Forty Days to a New You?

From last year's "OSLC Herald"—

How long does it take to form a new habit? From the first page of Google search results you’ll find wildly different answers, ranging from 21 days to a month to 66 days to six months. You don’t have to go too far to find attempts to blend Christianity with pop psychology, yielding assertions that the 40 days of Lent offer God’s way of breaking old habits and forming new ones.

I won’t deny that some real changes can take place by making a focused effort over an extended (but still limited) period of time. But placing too much emphasis on one-and-a-half months of work misses two important concepts of change—one much shorter and the other much longer—namely, justification and sanctification.

For instantaneous change, look to God for justification. This is when He forgives our sins because Jesus died on the cross. It’s not a process—you don’t have to achieve it or wait for it. It’s a done deal. Christ declared from the cross: “It is finished.” Know that your sins are forgiven and you have a restored relationship with God right now.

On the other hand, sanctification is the process by which the Holy Spirt leads us to live out our calling as God’s holy children, following His commandments and living in love toward God and neighbor. It cannot be accomplished in forty days, nor even in forty years of Lenten fasts. It happens over our entire lifetime and is complete only when our Lord takes us home. There are no quick fixes.

The purpose of the forty days of Lent, then, is not to give up a bad habit to make us a better person, but to serve as a reminder that we need Christ’s forgiveness constantly. We stumble and fall on a daily basis, which is why Jesus had to suffer and die. But He was also victorious for us, so we look toward His resurrection on Easter as the promise and guarantee of our own resurrection and eternal life.

If you’re able to give up a bad habit in forty days, good for you! But no amount of willpower can rid your life of sin. Instead, look to the Lord and His power at work in your life to justify you (now!) and to sanctify you over the course of your life on earth.

September 11: Past, Present, Future

We haven’t gotten over September 11. Does that even need to be said? But it really hit me as I looked at the calendar for this month at OSLC. The second Sunday of September is Sunday School Launch Day, as it always is, and the youth group’s Back-to-School Bash is scheduled for the afternoon that same day.

That day is September 11.

My first impulse was to reschedule these events to a date that would be more appropriate. These activities for kids tend to be light-hearted and fun in a way that does not befit a somber day.

Then I thought: Why do we have Sunday School? Isn’t it to give kids a firm foundation on God’s Word so that they can face the challenges of life and know that God loves them and has saved them from evil through our Savior, Jesus Christ? We need Sunday School because of dates like September 11.

It has been ten years since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That means that all of these Sunday School children (up through 5^th grade) have grown up in a post-9/11 world. The junior high and high-school youth have at best dim memories of life before there was a Department of Homeland Security or random checks at airports. They need the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is a fine line between moving on and forgetting. The date “September 11” is emotionally charged for us as a nation, but you may have other dates—the day you lost a parent, or a child, or a spouse. Each year, when that anniversary rolls around, you fear dishonoring their memory by living your life.

But the freedom we have in Christ is that we can move on, confident that our loved ones who knew Jesus are safe in His everlasting care, and that we will join them one day. There is enough tragedy in life to completely fill the calendar, but we mustn’t let it paralyze us.

I have thought about how another infamous date, December 7, doesn’t mean nearly as much to people younger than me as it does to people older than me. One day, sometime in the future, September 11 will be like that. It won’t sound as jarring to hear that there is a birthday party or some other joyous event on that date. I pray that it is not because some other date of equal or greater tragedy has replaced it, although that possibility exists. So it is my more earnest prayer that we not forget the past, but find healing and comfort in Christ Jesus, our Savior, and hope for an eternal future.

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Leave a comment below with your name and which service you can usher: 5 p.m.; 8 p.m.; 11 p.m. (This way, other people can see which services still need ushers.)

It would be good to have 4-6 per service.

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Thanks!

I'm Dreaming of a Green Christmas

Colors have associations. Chances are, you have some idea of what I might mean by a Green Christmas.

The most popular meaning of green these days is “environmentally friendly.” A “Green Christmas” might mean using recycled wrapping paper printed with soy-based inks, or finding gifts that help reduce your carbon footprint. But this is not what I mean.

Ironically, some might dream of an eco-friendly Christmas because they fear a “Green Christmas,” that is, one devoid of snow due to global warming. Although I would not mind being free from shoveling snow, this is not what I mean either.

Green is also the color of money. Does a “Green Christmas” mean a large haul of cash? No, that’s not what I’m dreaming of.

Along the same lines, green is associated with envy. Maybe I’m hoping to make other people green with jealousy at the gifts that I receive, or am able to give. But that doesn’t seem right, does it?

