Are these crazy times, or what? With a bit of self-talk, I actually enjoy careening roller coaster rides (mostly when they're over). But the plunging ride Wall Street and the global financial markets have taken us on these last few days as the result of America's credit rating being cut--no amusement park fun at all. With the nation's retirement funds on the line, the innocuous bromides the talking heads are dispensing are small comfort: "sit tight," "be patient," "don't panic." Especially when one market analyst this week had the temerity to describe this ride as "America's final plunge" (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-america-%E2%80%9Cmakes-cut%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%93-so-what-happens-next).
Crazy times these are. "London's burning" is now more than a nursery rhyme. And Syria's burning, too. And summer vacation isn't even over yet.
Welcome to the Fourth Watch--a new blog in print and online (www.pmchurch.tv) --a running, weekly commentary on the times that are fast becoming the fourth watch of history.
For centuries the ancient Jews divided their nights into three watches. But with the ascendency of Rome, by New Testament times Jews had adopted the Roman four-watch night: first watch (6 - 9 p.m., called "evening"); second watch (9 p.m. - midnight, called "midnight"); third watch (midnight - 3 a.m., called "cock-crowing"); and fourth watch (3 a.m. - 6 a.m., called "morning" --see Mark 13:35 for all four). The fourth watch was the last watch before the break of day, the darkest hour of the night before the dawn.
And not surprisingly it was the watch Jesus mastered. "Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them walking on the sea" (Matthew 14:25). But are you surprised? Wouldn't the blackest hour of the night belong to the God "who knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with Him" (Daniel 2:22)?
So how dark is the night you're traversing these days? Darker than your physician understands? Darker than your closest friends will ever know? As stormy and dark and uncertain as this civilization's economic fourth watch? No matter how dark life has become, one terse line from the Gospel story declares that in the blackest watch of all, Christ walks the dark and the storm. No shadows, no storm, no night so dark but that he hurries to you, too. You do not walk alone. "In the darkest hour [the fourth watch], Jesus will be our light....In every condition of trial, we may have the consolation of his presence" (RH 4-15-1884).
Which makes William Whiting's prayer the right prayer for a university on the eve of a new year and a civilization in the fourth watch of the night, doesn't it?
O Christ, whose voice the waters heard
And hushed their raging at Thy word
Who walkedst on the foaming deep
And calm amidst the rage didst sleep
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee...
A prayer for the Fourth Watch. Amen.
Do you remember learning to count? What kinds of things did you count? What kinds of things do you count today? What kinds of things should you be counting? This summer I started recounting some things. Our family went to Italy this summer. My daughter was taking a college class (yes, my little girl is now in college), my husband and I were spiritual leaders on the trip. I experienced the collision of two worlds. Although I had had my reservations, I was not prepared for the visceral, emotional, physical, and spiritual reaction I would have. I am praying that today’s sermon will not be a travelogue, or a monologue, but that the Holy Spirit will engage your heart in a dialogue as you see the collision of two worlds for yourself.
I was visiting after the conclusion of another seminary class. I was sharing with one of my friends how I enjoyed the diversity of Andrews University. Our conversion turned to how much progress our country has made in civil rights. I asked what has been her experience as an African American growing up since MLK and the civil rights movement. She was a little younger than myself so I expected a pretty mild testimony, especially as my friend came from the North. My friend shared how her father was blessed to be able to earn an education and get better employment. She shared how excited they were to move into a “nicer” neighborhood in the NY suburbs. But when they arrived, the neighborhood was not very “nice” to them. They were called the N-word regularly and treated as though their presence was polluting the community. One time on the way home from school she and her siblings even had dogs sent after them! In self-preservation the children scrambled up on cars roofs to get out of reach of the attacking canines. The police were called and upon arrival scolded the children to get off the cars, but did nothing about the neighbor who sent his dogs to attack them! I remember thinking “What?! This continues to happen in my lifetime?” As our conversation came to a close she mentioned that it was nice talking to a white person who seemed interested in her experience and struggle as a black person. As God has blessed me with many more cross cultural friendships, I continue to struggle with what is my role in all this as a white farm boy from the North. What ought a Seventh-Day Adventist disciple do to address the ongoing racial divisions and inequalities in a nation that was founded with “…all men are created equal…”? - Pastor Walter Rogers
This morning we are going to examine a story that took place long ago in the village of Bethany. It’s a story you may have heard many times; however, it is full of meaning for us in the 21st century. Something profound took place that day in Bethany. Luke tells the story in his gospel, chapter 10, verses 38-42. Now let’s join Martha as she tries to go to sleep.
