It’s great sledding on the Blacksburg Municipal golf course. It’s even better when you go at 1am. Now I’m wondering whether I’ll have my exam tomorrow or if it will be pushed until Saturday.
UPDATE: Exams before 1pm were pushed to Saturday. Mine was at 1:05, so I took it and feel good to be done with Digital Design I.
Just a quick alert to everyone: if you call me and I don’t pick up and I don’t seem to be responding to your voice mails, my phone has probably decided to turn itself off. It seems to do that frequently when I go outside and it’s cold. I’m trying to remember to check that it’s on frequently, but please bear with me.
I’ve had multiple reasons to do a lot of thinking recently about the church and its response to the world. I grew up in a church that while the Gospel was preached, was very much a museum for “saints.” Very few in the church admitted their failings beyond the recited public confession we all read aloud during each service. Those who did admit their faults were often seen as being a worse person for it and sometimes were even picked on because of their willingness to be open. That is not the way things are supposed to be. Romans 3:23 tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” All. Not some. Not those who aren’t part of our church. Not the scary guy down the street. All includes us.
The church was never meant to be a museum for “saints.” Instead, the mission of the church is to be a hospital for sinners. 1 John 1:10 says, “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” In Mark 28:31, Jesus told the religious leaders of his day “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Yet, to many people who have not been impacted by the power of the Gospel, the message of the church is not of love, but of hate.
The problem seems to be that many Christians feel that an important way that they bring the Kingdom of God to earth in a more visible form is through politics. Interestingly, that’s the same approach taken by the Pharisees in Jesus’ day. They felt that they could hasten bringing the Messiah to earth by keeping the law perfectly. Their hypocritical observance of the law caused them to ignore the people who God wanted them to help–the people on the fringes of society.
I firmly believe that the way to bring the Kingdom of God to earth does not revolve around voting for candidates from any particular political party. The Kingdom of God isn’t restricted to a single political ideology or approach to society’s problems. In the United States, no political party has it right when it comes to pleasing God through their actions. You can’t bring the Kingdom of God to earth by passing laws. The way to influence people isn’t by telling they’re wrong or by holding them to a standard that Scripture doesn’t apply to those outside the Kingdom. The way to change people is by love.
We’re all greatly loved by God, a love that knows no boundaries. The approach laid out by Jesus in the scriptures is to meet people where they are. When Jesus met the woman at the well, he knew that she had a questionable past and had been forced to the edge of society. Yet, his message to her was of hope and forgiveness, not judgment. There is a time and a place to judge, but that is reserved for between followers of Christ who know each other well and are doing it out of love and not out of legalism.
Today, the people on the edge of our society aren’t orphans and widows, as they were in Jesus’ time. The message hasn’t changed, just the people to whom we are to deliver it. I like how Bono of U2 fame put it: “If Jesus Christ were on earth you’d find him in a gay bar in San Francisco. He’d be working with people suffering from AIDS. These people are the new lepers. just like the turn of BC / AD. Don’t touch them, walk away from them. If you want to find out where Jesus would be hanging out, it’ll always be with the lepers.” Why don’t we live that out?
Advent is the four weeks leading up to Christmas when Christians prepare for the birth of the coming Messiah. During what tends to be the busiest time of the year, I like to stop and refocus what’s going on in my life. It’s not about shopping for the best gift ever. It’s about the coming of the Savior, the one who died to save us from ourselves and allow us to be reconciled to God. One way that I like to prepare for Christmas is by reading through the books of prophecy in the Bible, focusing on the prophecies concerning the Messiah. I’ve figured out my reading plan up until Christmas, and I’m sharing that with you. Feel free to join in. Expect periodic reflections to appear here.
I’ve selected chapters that flow well together for each day. Reading is 2-4 chapters per day and covers about half of Isaiah, some Jeremiah, all of Zechariah, and the Christmas story from both Matthew and Luke. The links on the passages will take you to that day’s reading courtesy of BibleGateway.com.
December 1: Matthew 1-2, Luke 1-2
December 2: Isaiah 1-4
December 3: Isaiah 5-7
December 4: Isaiah 8-10
December 5: Isaiah 11-12
December 6: Isaiah 40-41
December 7: Isaiah 42-43
December 8: Isaiah 44-45
December 9: Isaiah 46-47
December 10: Isaiah 48-49
December 11: Isaiah 50-51
December 12: Isaiah 52-54
December 13: Isaiah 55-56
December 14: Isaiah 57-58
December 15: Isaiah 59-60
December 16: Isaiah 61-62
December 17: Isaiah 62-64
December 18: Isaiah 65-66
December 19: Jeremiah 23, Zechariah 1-2
December 20: Zecariah 3-5
December 21: Zecariah 6-8
December 22: Zechariah 9-11
December 23: Zechariah 12-14
December 24: Matthew 1-2, Luke 1-2 (both in a paraphrase)
December 25: Matthew 1-2, Luke 1-2
The semester is almost over! I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
These last two weeks are still crazy for me. I have 3 projects still to do (one with full technical report), a homework assignment, a test, and five finals. It should be crazy, but this semester will be over before I know it. It’s been one rollercoaster of a semester–so much awesome stuff has happened, but the five in major classes nearly killed me. Next semester should be better.
Time to go study for my Signals and Systems test tonight.
Don’t plan out possible ways you could misspeak and how to recover from them. It’s too easy to make a Freudian slip and end up like this youth pastor from TX.
Caution: you wouldn’t expect him to say what he says.
I feel like I should explain the just broken blog silence. This semester has been kicking my butt. I don’t know why taking five in-major classes sounded like a good idea at the time. Even with the insane workload, this semester has been awesome.
The fall 2005 vtONE event was truly awesome, and we’ve seen God’s hand on this campus very visibly this semester. We’ve seen several specific prayers answered, ranging from key people getting together and praying, establishing better communication between groups, and also personal salvations. It’s been great seeing how much God works in spite of us to accomplish his will.
I’ve managed to mostly keep up with people over the semester too. I’ve not let the classes take over my entire life. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving break (which starts in about five hours!) and a lighter next semester.
If you haven’t heard from me in a while, drop me a line. I’m also planning to be in the DC area from tomorrow evening through next Friday.
JR, the pastor who founded Kairos Los Angeles has a challenging post on his blog. As someone who doesn’t show near enough love to the people around me, I really resonate with JR’s analysis of how things could have been instead of how things are. On a related note, I think Matthew 5:38-45 fits in with JR’s comments.
President Bush has nominated John Roberts as chief justice of the Supreme Court. Even though I was fine with Roberts’ original nomination, I question the wisdom of making a court outsider chief justice. Many previous court nominations have ended up acting very differently than the presidents who appointed them would have expected. While I think the chances of Roberts making a great justice are high, there’s also the possibility he could end up differently than expected. It’s playing with fire to appoint an unknown as the justice who runs the court.
We’re now officially back in the swing of things. I say that because we won our first game of the season last night. LET’S GO HOKIES!
Classes have been going fine, but keeping me busy. Hopefully I will get back into a more regular posting schedule recently.