James Vore

Whether the lunch actually took place, I have no idea. Whether or not the man’s friends gleefully poked and prodded the prodigious writer for using short sentences instead of the flowing prose that filled the pages of their day, it doesn’t really matter. What does matter, what moves me (and why I share this with you), is the lesson we can learn from the accomplished author, who, with six words, silenced a table of critics and won him a small wager.  Six words, with which, just as he had bet them, Ernest Hemingway could tell a complete and compelling story. Six words perhaps scribbled on a bar napkin, or a piece of paper torn from a journal, or maybe even spoken aloud. For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.  Please understand that I don’t mean to start off our time together on a dour note; it’s just that when the stakes are life and death, words matter a great deal. Ernest Hemingway knew it; men and women like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Winston Churchill, and Maya Angelou knew it. Yet, I am afraid we have forgotten the weight of our words, or at the least, cheapened them to the point where they are no longer worth dying for. Words create worlds. In fact, words are the only things that ever have. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.Genesis 1:1-31 Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing.Isaiah 40:26 For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.Psalm 33:9 By faith, we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.Hebrews 11:3 The word command translates as ‘Rema,’ in Greek, “that which is said, word, saying expression, or statement of any kind. At the start of all things, it was words through which the creator flexed his creativity in the literal sense, and it is through that medium that he, to this day, continues to do so. It is the gift of His Word that tells us so, and it is the gift of his word that highlights our own power to create or destroy with our words.  Evil words destroy one’s friends; wise discernment rescues the godly.Proverbs 11:9  Gentle words bring life and health; a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.Proverbs 15:4  Kind words are like honey – sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.Proverbs 16:24 Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.Proverbs 18:21  A person’s words can be life-giving water; words of true wisdom are as refreshing as a bubbling brook.Proverbs 18:4  There is one who speaks rashly like he thrusts of a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.Proverbs 12:18  And yet…  At the loudest time in human history, as our words shoot like free radicals across screens, speakers, and small blue bubbles, we have abandoned, by and large, our responsibility to steward that power well and, therefore, castrated our effectiveness as ambassadors of reconciliation.  As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree is yesterday, and the second best time is today. So, let us walk hand in hand today.  We are unable to go back to yesterday and change our linguistic carelessness, but we are humbly willing to do so today for tomorrow’s sake. Please understand that this is not a call for perfection. All of us will fail with our words countless times throughout our lives. But we must try. What follows are four lessons that I’ve learned the hard way and that I believe should sound like a siren when the all-to-easy way of the world collides with your sanctified heart and a choice towards destruction is imminent. Learn to love to listen.With a snap, my father would bring my attention back to his face (a hard thing to do when your son is 11 years old.)“James, were you listening to me?” “Yes, I heard you.” I’d roll my eyes. “I know you heard me,” he’d sigh with more patience than I deserved, “but were you listening?” Listening, truly listening, is a spiritual discipline. It sets the person actively engaged in what you’re saying apart from those whose eyes shift for the next conversation. In other words, it’s being truthfully pastoral. Listening reveals the truth behind a person’s words and reminds you that they are as much in process as you are. It is a mono-focal activity, which means that to do it well, we have to fight off the temptation to put on display our own brilliance by formulating our response instead of giving another person our full attention. Jesus’ own brother warns us to be “quick to listen, and slow to speak” (James 1:19), warning that those who “consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves.” (James 1:26).  Said simply, if you aren’t willing to center your attention on what Heaven may be trying to say at any given moment of your life because you’re too busy speaking, then God may not be the main character of your story; perhaps you are. Listening is the door through which those who have asked for wisdom will receive it. It is how you will, like Elijah, stay safely placed where you should when the wind blows, the earthquake shakes, and the fire burns, and it is how you will discern the still, small whisper of God. Not only that, but it’s just polite. A human being, one crafted in the very image of God and who is living their single life here on Earth, is speaking to you. Give them the courtesy you would wish to extend your direction.  Your turn to speak will come; when it does, I pray that you learn to… Say Less.George Herbert, the 17th-century English poet, said, “Good words are worth much, and cost little.”Words, like any other commodity, come in varying qualities. Some are worth saying, and others are not. It is our arrogance and resulting carelessness that convinces us to spend our time on the latter.  