This one’s a no-brainer, even if it was a hot, steamy afternoon. Twenty-year-old Sean Schmidt from Buffalo, New York, was racing down I-190 this week with a friend, when the open sunroof proved a temptation too strong. Suddenly standing up on the passenger seat, Sean pushed half his body through the opening into the glorious rushing air. And there he remained. Until a state trooper raced up behind him with cruiser lights flashing. Doomed, Sean crawled back into the car, grabbed a small bag of marijuana and tossed it out before being pulled over. Unfortunately for Sean the bag landed on the trooper’s cruiser. Guilty on both counts—not wearing a seat belt and possession of marijuana. Let’s face it—sometimes our guilt is a no-brainer. The evidence is simply too obvious. “Guilty as charged—on all counts.” My conscience knows well that familiar verdict. No doubt yours does, too. Which is why Calvary is such compelling good news for all of us sinners. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8 NIV). The charges were dropped while we were as guilty as Sean Schmidt! In fact, before we even pleaded guilty. “By His wonderful work in giving His life, [Jesus] restored the whole race of man to favor with God” (I SM 343). Two thousand years before we were born, Christ by his death restored the human race to favor with God—all charges dropped—it is the astounding truth of this God who “justifies the ungodly” (Romans 4:5). And it is this truth we, who are ungodly and guilty, must receive here at the foot of the cross. “For since we were restored to friendship with God by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be delivered from eternal punishment by his life . . . all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God” (Romans 5:10, 11 NLT). Can you believe it! For the likes of you and me and Sean Schmidt, that this is the best news of all is the greatest no-brainer of all, isn’t it?
The books are beside my bed and collecting around my desk - and I love it. Bill Hybel’s Just Walk Across the Room that I am hoping to finish is propped up next to my desk along with a collection of Robert Frost’s works and the History of the Reformation by J.H. D’Aubigne, who E.G. White quoted extensively in her volume The Great Controversy. The Great Controversy in turn is sitting by my bed on top of a stack that I am currently reading including Sanctified Life (that is just a great book to have handy), one of C.S. Lewis’ titles, Malcom Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, and then one of my favorite collection of essays from Robert Fulghum. It is from this final book I got my idea of eating a chair.
“JESUS IS COMING TODAY!” If you’re reading this on May 21, 2011, then that is precisely what the followers of Harold Camping are declaring today—Christ is returning to this earth at 6 p.m. (presumably Pacific Time, since Camping lives in Oakland, California). With his return approximately two per cent of this world’s population will be immediately raptured to heaven, leaving the rest of earth’s inhabitants to be destroyed. In an elaborate theological schematic (which I have purused on-line), Camping predicts the return of Christ on May 21, 2011, and five months later the Judgment Day destruction of earth and the universe on October 21, 2011. Harold Camping, a former civil engineer, is the 89 year old founder of Family Radio—a Christian broadcast network that now includes 66 stations globally. He is not a stranger to apocalyptic predictions, having announced that Christ would return on September 6, 1994. His post-September 6 explanation, as he recently told London’s Independent newspaper, is that “at that time there was a lot of the Bible I had not really researched very carefully. But now we’ve had the chance to do just an enormous amount of additional study and God has given us outstanding proofs that it really is going to happen” (
A dripping, blood-red X over the face of Osama bin Laden is the cover for the May 20, 2011, issue of TIME. Only four times in its publishing history has the magazine chosen to red-X the face of a notorious human being: Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi and now Osama bin Laden. The press is still abuzz over the stunning surprise and speed with which “the world’s #1 terrorist” was hunted and killed last week. When late on Sunday night President Obama announced bin Laden’s death to the nation and world, jubilant crowds quickly amassed outside the White House and in New York City to celebrate the death of the September 11 mastermind. Seal Team 6 celebrates its precision execution of the raid—Pakistan protests violation of its sovereignty—and earth marvels over the United State’s relentless and finally successful pursuit of its most-wanted nemesis. And how is it with earth’s Christians? As I watched the jubilation of the crowds, read the editorials and followed the unfolding story, the irony of it all occurred to me—we have found reason to rejoice in the death of another. We party because our enemy has been slain. And who would renounce the strong sense of relief family members of the September 11 victims experienced with the news that the perpetrator of that heinous crime had met his own untimely death? “Justice has been done,” was the President’s somber pronouncement. But does God rejoice in the death of Osama bin Laden? King David fled for his life, when his rebel son Absalom lead a coup d'état in Israel to overthrow his father. But days later when the army of the father overpowered the army of the rebel son and Absalom was slain by a commando team, there was no party back at headquarters. Instead the father king wept: “‘O my son Absalom—my son, my son Absalom—if only I had died in your place! O Absalom my son, my son!’” (II Samuel 18:33) On hearing the king’s loud lamenting, Joab—David’s commanding general—burst into the royal chamber with the angry charge that the king’s inconsolable weeping was a disgrace to the nation. But was it? Could it be that David’s weeping was a shadowy representation of another Father King? Will God and the universe party when rebel son and fallen angel Lucifer at last suffers eternal death for his ruthless and unrelenting crimes against the kingdom? Or like David, will the Father of us all bow his head in his hands and weep, “If only I could have died in your place?” Will divine love love its enemies, its nemesis enemy, to the very end? Calvary is answer enough, is it not? “‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do’” (Luke 23:34). And that is why there will be only one death the universe will ever truly rejoice over throughout eternity: “And they sang a new song . . . ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!’” (Revelation 5:9, 12). It is that death, the death of Christ our Savior, that compels us to love even our enemies. Which is why in the end the only dripping, blood-red X that will matter for any of us, for all of us, is the one atop Calvary. “And they sang a new song.”