Lake Louise Church of the Nazarene

What difference would it make if we knew that whatever happened to us, God could bring something awesome out of it?

What difference would it make if we knew that no matter how hard or painful our life situation was, God walked with us and would give us the strength to make it through?

What difference would it make if you knew that no matter how hard the battle or how fierce the foe, you could not lose?

Life will beat us up. Life will try to steal what joy we have. Life will hurt. And, at the end of our lives we will bear the scars of a thousand battles. We will have wounds that show the ferocity of those battles.

We will look back with tears and shake at the terrors we have faced.

We will have fought the good fight.

We will have given everything we had to living this life.

We will have no regrets.

We will stand on the other side of life victorious.

What difference would it make if this is what you believed?

Have you ever used a public restroom? They can be amazingly dirty places. I have cleaned more than my share of bathrooms from schools to restaurants. I used to be shocked with what people do in a restroom. There were times when I stood flabbergasted and would ask questions about how these bathrooms got so trashed. Questions like “How far were you standing from the urinal?” “Was the seat stuck and you couldn’t put it up?” “How could you miss?” And, in all of my experience, I have come to believe that people don’t treat their own bathrooms like public bathrooms.

A friend of mine owns some rental properties. One of the houses was abandoned by the renter and it was trashed. They used a claw hammer on the walls, and it was adorned with crayon drawings on every wall. I wonder if the renters would have treated that house differently if they owned it.

For the most part, we treat things differently if we own them or are borrowing them. These things are not ours so we are a little less careful than we would be otherwise. I don’t know that it is universal, but public bathrooms make me wonder.

What does this have to do with God or Christianity? A lot actually. “This world is not my home, I’m just passin’ through,” is a common phrase in Christian circles. And the Apostle Peter refers to the believers as strangers in the world. These words give a person the sense that we are not here for the long haul. We are just visiting because this isn’t really our home. We are just renting, not buying.

But what if we have misunderstood what the biblical writers are talking about? What if we have been treating this world like a rental, and it is actually ours to keep? I know, I know, I can hear some of you getting ready to call me a heretic. But give me a minute.

If we are just passing through and going on to a better place, it is easy to look at the problems of this world and think they are someone else’s responsibility. But Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6.9). We are supposed to pray for God’s kingdom to come here on earth. We are called to be representatives of God’s kingdom on earth.

“In John 18 and 19,” theologian N.T. Wright says, “we find Jesus himself standing before Caesar’s representative, speaking of a kingdom which is not from this world but which is decidedly for this world, speaking of a truth which will blow Caesar’s kingdom right out of the water, speaking of power which comes from God and because of which the earthly wielders of power are to be called to account.”

We are called to confront the problems of this world. We are not only called, but we are given power to challenge the authorities of this world. We are called to fight injustice. We are called to confront hunger, discrimination, hatred and prejudice. We are not called to pray that God deals with these problems while giving us an airlift to heaven. We are called to make a difference in this world for the kingdom of God. If we keep thinking that we are escaping this world we can have a tendency to treat it like it is a rental. It isn’t a rental; it is a place we have to redeem.

Let me go back to the restroom idea. If we think of the earth as some place we are going to escape, we will likely treat it like a public restroom. We go into a bathroom because we have to. We need to use it. We look around at how dirty and disgusting it is and think that someone should really come in and clean it. We would be right, someone should clean it up. That someone is us!

This Lenten season, will you join me in considering what it means to be representatives of God’s kingdom on earth? Will you join me in making a difference and bringing heaven here on earth? I don’t want to talk to Jesus one day and find out I treated his prized possession like a rental or a restroom, do you?

I like classical music. I know there are many types of music; rap, rock, blues, jazz and classical to name a few. And of all the music out there, the music I don’t get is Avant-garde. It is music that is full of discordant, non-existent rhythm or form. There are long sections of discord and few brief interludes of harmony. The harmony is welcome and all too brief. It’s almost as if you could pick the ‘song’ up anywhere and there would be no difference. Avant-garde is musical chaos. A symphony on the other hand is full of rhythm and harmony. Yes, there are moments of discord but they quickly or ultimately end in beauty.

Our lives without Christ are avant-garde. It is full of discord and disharmony. The brief moments of harmony are all too short and quickly resolve into nerve jarring and ear shattering noise.

With Christ our lives take on a dynamic that is full of challenge and change. It is full of beauty and harmony. The rhythm of our lives, just like a symphony and its many movements, will change. There will moments of slowing and moments of increasing tempo. There will quiet and imperceptible changes and subtle harmonies that will often go unnoticed. There will be passages that the volume will increase to the point of shear loudness but will resolve into tranquility and peace.

In the symphony of life our discordant notes are not the rule but moments or measures of our life where we feel the need for harmony most keenly. And the conductor of life will ultimately resolve those measures in beauty.

Our lives are sometimes the melody. We play our notes and there is a comfort in these notes, a familiarity. Sometimes our lives are harmony. We don’t understand the part we play. There is something vaguely familiar, but it escapes us. Sometimes our lives are the discordant note that is harsh, unlikable and unappealing. We play our notes and wince at the volume and tone. And those not playing the same tune will look at us like we are nuts. It is not until we play our notes in the company of others that the true wonder of the composers work is fully appreciated.

It is in a life with Christ that each of our parts come together and makes sense. But it is also in the playing the parts to the end. There are unfinished symphonies, there are unfinished lives. God has not written an unfinished work. There are movements, transitions, and different musical journeys and feelings. It is in the completion of the piece that one finds resolution to the conflicts introduced. You cannot listen to a symphony and stop at a conflict. It must be finished to understand why it was there. It must be played completely through in order to understand and see what the conductor’s ultimate goal was in the writing.

Each one of us has been given an instrument and notes to play. Each one of us has a part. Alone we may find the parts boring, tedious or too difficult. Alone we find our instrument lacks importance. In an orchestra, however, each part and note brings a splendor we hoped for. In an orchestra our single note takes on consequence. It means something. It is important. In the orchestra of life we shout that our notes and instruments matter.

While I believe that a child with a $5 toy piano could write an avant-garde piece of music, it takes a master’s touch to write a true masterpiece. I have heard different orchestras play the same composition of music and each had a slightly different interpretation, even though the music was the same. It was played with excellence and it pointed to the skill of the conductor and the skill of the composer.

Our symphonic lives bring glory to God, the Creator of our lives, and Jesus Christ the author and finisher of our faith. Your instrument matters, your note or notes matter. Play. Play with all that you have been given. Seek the orchestra and play. You will find beauty. You will find you matter. You will find that God knows what He is doing. And you will find purpose. I promise.