We have a finite number of breaths to draw and expel in our lives, and I urge you not to waste them. Time is fleeting, yet we spend so much of it gossiping or hiding behind phone screens, leaving comments that we would never say at our dinner tables or in our churches. Do we imagine that God has turned a blind eye to our devices? Do we hope His eyes roam the whole earth except in election years? For very few, the first voice one hears is that of God. Once again, most of us will have to let the wind blow, the earthquake shake, and the fire burn before we’re able to discern what it is He wants us to say, and when we do, then what we have to say will be finally worth saying.  Then, and only then, will we be armed with the words that allow you to…   Choose what world you want to live in.1308 words ago, we noted that not only do words create worlds, but they are the only things that ever have. The only thing left for you and me to determine is what type of world we want to live in. This is paramount, and for the believer, I have both extraordinary news and a wholly appropriate burden. The world is so desperate for a drink of the water we call peace that it is willing to fill its mouth with anything that distracts itself from its thirst and, in so doing, is choking itself to death. In what feels like an era of unprecedented bitterness, separation, polarization, anger, and vitriol, you have been blessed with the balm. God can use the very words you use to heal, restore, and even redeem.  If prayer (speaking to the Almighty Creator) is the most powerful tool you have been given, certainly the ability to speak to and over His creation is the next. Spend an hour in a car with someone who consistently erupts with negativity, and you’ll find it almost impossible to be at peace; conversely, if you have dinner with that person in your life who has navigated life’s rocks and rapids with a positive attitude, and you’ll wonder why you waste your time complaining at all. What kind of influence do you want to have on the people around you? What kind of influence do you want to have on yourself? Make no mistake: the first person impacted by your choice of words is yourself.  Of course, to have this kind of discernment, the first, last, and most painful step will be to…   Die to yourself.To put it bluntly, you do not have the luxury of letting loose whatever you choose anymore. In my copy of Holy Scripture, 1 Corinthians 9:19–23 is labeled “Paul’s Use of His Freedom,” and while I read it right now, tears are in my eyes. Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.  Do you see it any more clearly now? The burden of your language is not one that defines your salvation (although that is a topic for another discussion); the responsibility to choose your words wisely is a matter of life and death for anyone and everyone who could possibly hear, read, or come under them in any way.. Look at how Paul states this very truth to Timothy as his young mentee is working to lead and shape the church in Ephesus:  Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.1 Timothy 4:16    It is incumbent upon us as the Church to be better for the eternal sake of everyone.  This is not an overstatement, and I am exhausted of scaling its sharpness back against the dulling rock of kindness. The world can ill afford those of us who have donned the title of Christian to sound the same as those who haven’t. We have allowed media personalities and politicians to play pastors, shepherding us towards dissent and disaster, not because it is the right thing to do but because it profits them. In short, we have traded our calling to make disciples of all nations for the comfort of cushiony echo chambers. Why?  Because we have forgotten that we have to die. Physically, of course, we will all leave this realm one day (and what will we leave behind except the way we made others feel), but spiritually, if we have clothed ourselves in Christ, then the intended result is that it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us. This should stop us in our tracks and force us into reflection if not repentance. When was the last time we laid down what we wanted to say and asked the Holy Spirit what we needed to say? Did we fire off that text too quickly, giving in to the temptation to gossip or demean? Are comment sections across social media filled with our careful consideration or instant immaturity? Have we put Jesus on display through our language, or do we just claim Him in our bio and spew the language of Satan onto the world around us?  I understand that this may all come across as self-righteous. As I said before, please do not interpret my words as those of someone who believes themselves to be perfect. I, like you, struggle with my own thorns, my own failures, and my own faults. Perfection is not the goal nor the ask, and thank God that is true. But if you could, even ever so slightly, represent Jesus more clearly in a lost and broken world, wouldn’t you trade everything to do so?  All of us, I believe, working to be better each day, just a little bit better over the course of our lifetimes, can have an effect on the culture of the world beyond what we could imagine or measure. I will leave you with this: If you believe any of what you have read, or even if you disagree with it entirely, for one week, just for seven days… try to be better with your words and then email me, and let me know if I was right or not. I’d be honored to talk about it with you. After all, even when sharing our thoughts on the topic, we can at least agree that words matter.

