Beginnings and Endings

On January 4, 2025January 3, 2025 By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Pastor Tim's Ponderings2 Comments

I’ve always thought it strange that we have New Year’s celebrations on January 1 at midnight when the year begins. The year hasn’t even happened yet, and we’re celebrating it. I understand celebrating a live birth and all the possibilities of a new baby in a family; but having worldwide blowouts about an upcoming New Year just strikes me as weird.

For some reason, we don’t celebrate the year we’ve just lived. We “take a look back” at the significant events and happenings. But there’s certainly no party around it. I suppose it’s because a lot of terrible things happen in a year. Yet, a lot of good things happen, too, that we could center some joy around.

What I’m getting at, in a round about way, is that we humans don’t do well with endings. And then we quickly become discouraged with our new beginnings – likely because we put little to no thought and preparation into how important and necessary our endings really are.

This is yet another roundabout way of saying that I (and we together) are experiencing something of an ending. For the past 1,750 days, I have provided a daily reflection upon a text from Holy Scripture. And those reflections haven’t been just a few sentences of devotional drivel, nor a measly daily crumb. I’ve written thousand-word-posts which I believe have been thoughtful and truly reflective on the text and our human condition.

However, all things must end. And this is my last post – at least for a while. I won’t be posting every day, as I’ve done for nearly 5 years! Yet, in order for me to have a proper new beginning of my own (one that I neither wanted nor asked for) I must let go of my daily blog posts.

Although I have been blogging for the past 15 years, I started doing the daily reflections at the beginning of COVID, as a way of remaining connected with my then church congregation, and with others. My thought was to give up doing it every day, once things got back to some sort of normalcy – whatever the heck that is.

Yet, when the masks initially came off and we all began seeing one another again, I found that the daily routine of writing biblical reflections had gotten into my spiritual bones. I was no longer simply writing for others; I was writing for myself. It buoyed my own faith to rise early in the morning and put some intentional focus upon crafting some scriptural thoughts on the Bible.

But that is no longer possible. My life can no longer sustain the practice. I intend to keep up the occasional post of maybe once a week. I might not even be able to do that. It might be once or twice a month. I don’t yet know.

Yet, what I do know is that I want to take the opportunity to celebrate the reality that I spent 1,750 straight days writing and posting impactful blog posts! Many of you were gracious to send me private notes of appreciation and encouragement. I especially treasure the ways some of you explained your story of how your own relationship with God has been helped.

When you boil down life to its essence, all any of us really have is our stories. Behind every event, each encounter, and all of the numbers which get crunched and the stuff that gets done and achieved, there is a story.

Stories bring just as much healing to us as modern medicine and surgeries. And they encourage, inspire, and change us in ways we cannot imagine.

The Bible, at its core, is a collection of stories. It seems God has created us as story-driven people, and so, in order to reveal something of God’s personhood and nature, we were given a grand and unfolding story of redemption.

I love reading and meditating on Holy Scripture, mainly because I love the Holy God of whom I belong and gladly serve.

I’ll continue writing the occasional post, but I will miss the daily meetings I’ve had with the Lord and with you in these past few years. Thank you for your faith, and for listening to God’s Word. What’s more, you can always avail yourselves of the nearly 2,700 blog posts on the website.

I pray that we all may learn to end things well, so that we might begin new things with some needed wisdom, humility, and grace.

May you live this day compassionate of heart, gentle in word, gracious in awareness, courageous in thought, and generous in the love of God through Jesus Christ our Lord and in the strength of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

First Sunday of Advent – The Paradoxical Christ (Luke 21:25-36)

*Christ Among the Doctors, by Paolo Veronese, c.1560*

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place and to stand before the Son of Man.” (New Revised Standard Version)

Do we understand the dire situation of humanity? Is there comprehension of the sinister road that many choose to walk? Or are we cut off from ourselves, fragmented and unable (or unwilling) to participate in becoming people who are wise and seek what is just?

Perhaps we are adrift, lost in our own hubris, believing that our beliefs and opinions are so right as to either force them on others; or either live and let live, as if nothing bad will ever happen.

But the Son of Man is coming. He has a lesson for us from a tree; and an exhortation to beware.

I just hope it’s not too late for many of us.

Today’s Gospel lesson is part of a longer discourse by Jesus, warning about coming persecution and impending destruction of the Temple. It’s apocalyptic stuff about famine, war, judgment, with exhortations in the midst of suffering.

This is how we are beginning the new Christian Year, and season of Advent. Dealing with judgment and cosmic cataclysm may seem out of sync with the month of December.

Advent helps us prepare our hearts in anticipation of Christ’s birth. It’s actually one of the best times to remember that just as Jesus came as a child in his first advent, a second advent is yet to come, in which Jesus returns as the judge.