No, it’s simpler than that. I’m just thinking of the color of holly leaves and fir trees, of the Tannenbaum that we’ll decorate. Green is the color of life, and boughs of evergreens in the middle of winter’s snows have represented the hope of new life for thousands of years. Regardless of the origin of this custom (often attributed to pagan, pre-Christian Romans), we have appropriated it to symbolize the arrival of our Savior, who truly gives us hope for eternal life.

Sin separates us from God. Whether it’s a desire to accumulate more greenbacks or to make others green with envy, whether it’s a disregard for the proper care of God’s Creation or the opposite green extreme of worshiping the environment rather than the Creator, we have all fallen short. We desperately need to be rescued from darkness.

I do hope we have a White Christmas (“just like the ones I used to know”), for purely sentimental reasons. But much more important than the snowfall is a reminder that there will be an end to the cold darkness of our world. Evergreens point us toward springtime, but also beyond—to life and hope in Christ, who takes away our sin and reconciles us to God. Have a Merry and Green Christmas!

On Independence Day, Dependence on God

This was my invocation today at the 107th reading of the Declaration of Independence from the steps of Van Wyck Hall in Fishkill, New York:

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, on this day when we celebrate our independence from an oppressive king, we acknowledge our complete dependence on You, without whom we would have neither daytime or night, neither sunshine nor rain, neither seedtime nor harvest, nor our very lives. Inspire us to seek Your kingdom and Your righteousness. Bless our leaders with wisdom and insight, that they may govern us in accordance with Your will. Move us to genuine thankfulness for all Your provision in our lives, and lead us to truly help those who are in need. Turn our eyes also heavenward, where true treasures are to be found. Help us this day and always to use our freedom, not as license for lawlessness, but as an opportunity to walk willingly in Your ways. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dear Governor Paterson

I just sent the following email to Governor Paterson:

I urge you not to redefine marriage. The laws of every state also forbid siblings from marrying — why should this be? If a brother and sister claimed to be in love, would it be a violation of their civil rights to deny their marriage? Of course not. Scanty and dubious evidence that homosexuals are "born that way" should not be allowed to turn sexual preference into a civil rights issue.

I am a pastor in Dutchess County. If marriage is defined in New York State to be between any two persons regardless of gender, I regret that my conscience will not allow me to solemnize marriages in New York any longer. I will instead perform a purely religious ceremony in which a man and a woman pledge themselves to each other before God; whether or not they seek the legal status du jour for their union will be a separate matter for them to decide.

There is certainly more that could be said on this issue; I kept my remarks brief in the hope that the governor might take the time to read them.

The bottom line, I suppose, is this: If we are being told that religion has no business defining marriage for the state, then the state has no business being involved in the weddings of my church.

Love Your Mother [?] (!)

from the May 2009 “Herald”

Watching TV in the waiting room of the auto shop on April 22, it was easy to get the impression that I was the only American not celebrating Earth Day along with a reported one billion people around the planet.

I am certainly not opposed to responsible stewardship of God’s Creation, of which we are caretakers and not owners, even as Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden to tend it. (The Garden apparently needed tending even before the fall into sin.) But we also must take care not to slide to the extreme of excessive reverence of the Creation in place of the Creator, as may be indicated by the bumper sticker urging you to “Love Your Mother” beside a picture of the terrestrial globe.

It is worth noting that the phrase “Mother Earth” does appear in Christian literature. Francis of Assisi (1181–1226) wrote Canticle of the Sun (also known as “Praise of the Creatures”), in which the Lord is praised through many aspects of His Creation (sun, moon, fire, water), each personified as either “brother” or “sister” according to its grammatical gender in Italian. About halfway through, it reads: “Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth, who feeds us and rules us, and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.” Still, “she” is our “sister,” part of Creation as we are.

The inclination to worship the earth as the source of life reaches back far into human history. The ancient Israelites were warned against practicing the fertility religions of their neighbors, which included ritualistic prostitution in the hope that the procreative act would encourage the ground to be fertile and productive. Modern “neo-pagan” movements often refer to the earth goddess as Gaia, an ancient Greek name.

Yet the true Source of life has been around longer. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” There would be no “Mother Earth” to feed us and rule us, producing various fruits with colored flowers and herbs, if it were not for the Lord, the Creator of it all. He is the one who deserves our worship and praise.

Each of us has had a human mother, as we especially remember each year on the second Sunday of May. Through her, the Lord gave us life and nourished us. Many of them also modeled the Christian faith to us. Indeed, you should “love your mother,” not only because the commandment dictates that we honor our parents, but because you are grateful for what she has done for you.

Not unlike our human parents, the earth is also used by God as a means through which He provides for our needs. We should respect the world in which we live, be grateful for it, and be careful not to trash it. We can even “love” the earth — as long as our highest love and devotion (all our heart, soul, and strength [Deut. 6:5]) is to the Lord, who made it all. To Him be all glory, honor, and praise!