For the land we live on, we thank you, Jesus. For the time we live in, we thank you, Jesus.  For the past we learn from, we thank you, Jesus.  For the future we hope for, we thank you, Jesus. For those who’ve gone before us, we thank you, Jesus.  For those who will come after us, we thank you, Jesus.   In the days you’ve given us to steward, be with us, Jesus. In the communities you’ve purposed us within, be with us, Jesus.     In our moments of unity, be with us, Jesus. In our moments of discord, be with us, Jesus.  In our hour of celebration, be with us, Jesus.  In our hour of grief, be with us, Jesus.    In the hearts of the poor and downtrodden, be comfort and peace, Jesus. In the hearts of the proud and prosperous, be kindness and generosity, Jesus.    In the prayers of the meek, be courage and steadfastness, Jesus. In the prayers of the mighty, be grace and mercy, Jesus. In the plight of the truly persecuted, be blessing and steadfastness, Jesus. In the pride of the haughty, be humility and correction, Jesus.    For a spirit of wisdom in troubling times, we ask of you, Jesus.  For a spirit of discernment for our leaders at every level, we ask of you, Jesus. For a spirit of repentance where we have sinned against one another, we ask of you, Jesus. For a spirit of forgiveness towards those who have wronged us, we ask of you, Jesus.  For a spirit of civility between created sons and daughters of God, we ask of you, Jesus.  For a spirit of peace when all around us declares war, we ask of you, Jesus.    Amen

What is the cost of your devotion?  What is the price for your betrayal?  Holy Week should call us to reflection. It is a chance to pause and to feel ourselves all at once swept along by the echoes of church history and purely present in our current state. While the world around us rushes by, hurried and hurtled through another day, another week, another year, we are invited to momentarily stop time in that way that only happens when we are in the presence of the one who holds it.  Will you?  And if you do, will you weep? Will you shed a tear as you consider this man of sorrows (Isaiah 53:3)? Will you grieve and mourn your own sin for which He paid the price (James 4:8-9)?  I wonder, would you even weep for his betrayer, Judas?  Judas, a man like any other. Judas, who walked with Jesus. Judas, who must have witnessed miracle after miracle, who had to have felt the calloused hands of the Savior as they embraced, who surely cracked a smile or laughed alongside the Son of Man over dinner. Judas, who was paid a paltry fee (the same fee due to the owner of a slave in the instance they were accidentally killed by an ox (Exodus 21:32)) to lead the King who came not to be served but to serve, to slaughter.  Would you weep for this Judas? In the grand context of Holy Week, it is easy to dismiss the suffering of the guilty while celebrating the suffering of the innocent. But for a second, consider your own life. Even for those of us who walk with Jesus, who have given our lives over to him in adoration and obedience, have you not traded His love, his purposes, his plans away for even less? This week is a week to focus on Jesus, but in doing so, how can one fully embrace the sweetness of the sacrifice without acknowledging the severity of the separation that it solved? Judge not Judas lest you for even a moment consider yourself above the same betrayal. Then, in realizing your sin, pour out your praise upon Jesus even more graciously, for he has saved you from it. The grace you know and are tempted daily to take for granted Judas never knew. The relationship with the Father you ebb and flow to and fro from was never felt by him. In his omnipotence God used the pride of Judas, but that does not mean he was absolved from the consequences.  Make no mistake, Jesus was not fooled by Judas. He was not snookered at the last moments of his life into a trap he never saw coming. No, fully aware of what he would do, Jesus chose Judas as one of the twelve (John 6:70-71) and invited him in. Perhaps that is our merciful message to walk in today. The King is not threatened by your sin, nor is He casting you out of the city walls because of it. Instead, he calls you even closer, inviting your questions and confessions. Judas cast his coins at the feet of the high priests; you are invited to cast yours at the feet of the one who holds the authority over Heaven and Hell. He is not demanding your perfection. His is enough.  Sit with his presence today, and thank him for his mercy. Ask to be conformed to his image, made daily more and more like the savior. In these quiet moments, consider where you have sold your affection for pennies on the dollar and what you are willing to walk away from on the altar of devotion. Then turn your eyes once again to Jesus, and in a whisper, if need be, thank him while you yet have breath to do so for Judas does not.