The Coming of the Son of Man

The season of Advent, and Jesus himself, are paradoxical. In my estimation, all of Christianity is inherently paradoxical. A paradox brings two contrasting truths or images together. Jesus is God. Jesus is human. Both are true. Jesus is a paradox. Jesus came. Jesus is coming. His advent is a paradox.

Jesus and his teaching may seem self-contradictory. But it nonetheless shows us truth. That’s what a paradox does. It expresses things like Jesus being both a baby and a savior, an infant and a king, a servant and a sovereign.

Christ brings peace. And Christ brings division. To keep your life, you must lose it. In order to be first, you must be last.

The Lesson of the Tree

Trees are some of our greatest teachers, that is, if we will but listen to them and observe them. The tree teaches us the paradox that with the changing of the leaves, death can be beautiful. In using the tree’s wood, we learn there is new life through destruction.

The dormancy of the tree in winter appears as if it will last forever. Yet, when Spring arrives, we discover that the bare branches and lifelessness is temporary, not permanent. The tree blossoms, almost exploding with life and color.

Our earthly trials and tribulations will not last. God will vindicate the righteous. Redemption is near. There is the paradox of suffering that leads to glory, and tears which will give way to great comfort.

The Exhortation to Watch

But we must watch. Jesus tells us to beware. With paradox, and in the apocalyptic view of things, events that happen on this earth that we see are mere reflections of much greater workings on an unseen plane of existence.

Paradoxically, the struggle between good and evil is both earthly and celestial; it is playing out on multi-dimensional levels. There is always more going on than what meets the eye. Therefore, watch out, because you do not really know what’s happening unless you’re looking with both physical and spiritual eyes.

So, stay awake. Pay attention. Be prepared. Keep awareness of yourself and your situations.

As we move into the busyness and bustle of this month, let us not overprepare for something transitory and impermanent. Let’s remember to use our vision to see a large and expansive world in need of the paradoxical Christ.

If you are reading this, or listening to this, then there is hope. This present existence is not permanent; it won’t last forever.

For what is at stake is the coming of the kingdom of heaven, a realm of existence that is both already here, and not yet here. In allowing such a rule to come and take over our lives, we find freedom and peace and permanence.

Tying our hopes to earthly rulers and all of their construction of petty kingdoms and fiefdoms will only end in darkness and disappointment.

The Servant King, who rules through loving service, is coming. And the Universal Judge, who controls all things with a powerful gracious force, is also coming.

The paradoxical Jesus was here, is here, and is to come.

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

Get Low Enough To See (John 7:25-36)

On September 18, 2024August 20, 2024 By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

At that point some of the people of Jerusalem began to ask, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill? Here he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Messiah? But we know where this man is from; when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.”

Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.”

At this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. Still, many in the crowd believed in him. They said, “When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this man?”

The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things about him. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him.

Jesus said, “I am with you for only a short time, and then I am going to the one who sent me. You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.”

The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we cannot find him? Will he go where our people live scattered among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks? What did he mean when he said, ‘You will look for me, but you will not find me,’ and ‘Where I am, you cannot come’?” (New International Version)

Once in a while, I pray something like this: “Lord, if I’m not seeing you when I ought to, or am not getting something you’re trying to show me, please use your divine baseball bat and whomp me upside the head!”

That’s because, far more often than I would like to admit, I miss seeing the Divine whenever God shows up. That’s true for all of us, as well. We tend to mistake experiencing God when the Lord comes and stands in front of us.

In the New Testament Gospels, some who followed Jesus ended up turning around and going back to their old life. Either the situations with Jesus got too dicey, or Christ’s teaching seemed too confusing. When that happens, it’s too easy to forget Jesus altogether, and never pay attention to him.

There are others who treated Jesus with contempt, simply because they didn’t recognize who he really is. One cannot have faith if they don’t know or acknowledge the object of faith. You cannot believe Jesus if you don’t believe he is from God.

And, of course, there are those who see Christ for who he is. Yet, some of them see Jesus as a threat and want to be rid of him. Others see him as a great healer and teacher, and follow Jesus in order to gain something from him.

However, there are others who see through spiritual eyes and gain the faith to believe and follow him.

All of us, in some way or another in our lives, have misread Jesus and mistaken him for the gardener or some other person.

Many of the Jews in Christ’s own lifetime rejected him because they believed him to be a common nondescript Jew. They knew his parents, and his family. Jesus was too familiar to be special, let alone the Son of God. Besides, everyone knows nothing good comes from the Hicksville that’s Nazareth, right?

