CHAPLAINSBLOG

Lent - "Sacred Spring"

frmcn — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:29:03 -0500

The 40 days of fasting and repentance known as Lent began today for millions of Christians around the world.It is a solemn time that Christians use as a preparation to observe the holiest days of the Christian’s year, the days of our Lord’s passion, death and resurrection. We prepare ourselves for Holy Week and Easter by scrutinizing our lives through prayer, fasting, self-denial, and meditation on God’s holy Word.

The Church begins Lent with a solemn fast on a Wednesday each year which has come to be called “Ash Wednesday.” Our preparation to celebrate eternal life at Easter begins by reminding us that we are mortal and that we are fallen. We do this by placing a small amount of ash upon our forehead as sign to us of our mortality.

Despite all of our attempts to fight it we are mortal. We have an end point. We are limited and frail and finite. We just “ain’t” quite as important as we think we are. As we have a beginning, so too do we have an end. We are creatures of dust. We are made of dust and to dust we shall return. We are here for only a season, and yet we act as if we have all the time in the world. Coming to grips with one’s mortality is the hardest challenge for any human being to face.

Despite all of our attempts to deny it, we are fallen. We are sinners. We are more often than not, hypocrites, actors on a stage motivated by the applause and approval of others rather than God. We constantly fail God and fail one another. Today is the time to describe explicitly all the ways we have failed both as individuals and as a community and to say “I’m sorry.” “Lord, I did this. Nobody else. I accept responsibility for my actions.” Today is the time to say “I intend, with your help to amend my life.”

The Church calls us to this solemn fast and reminds us of our mortal and fallen human nature with the express intent that you and I will know and feel to the depths of our soul what a wonderful and awesome gift of grace and mercy has been given to us by Jesus Christ our Savior and then to live lives of graciousness and mercy to others.

I'm Tired - But Jesus Got Tired Too!

chapwin — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 12:02:29 -0500

As I sit down to write this, I’m tired - I’ve not returned home from out of state activities until Saturday evening for the last 2 weeks, and that before needing to be in church no later than 7:00 the next morning for a full day of Sunday services. Of course, there were also chores on the home front and the needs of aging parents to be considered, as well as another out of town meeting early tomorrow morning. As I said, I’m tired - physically, emotionally, and mentally drained, and the only thing holding me together right now is God. If not for God, I’d have already completely fallen apart.

Now, everybody’s been that tired sometime in their lives, probably this very week. You know what I’m talking about because you, too, one time or another, have collapsed in God’s arms for sustaining care. We come together in our common experience of exhaustion and in our shared experience of God’s help. It’s precious.

Being tired is something to which we can all relate. So many demands are constantly made on our time, our energy, our selves, that we regularly feel overwhelmed and worn out. Job, home, kids, marriage, other people, hobbies, telephones that keep ringing all the time: we want to shout, “take me away!” People go away for a weekend just to get a little rest. Moms lock themselves up in the bathroom just to have a little peace and quiet. We lie in bed in the morning, knowing it’s time to get up and get going but wishing we could just lie there a little longer. Often it seems as though we’re tired most of the time.

As Chaplain Marge reminded us last week:
Our mariners are set apart from their families and communities as they travel the globe ensuring the continuance of world commerce, so essential for our present way of life. As they go from port to port, they are strangers in foreign lands, and even when they go home, they still remain somewhat of a stranger. In the time they have been at sea, family dynamics have changed. Perhaps a new child has been born, perhaps the children are older and are presenting more challenging behaviors, and perhaps someone has become seriously ill or has died. For many and various reasons, things are just never the same as when they last left. By the time they have all re-adjusted, it is time to go to sea once again.

Well my friends, Jesus got that tired too. Beginning at Verse 21 in Chapter 1 of his gospel, Mark relates for us one of those days in our Lord’s life when too much happened in too little time. Jesus’s day began with a bang and kept on going that way well into the night. It was the Sabbath, so Jesus went to the synagogue to worship, as was his custom. His quiet time there place was shattered by a demon out whom he promptly cast. The people marveled at his power, and after worship they couldn’t stop talking about what had happened. Jesus and his friends went to Peter’s house for lunch. When they got there, they found Peter’s mother-in-law sick with a fever. Giving us all a beautiful example of how to care for mothers-in-law, Jesus healed her. He touched her and took her fever away immediately. News of this healing traveled as quickly as the news of the earlier healing in the synagogue, and, combined, they caused all the people of the region to come to Jesus, bringing their sick and those possessed by demons. What was supposed to have been a quiet day of rest for our Lord finally ended when it was dark, and a great number of people, now healed, had been given normal, healthy lives. Then everybody left. It was time to sleep. But not for Jesus. He was too wound up and exhausted, so while it was still dark, he went off to a lonely place and prayed.

Our Lord was always tired because the people came to him so much. Leprous, blind, dying, crippled, they all came to him for healing. Remember the story of the man let down through the roof? Jesus was teaching in a house. The crowd was so great already that there was no more room, no way for anybody to get in. So some people peeled back the roof and with ropes lowered their crippled friend right in front of Jesus (Mark 2:1-12). Everybody wanted a piece of the Lord. Many came, asking nothing more than to touch the fringe of his garment because those who touched it were made well (Matthew 14:36). Great crowds followed Jesus all the time. He healed them. He fed them. He taught them. He gave them so much of himself that his own family worried about his health. Matthew tells us that the Lord’s mother and brothers once came to take him home, hoping to force him to rest (Matthew 12:46).