It arrived accompanied by the congratulations and celebrations of his friends and coworkers, for the statesman’s wife had given birth to a beautiful 8lbs 12oz baby girl named Alice. Eventually, the revelry died down, and the room returned to the serious work of earnest men until a second telegram arrived, and the New York City native rushed out and into the cold. On Valentine’s Day, 1884, Theodore Roosevelt’s mother, Mittie, died of typhoid around three o’clock in the morning. Eleven hours later, his wife Alice, namesake of his now days-old daughter, succumbed to Bright’s disease and joined her mother-in-law in eternity.  That night, the future 26th President of the United States penned this devastatingly simple phrase in his journal; “The light has gone out from my life.”  Death rarely comes on schedule for those who remain. It is an all-together final thing, an ending of conversation, and an extinguishing of experience. There is no more extraordinary strangeness than feeling the same compassion, love, and admiration for, or pain and pity towards, someone you will never have another moment with here on Earth. One cannot put into words the sensation of a sudden stab of sadness so intense that breathing is a conscious effort all triggered by a photograph. Death rarely comes on schedule for those who remain; perhaps that is why we seem so ill-prepared for it. Maybe our lack of readiness is generational – a leftover stigma from the 1960s when hospitals moved terminal patients to the back of buildings and doctors withheld prognoses from the fading and their families. Perhaps our uniquely privileged position in time has limited our exposure to the frequent goodbyes that would force open our eyes to how thin the veil is between life and death. Or, maybe it is our fault that, out of fear, we have neglected the lessons of our Father and flown quickly by the lament and grief found in Holy Scripture in favor of passages that lead us more rapidly to rejoicing. There is no one correct answer, and the list of reasons why we may be the generation least prepared to deal well with death is long.  — Even in laughter the heart may ache, and rejoicing may end in grief. Proverbs 14:13 — Twenty words in Hebrew are translated by “grief” or “grieve.” The differences between them are as distinct and subtle as the differences in the experiences they convey. In all twenty words found in the Old Testament, the list continues to try and decode the complexity of grief as understood by those who have felt it, but sorrow and grief are nuanced, both fleeting and present for lifetimes. Their very nature manifests in as many ways as a person can feel; snapping in anger and weeping in sadness. Unconquerable and unavoidable, grief can simultaneously be the immovable object and the unstoppable force.  But, as the original language of the old testament shifts to that of the New, we can find a promising change: In the Greek of the New Testament, we find just a few words translating to some form of grief. While only two deal specifically with the emotions we might feel after the death of a loved one, they are all as applicable to a generation more globally-connected than any in human history. Today, as we are spoon-fed tragedy after tragedy on a communal, local, and international level, our hearts cannot possibly contain all of the complex labor needed to process the atrocity we witness.  For the Christian, with the understanding of the eternity set in our hearts, working through this tension could become all-consuming in its own right unless we can find an anchor. The less frequency in the NT of words denoting “grief” is significant. Christ came “to comfort all that mourn—to give a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” Christians, however, cannot but feel sorrow and be moved by grief, and it is to be noted that in both the OT and NT, God Himself is said to be susceptible to grief.W.L. Walker “God Himself is said to be susceptible to grief.”  Therein lies our hope.  God Almighty, the Author of all Creation, is not insulted by your sorrow, nor is he unacquainted with it. Jesus himself, in whom the fullness of The Sovereign’s divinity dwelt (Col 2:9), wept (Jn 11:35). Lost At Sea Steven Callahan was as qualified to navigate the waters between Spain and the Caribbean as anyone in 1981. Aboard Napoleon Solo, a twenty-one-foot sailboat he had designed and built himself, were all the resources and supplies he would need to traverse the Atlantic. “I wish I could describe the feeling of being at sea, the anguish, frustration, and fear, the beauty that accompanies threatening spectacles, the spiritual communion with creatures in whose domain I sail. There is a magnificent intensity in life that comes when we are not in control but are only reacting, living, surviving. I am not a religious man per se. My own cosmology is convoluted and not in line with any particular church or philosophy. But for me, to go to seas is to get a glimpse of the face of God. At sea I am reminded of my insignificance—of all men’s insignificance. It is a wonderful thing to be humbled.  Steven Callahan was qualified, he was experienced, and in the sea, he had even found something so vast that the lens through which he viewed his cosmic scale had been almost properly calibrated (although, as any sailor would tell you, a few degrees off in a heading means a destination far from where you expected.) In his mind, he was prepared.  “Disaster at seas can happen in a moment, without warning, or it can come after long days of anticipation and fear. It does not always come when the sea is fiercest but may spring when waters lie as flat and imperturbable as a sheet of iron…but the sea does not do it for hate or spite. She has no wrath to vent. Nor does she have a hand of kindness to extend. She is merely there, immense, powerful, and indifferent.” Around 23:30 Greenwich Mean Time on January 29, 1982, a whale collided with the bottom of Napoleon Solo, dooming her to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean in minutes and marooning Steven Callahan aboard his six-man life raft for the next 76 days. From that night until the day fishermen discovered him off the coast of Guadeloupe, he battled waves, sharks, and the slow degradation of the rubber of his raft, repeatedly fending off a silent slip into the abyss with seconds to spare. In his memoir, one thing is clear: along with the blind luck that he confesses was needed to survive such an ordeal, it was his experience, preparation, and equipment that kept him alive. Grief can feel as serene and sudden as the sea. There are moments of beauty so stark that it almost feels peaceful, and then in an instant, the waves crash, and cold water snatches your breath from your chest. I am thirty-four now, older than my father was when he lost his mother and younger than my Grandmother was when she lost her son. I’ve watched friends cope with the loss of a child, held a young man as he wracked his mind to understand the death of his brother, and read the hope of heaven aloud over my father-in-law in his last hours.  “At that same moment, the doleful music stopped. And the dead King began to be changed. His white beard turned to gray, and from gray to yellow, and got shorter and vanished altogether; and his sunken cheeks grew round and fresh, and the wrinkles were smoothed, and his eyes opened, and his eyes and lips both laughed, and suddenly he leaped and stood before them – a very young man.” — C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair I am far from an expert. Each of us will, without a doubt, walk a path interrupted by the sudden knock of death time and time again until his call is for us. I’m not sure that any essay penned can sufficiently lessen the pain accompanying such a visit. All I have to offer is what Steven Callahan carried with him: experience and equipment, along with a prayer that when you are thrown about through the waves, you will have a compass leading you back to the God who knows the depths of your loss.  Experience Greif cannot easily be described to the unacquainted. It is then beautiful that as the Church, we are grafted into a family encompassing the full breadth of experiences and endeavors. I will tell you what I tell my son whenever his heart quickens and his eyes fill with fear; you are not alone. Steven Callahan talked to fish. You don’t have to. Teddy Roosevelt retreated to the badlands; you mustn’t. The temptation to isolate yourself, to draw away not only from God in your anger, sadness, and frustration but to hold the community He meant to carry you at arms-length is a cruel ploy. While loss is unexplainable, it need not be explained to those who have also endured its stab. Listen to the stories of people who have walked this path before you and sit in their experience. Take note of what direction the waves came from and how they managed to stay upright when they did. Death is as prevalent as life; each of us will meet it at some point, and to ignore the wisdom and experience of those who already have is to cut yourself off from a source of peace and comfort that God may have meant for you. Further, you may deprive yourself of the position to watch as God turns your experience into that same grace and comfort for another.   The writer of Hebrews must have sensed humanity’s urge to withdraw amidst seasons of unbelief, writing the explicit instructions to:  See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. As has just been said: “Today, if you hear his voice,     do not harden your hearts     as you did in the rebellion.” Hebrews 3:12-15 Loss forces us, unlike any other experience, into a state of examination, where our motive is never more under attack from the enemy and, therefore, more in need of protection. How simple is it for a sly tongue and a slick word to enter a man’s or woman’s mind in pain? How easily do we allow anything which may bring us a moment of relief into the equation, even if to do so is to sin against almighty God?  Is it a sin to grieve? Unquestionably, no, Jesus himself did so. Grief is no more alien from the life of a believer than joy. We walk with it hand in hand as old friends. It may be present in our commutes to work and sit beside us in darkened movie theaters. Perhaps we converse with grief as we set sail into our dreams and over coffee when we wake. But what do we permit it to say? What truth does this friend bring to mind? Like a tempest, does it cast you into the depths, unable to remember the words of Jesus who stood among his friends, once dead and now alive, and eased their fears? “Peace be with you.”  