The thing is: People miss seeing Jesus for who he is (sometimes including you and me) because we have particular expectations and requirements of our personal Jesus. In other words, it is awfully easy to make Jesus Christ into our own image of how he should be.

Having worked with college students for many years, I continually got a kick out of some of them who had precise requirements for a spouse, and certain expectations of how their potential kids were going to be someday.

It went well beyond having the same core cardinal values. Handsome and beautiful, smart but not too smart, assertive but not sassy, subservient but not a washrag, a 3-point Calvinist but not 5-point, willing to eat anything on the table except weird food that would embarrass, willing to live on a shoestring budget, funny but not quirky…. Actually, I could keep going; there’s a lot more. But you get the idea.

You may be curious as to my counsel to them. I typically said something along the lines of “I guess you’ll never get married, because marriage has nothing to do with any of that stuff. If you’re willing to have your eyes open and see a good person when they come along, and if you’re patient enough to develop a solid relationship built on grace, truth, and love, then you’ll likely find yourself a spouse you can be with for a lifetime.”

I remember one day on a college campus talking with a student after he asked me why he should ever be a Christian. I don’t think he expected my answer. I had already assessed that the guy was looking for a philosophical debate, so I went in a different direction. I said something like:

“I don’t think you should be a Christian. Jesus had people misunderstand him all the time. He was ridiculed and persecuted, tortured and killed. And he had the chutzpah to tell his followers that suffering would be a big part of being his disciple. Many of them followed him anyway. If you’re interested in why they did, we can talk. But if you just want to try and feel good by talking about Jesus, and avoid facing life’s pain and suffering, then I’m not wasting my time. So, what do you want to do?”

We will miss Jesus altogether if we are looking for a particular person. Whenever we get married to specific outcomes, then we’ll miss him for sure.

I wonder how many times Jesus showed up in your life this week, and you didn’t recognize him. In truth, Jesus is with us, by means of the Spirit, all the time. If you don’t see him, it’s not God’s fault, or anybody else’s.

Humility accesses spiritual sight. The religious leaders of Christ’s day were flummoxed and fuming all the time because of their arrogance, and their settled theological and biblical dogma. And so, they could not see who Jesus is, even though he was smack in front of them.

Yet, even though we may be spiritually blind and deaf, and finally see a glimpse and catch a sound of Jesus, that graciously means he is still there, beside you, never having given up on you.

Even a blurry and faint awareness realizes Jesus coming in the people we meet each day who encourage and bless us. Christ even comes and speaks through those we would not expect to hear a word from God.

Whenever we may wonder where Jesus is in our suffering and pain, he is there, sometimes even holding us and carrying us, despite our lack of awareness.

In reality, Jesus is in front of us, beside us, and holding us, all of the time. It’s just a matter of whether we know it, or not. Christ is in everything we experience. He is in both our sadness and joy, the noise and the silence, our work as well as worship, business and leisure, at night when we fall asleep and in the morning when we open our eyes.

So, if we are looking and longing for Christ, he has already come. Jesus came in the most humble forms possible. So, in order to see and experience him, we need to get low enough to see and hear him.

My Lord and my God, help me to see You in all of the ways You come to me today. Teach me not to despise any of the forms in which You come to me as being too common, humble, or ordinary.

Wake me with Your presence in the morning and tuck me into bed when I sleep. Labor with me in my work today, and cause my leisure to lead to thanksgiving.

Speak to me through the people You have ordained for me to meet today, and speak even through me, in spite of myself.

For good and for ill, better and worse, in sickness and health, and in richness and poverty, reveal Yourself to me that I may receive whatever blessing You have chosen for me this day; through Jesus Christ Your Son, my Lord, who with You and the Holy Spirit are One God, now and forever. Amen.

Consider Wisdom (Proverbs 1:1-19)

On September 5, 2024August 4, 2024 By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

The proverbs of Solomon, son of David and king of Israel.

Here are proverbs that will help you recognize wisdom and good advice, and understand sayings with deep meaning. They can teach you how to live intelligently and how to be honest, just, and fair. They can make an inexperienced person clever and teach young people how to be resourceful. These proverbs can even add to the knowledge of the wise and give guidance to the educated, so that they can understand the hidden meanings of proverbs and the problems that the wise raise.

To have knowledge, you must first have reverence for the Lord. Stupid people have no respect for wisdom and refuse to learn.

My child, pay attention to what your father and mother tell you. Their teaching will improve your character as a handsome turban or a necklace improves your appearance.

My child, when sinners tempt you, don’t give in. Suppose they say, “Come on; let’s find someone to kill! Let’s attack some innocent people for the fun of it! They may be alive and well when we find them, but they’ll be dead when we’re through with them! We’ll find all kinds of riches and fill our houses with loot! Come and join us, and we’ll all share what we steal.”

