? I submit to you that if you don't live your life, EVERYONE WILL LIVE IT FOR YOU.
Don't let that happen.
Find your purpose. Serve in your purpose. Live in your purpose...
for God's sake.
and yours.

Talk to you next week.

"Worship Leader" or congregational worshipper?

What if there was no distinction between what we traditionally call a "Worship Leader" and a worshipper in the congregation? If you were to put yourself in the role of a worshipper in the pews, what would that do to your assumptions?
Should then the entire congregation be on the stage or should the entire worship leader team be in the congregation?
If the latter, wouldn't we lose the need for a stage?
Who would start the songs?
Where would the drummer sit?
How would we handle "specials"?

What IS the difference between what we traditionally call a "Worship Leader" and a worshipper in the congregation?
Are they just to start the songs?
Are they to "perform" specials?
Are they to model what "real" worshipping should look like?

Maybe.

Maybe never.

One of the biggest dangers and pitfalls of a worship leader is to get in the way. I can't tell you how many times as I'm praying over a worship set that I have to ask myself, "Is this for You, Lord, or is this for me?" While I am glad for that sensitivity, (I have spent many nights on the secular stage, and believe me, it WAS all about me!) I hate the fact that I am still fighting and harboring a rebellious heart. Jesus knows this. And yet, He has continued to ask me to serve Him in this capacity.
Funny thing, though...

One of the biggest dangers and pitfalls of a worshipper in the congregation is to get in the way.
How many times have found ourselves not able to "enter in", or "get into" the worship service because of some personal reason:
You had an argument with your spouse before you arrived.
You had an argument with your kids before you arrived.
You had an argument with your parents before you arrived.
You stayed up too late the night before.
You had a horrible week at work and your boss attends the same church.
The pews are too hard.
The pews are too soft.
The music is too loud.
The sermon is too loud.
The pastor’s tie is too loud.

Do I need to go on?

What is it that one has to do to really "Worship"?
What is the key to LEADING one's rebellious heart INTO worship?

I believe there has to be a shift in our being. Not just in our thinking but in our entire being. Since it has to happen in our entire being, it cannot be like a light switch, turned off and on. It HAS to be constant and dramatic; like, you are 150 lbs. and *poof* now you are 450 lbs. Your entire world is different- in EVERY way.

A few years ago I lived and worked in Japan. One of my jobs was at Tokyo Disneyland where we lived in a section of Tokyo called American Village. All the homes there were like the nicer homes here in America; unlike the suburban houses surrounding us. Only Americans lived there, workers at Tokyo Disneyland shipped over from America, who spoke English and ate American food. However, the next summer I returned and worked in a small vegetable shop outside of Tokyo where no one spoke English.
Where do you think I learned and absorbed Japanese language and culture the most?

The more time you spend focusing on the object of your worship, the more it influences every aspect of your life. You will not be able to separate yourself from it and everyone and everything around you will reveal to you its effect on your worship.

So, is there a difference between what we traditionally call a "Worship Leader" and a worshipper in the congregation?

I believe there shouldn’t be. But in today’s church, that’s going to take a shift of being. On both sides.

But what if?

I’ll write more about this next week. I think you have enough to chew on for now.

Does this describe what you worship?

This is from the Living Bible. It is my favorite translation of 1 Corinthians 13. Do yourself a favor and read it slow.

If I had the gift of being able to speak in other languages without learning them, and could speak in every language there is in all of heaven and earth, but didn't love others, I would simply be making a noise. If I had the gift of prophecy and knew all about what is going to happen in the future, knew everything about everything, but didn't love others, what good would it do? Even if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, I would still be worth nothing at all without love. If I gave everything I have to the poor people, and I were burned alive for preaching the gospel, but didn't love others, it would be of no value whatever.

Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth winds its way. If you love someone you will be loyal to him no matter what the cost. You will always believe in him, always expect the best of him, and always stand your ground and defending him.

All the special gifts and powers from God will some day come to an end, but love goes on for ever. Someday prophecy, and speaking in unknown languages, and special knowledge — these gifts will disappear.

Now we know so little, even with our special gifts, and the inspired preaching of those most gifted is still so poor. But when we have made her perfect and complete, then the need for these inadequate special gifts will come to an end, and they will disappear.

It's like this: when I was a child I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I became a man my thoughts grew far beyond those of my childhood, and now I have put away childish things.

In the same way, we can see and understand only a little about God now, as if we were peering at his reflection in the poor Mirror; but someday we are going to see him in his completeness, face to face. Now all that I know is hazy and blurred, but then I will see everything clearly, just as clearly as God sees in the my heart right now.

There are three things that remain — faith, hope and love — and the greatest of these is love.