Or is it possible that grief, alongside the encouragement of the church based on the Scriptures, may be a companion who speaks to us with authority and holiness, pushing us towards a yearning for our God, the one who will make all things right, and by whom we were rescued such that death is merely a stepping off point into the next great adventure? I encourage you, Christian, to be steady with your encouragement, gentle with your rebuke, and receptive to both. Walk with Christ long enough, and you will be both the wise and the weeping. The discovery you will likely find in both scenarios is that, like an anchor, Jesus alone will hold you and those you love.  “Do not mourn like those who have no hope.”  So simply said, so intensely difficult to do. It was not the grief of the Thessalonians that led to Paul’s rebuke; it was their despair. That absence of hope precluded their ability to see the light at the end of the tunnel and left them no different from their pagan neighbors who had rejected the core doctrine of the resurrection and, therefore, “had no hope.” If we follow the same path and allow hopelessness to supersede not only our fundamental belief but the hope we inherit as a result, then our grief is no longer fit to reflect the splendor of the eternity with God we long for. Our own temporal and temporary anguish is just that. When we become the focus of our loss, when we do not allow the Church to reposition our pain, we lose sight of the goodness of God, and we cease, even momentarily, to trust Him.  Thank God for grace; praise Him for His mercy.  Equipment Now, if I may offer a humble warning: platitudes and niceties formed not from the clay of the Word of God are momentary and in danger of becoming malignant. They may even be, as Jonathan Edwards would write, misapprehensions of the mind. Yet we are to comfort, to console, and to encourage both ourselves and those around us who have suffered the sting of loss. Thank God for the power of His Word; once again, you are not alone. Through the apostles and the prophets, we are gifted a scripture narrative rife with lament and faith therein. If Scripture is God’s story in relation to Humanity, then it must contain our humanity. Search throughout the text, and you’ll discover you are far from the first to grieve and couldn’t possibly be the last. Let us return to that passage in Paul’s letter to the church in Thessalonica and take our time to draw from it the encouragement we need.  Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.  [pause] – As believers, our grief is no less real than those who are outside of Christ; it is, however, transformed by His hope. We have the chance to feel the present pain coupled with the future promise. As with almost all of life, the lens through which we observe death and the language we wrap around it will frame our mindset toward it.     For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.  [pause] – O Death, where is your sting? While a predictable plot may ruin a book or movie, knowing the end of our own story may bring us nothing but comfort. We may grieve our inability to hold, laugh with, or fall asleep next to our loves, yet each day without them brings us nothing but closer to them once more. For those united in Christ, death is but an intermission. Our stories will begin again come the sound of music. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.  [pause] – How blessed are those who have gone before us in the faith, for it will be their privilege to do so again! For 35 years, I was never forced to live in a world without my Grandmother; what a comfort to know that I will not exist in eternity without her either. What an inexpressible joy for a parent to know the infant they wept over awaits them in the presence of God.   For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  [pause] – Remember in whom eternity is anchored. It is the power of the Lord that will bring an end to our hope when it is at once realized. Unlike Steven Callahan, we will not float aimlessly, desperate for rescue. We are promised a shepherd. The same Jesus who you may draw comfort from amidst your grief has already defeated death; it’s “power” bends to His words, and He is coming. Let your song of sorrow turn to joy, and your tears give way to laughter.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore, encourage one another with these words. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 Death rarely comes on schedule for those who remain. We weep as we should for what is lost, for the entirety of what will no longer be. But, in time, it is my prayer that we properly call to mind what will be. The time is coming, dear one, when you and those you miss with an aching heart will be with the Lord forever. Many more chapters can and truthfully have been written along these lines, and yet you are here, so allow me, if you will, to fulfill the call from the Apostle to lift your head, if just for a moment.  Weep if you must,  if you can.  For what you’ve lost, what you’ll never have again.  Feel the fullness of emptiness and weep. But remember, dear heart,  for you must And you can.  The fullness of Jesus, the emptiness of his grave and weep.