My child, don’t go with people like that. Stay away from them. They can’t wait to do something bad. They’re always ready to kill. It does no good to spread a net when the bird you want to catch is watching, but people like that are setting a trap for themselves, a trap in which they will die. Robbery always claims the life of the robber—this is what happens to anyone who lives by violence. (Good News Translation)

“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
Theodore Roosevelt

A proverb is a short pithy statement of experiential truth. Proverbs are meant to teach one how to live a good life. This sort of education requires a lifetime of learning. There is always wisdom to be gained.

In order to have true understanding and wisdom, there needs to be a balance of intellectual knowledge, affective feeling, and intuitive knowledge. Only possessing some of these elements makes one nothing more than a half-wit.

A commitment to virtue, morality, and ethics is a must in the acquisition of wisdom, and thus, a good life. Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual maturity all take time. Marinading over a long period of time in the wisdom of biblical proverbs will prove to be a life saver. At the end of one’s life, they can look back with gratefulness and satisfaction, instead of sorrow and regret.

So, from the very outset of approaching the Book of Proverbs, the mindset and heart stance must not be one of popping a few proverbial pills in order to achieve a self-centered goal or gain an immediate solution.

Rather, proverbial wisdom demands daily immersion in its wise sayings. It requires implementation and experimentation every single day. There needs to be decisive action, coupled with contemplative reflection. Anything short of this truncates and stunts one’s growth.

There is yet one more necessary prerequisite toward the sagacious and good life. Without this, nothing is possible. But with this, all things are possible: Acknowledgment, awareness, and adoration of the Lord.

A fool is one who stubbornly refuses to take in the full range of epistemic knowledge. Being only book smart is to actually be stupid. To be only a walking heart of emotional intelligence is foolish. And to live only by gut instinct alone is to cut off yourself from wisdom’s teaching.

A wise life includes the head, the heart, and the gut – and to have them all aligned together as an integral whole. To live other than this is to live as a fool who believes they already have the answers and the key to knowledge and understanding.

Furthermore, this means that to take God and transcendent things off of the table, to begin with, is the most foolish decision a person can make. Conversely, to forsake the intellectual life and believe that all one needs is the spiritual, is to betray a woefully foolish approach to the good life.

There are also those who distance themselves from family, especially parents. On some level, this makes sense, if one had a childhood full of traumatic memories and difficult relationships.

However, learning to honor even these parents is to place oneself on the path of wisdom, and to learn what the good life truly entails. And this approach allows the person to see the good, and strain out the bad.

In other words, we discover that good and bad, wise and foolish, smart and stupid, exists within everyone and in every place. Wholesale jettisoning of persons and/or institutions gains us little to nothing.

This distancing from family and/or God is an attempt to assert some control, to effect one’s willpower upon life. But this will lead us away from the true path of wisdom.

That’s because wisdom is not something to be mastered. Wise sayings don’t exist to be collected, and their sagacity harnessed for one’s personal goals.

Yes, we are to avail ourselves of wisdom, yet perhaps not as we may believe or think. We do not capture wisdom, but are captured by it.

The importance of this mental, emotional, and spiritual stance must not be undervalued. We only learn wisdom by means of humility and reverence before powers greater than ourselves. Any vestige of pride in us shall cause wisdom to disappear and slip from our grasp.

Only until we both intellectually and experientially recognize that the essential operations of the universe are beyond us, shall anyone begin to trust and risk in a wisdom greater than our own.

“Without humility, all shall be lost.”
St. Teresa of Avila

Put another way, if we refuse to learn from God and from our parents, then we won’t.

Only by accepting this can anyone discern what to do and don’t do, say and don’t say, when faced with competing voices.

For there is continually a voice of foolishness, of wickedness, enticing us to get what we want quickly, selfishly, without any thought to the consequences or the effect upon others. A group of such voices becomes a gang who tries outdoing each other in competitive evil.

There is also a voice of wisdom, which admonishes us to avoid the fast, fun, and friendly gang of evil speech and behavior. The wise person discerns that what the wicked person does to another, comes back upon them.

The patient and powerful voice of wisdom communicates prudence in all things, that is, to do today what will lead to a better tomorrow.

So then, my friend, what is the thing – the decision, the action, the words – that you can and will do today which will help you accomplish a good, right, and just life for yourself (and others) for tomorrow?

Great God of all wisdom, help me to trust You and follow Your precepts in every twist and turn of my life. Grant me good understanding and guide my steps, so that Your will is done on earth, as it is always done in Your heaven. Amen.

Rev. Tim Ehrhardt

Tag: awareness

Beginnings and Endings