The reason the people mobbed Jesus that way was that he was the only One who had ever been able to help them so well. Nobody else ever did the things he did. They knew he was special. Nicodemus spoke the popular opinion when he said, “Teacher, we know that you come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him” (John 3:2). The people knew Jesus was special. He is special because he is God, our only Savior.

When it all got to be too much for Jesus, he went away: Six separate times the Gospels tell us that Jesus went away by himself. He especially liked to go up into the mountains. He went away and prayed. Even on the night before his death, in the closing moments before his arrest, Jesus went to be alone for a while and to pray.

What a beautiful vision of the Lord Jesus this is. He is true God, who has the power to heal all those who were brought to him. And he is true man, who got tired from overwork. He is God with us, able to sympathize with us in our experiences of life.

Like Jesus, we as well like to get away when it gets to be too much. It feels good to leave all the pressure behind and go someplace. Unlike Jesus, however, we don’t get as much out of our get-aways as he did because we don’t do with them what he did when he went away. Jesus went away to pray. We just go away.

For our Lord, rest from all the tension of life came through prayer and quiet time with his Father in heaven. Rest came not just from “doing nothing,” but from taking all that he had to do and giving it to God. Our real rest comes in the same way, when we spend time with God.

Jesus frequently spent all night in prayer. It simply fascinates me that he could give up a whole night’s sleep and still be refreshed in the morning. When I lose a night’s sleep, I’m a mess. How did he do it? His rest, his recreation, came from God. So often when we’re lucky enough to sleep a few extra hours or to have a few extra days off, we’re still tired. David learned this fact and prayed, “Return, O my soul, to your rest” (Psalm 116:7).

We all need to pray more. The more tired we are the more we need to pray. This means more than just the same old prayers we pray regularly, the mealtime prayers and the prayers we recite from memory. Good as those prayers are, we need along with them to pray prayers that open up our lives to God as we give everything to him. Before choosing his disciples, Jesus prayed all night for guidance. Before he asked them, “Who do you say that I am?” he prayed all night. We too have been invited by him to pray without ceasing.

Jesus said, “Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Just as he went to his Father for rest, we’ll find our rest in Him also, in the Father and in our Savior. When we pour out the concerns of our life to him, telling him all that’s going on, all that’s making us tired, he takes those things away from us and makes the burden his own. Then it doesn’t weigh us down anymore. We need to pray, to “spill out our guts” to God, to share with him our life. When we try to live it alone, without him, all we get is tired.

Jesus prayed. On the cross he prayed. While he was hanging there between heaven and earth, dying to pay for all of our sins and to make us one with God, to open up the way of communication between God and us, he prayed. “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” His last words were a prayer. Jesus gave it all to God, and God sustained him. God raised him from the dead, and he lives today. He lives in us and calls us to give it all to God also, to pray so that we may finally find rest for our souls also.

And such rest may be found, my friends, in Jesus’ name.

Healing Hands

chaplainmarge — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:00:05 -0500

Mark 1: 29-34

“Jesus left the synagogue at Capernaum, and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.”

This Sunday, we hear about the second miracle healing in Mark’s Gospel. Clearly, one of the messages that Jesus brings to all is God’s unconditional love, faithfulness, compassion, and desire that all may be made well and whole. Those who were ill or who were possessed by demons were frequently shunned by society: they were set apart. Restoring them to health and wholeness restored them to community, necessary for one’s well-being. We also note the appropriate response of the one healed. When Simon’s mother-in-law’s fever left, she began to serve or minister to them. This was not because she was well and had to get back to “women’s work,” rather, because she had been healed, in gratitude she reached out to others in sharing God’s healing love.

Our mariners are set apart from their families and communities as they travel the globe ensuring the continuance of world commerce, so essential for our present way of life. As they go from port to port, they are strangers in foreign lands, and even when they go home, they still remain somewhat of a stranger. In the time they have been at sea, family dynamics have changed. Perhaps a new child has been born, perhaps the children are older and are presenting more challenging behaviors, and perhaps someone has become seriously ill or has died. For many and various reasons, things are just never the same as when they last left. By the time they have all re-adjusted, it is time to go to sea once again.

So, we connect with God in prayer for strength, guidance, healing and restoration with our families and those others we leave behind.

A Litany for Healing

Officiant Let us name before God those for whom we offer our prayer: (silently or aloud) God the Father, your will for all people is health and salvation;

People We praise you and thank you, O Lord.

Officiant God the Son, you came that we might have life, and might have it more abundantly;

People We praise you and thank you, O Lord.

Officiant God the Holy Spirit, you make our bodies the temple of your presence;

People We praise you and thank you, O Lord.

Officiant Holy Trinity, one God, in you we live and move and have our being;

People We praise you and thank you, O Lord.

Officiant Lord, grant your healing grace to all who are sick, injured, or disabled, that they may be made whole;