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven,     and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” Luke 2:13-14 Perhaps no time of year puts on display the difference between the idyllic presented life and the reality of living quite as starkly as the Christmas season. Count ten people, and you’ll count ten stories, circumstances, and celebrations. Life is, after all, the simultaneous combination of joy and sorrow, the commingling of what has been lost, what is, and what is hoped for. For the Christian, this well of gratitude and grief runs deep, beyond fleeting feelings, into the soul where the presence of something striking exists. (Ecclesiastes 3:11) When we have seen and cannot help but see the impermanence of what is around us, there may be a sense of grief and longing that rushes in to fill the moments where life slows down just long enough for reflection. So, as we arrive at the twelfth and final month of each year, and the perfect pictures of family dinners, gifts, and matching sweaters fill our eyes, your heart may sink rather than leap. And if it does, and if it ever has, hear the angels’ cry today: “Peace to those on whom His favor rests.”  There is an inherent danger in an article like this that these words or the sentiment behind them, even when coupled with Holy Scripture, can come off as trite, a simple phrase thrown like a bandage towards a heart needing surgery. This is not lost on me, nor am I immune to the tragedy of life that may precipitate such a silent grimace. Instead, it is a paraphrasing of that heavenly declaration that brings me great solace this year.  “Peace on Earth, goodwill to men.”  This is the ending line of all seven stanzas of Henry Wordsworth Longfellow’s poem, Christmas Bells. You may know it as the carol, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” and for the sake of dispelling the notion that they are easily stated, here is the entire poem, including the sections traditionally abandoned in our current renditions: I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, and wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!  And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on earth, goodwill to men! Till ringing, singing on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, A chant sublime Of peace on earth, goodwill to men! Then from each black, accursed mouth The cannon thundered in the South, And with the sound The carols drowned Of peace on earth, goodwill to men! It was as if an earthquake rent The hearth-stones of a continent, And made forlorn The households born Of peace on earth, goodwill to men! And in despair I bowed my head; “There is no peace on earth,” I said; “For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!” Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, goodwill to men.” Written on Christmas Day, 1863, these words would have almost certainly been accompanied by the same sensation of loss and lament that you may feel this year. As Longfellow sat in his home and listened to church bells in the distance, the 57-year-old widower and father of six had with him a telegram informing him that his eldest had been critically injured in a war pitting his country against itself.  Having never fully recovered physically or emotionally from the same fire that took his wife’s life, we can only imagine the agony of the heart that such a telegram delivered with it. And so, as the sound of church bells reached his ears that Christmas morning, a man who had lost and was losing even more began to mock the idea of peace on earth.  You see, despair and hope almost always accompany one another, a truth perhaps never more apparent than at Christmas when our need for a savior is most recognizable and the hope of Jesus is most revealed.  The stark difference between what we hope life is and the reality of our days casts our need for Heavenly rescue in sharp contrast, something that David Guzik points out has been evident to observers throughout history:  (Even the pagans of the first-century world sensed this need for peace and a savior. Epictetus, a first-century pagan writer, expressed this: “While the emperor may give peace from war on land and sea, he is unable to give peace from passion, grief, and envy; he cannot give peace of heart, for which man yearns for more than even outward peace.”) The world today is not so different. Cultures come and go, languages evolve, wars begin and end, and countries expand and contract, yet the recognition that something is missing and unreachable with hands made of flesh and blood remains. Zecharaiah knew it when he prophesied over his son John: And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;     for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation     through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God,     by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness     and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.” Luke 1: 76-79 The angels knew it when they sang out a declaration that “the good-will of God toward men, is glory to God in the highest, and peace on the earth.” (Matthew Henry) The shepherds must have sensed it and so lost no time, hurrying off to find the child and then spread the word of Him, and Mary knew it as she carefully secured these truths in her heart to treasure for all time. The people then, as they did in the time of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and as they do now, required a savior.  Wherever you are in your faith, whatever you are sitting in or walking through this advent season, whether life has given you a reason to delight or death has returned to you a season of discontent, remind your soul today that one night in Bethlehem, the sky parted. The Heavens declared that the very thing your heart is longing for thousands of years later was then and is now available. Many are the miracles of God, but none can bring peace to your heart this Christmas season except his redemption of the world, begun magnificently that night. Your situation may not change while you’re reading this (although I earnestly pray that it does to the Glory of God), but neither did Longfellow’s. Yet, there is something about that final stanza that lifts my heart as I read it, sitting amidst my pain this season. Despite his grief, despite his suffering, despite his doubt (and in my imagination with a soft, teary smile), Henry Wordsworth Longfellow confessed and held on to the hope of Jesus: “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, goodwill to men.” May you have that peace.

In our ANCHOR series, Louie Giglio reminds us that although we won’t always feel like worshiping, and although there will be difficult times ahead, worship is ALWAYS the right response to a nail-pierced Jesus holding open the door to Heaven.