Lament

On Sunday our very own Tyndale Student Emma Clarke will be preaching on the subject of Lament.  

A lament is a passionate expression of grief or mourning often found in music or poetry.  If you have ever read through the book of Psalms, you’ll recognize over forty of the 150 psalms to be psalms of lament.

This is a timely subject for our family. On Tuesday evening, Brian’s 85 year old mother, Mary, passed away. Mary was a faithful, religious woman whose life was defined by serving God, serving her pastor husband, Bob and serving others.  She loved the church and her life revolved around it.  

Five or so years ago, it was clear that Mary was forgetting things. Her memory of the things that brought her joy did not seem as clear. Mary was diagnosed with dementia.

For the past four and half years, Brian’s mom has been in a caring nursing home in Picton, ON.

In her earlier time there, Mary would welcome visits and weekly heart-to-heart chats on the phone with her eldest son. In the past few years, however, when Brian would visit his mom, it was though she was looking straight through him. The mom that spent summers at the cottage with her three boys seemed very, very far away. The mom that loved to do puzzles on rainy days and sunny days alike, no longer searched the table for small pieces. She seemed, instead, to stare at his face as though she were searching to put the larger pieces of her life together.  But in the searching, nothing. No recognition.  The mom he knew, no longer seemed to know him.  It was heart wrenching to watch.  Each month she seemed to slip further and further away.  

The grieving had begun, even though she was living. 

Lament.

My God, My God, Why?

Mourning, grieving, loss.    

Scripture teaches us that it is okay to face the pain and heartache we feel. We are taught that we can and should cry out to God in the midst of that pain.  The psalms of Lament are our example, each with a common structure of moving from negative to positive, from sorrow to joy.  Psalms of lament are a theology, a doxology, and a form of worship. They are reminders of truth. They are exercises in faith. They are transformative for the believer. And there is much we can learn from them.

We learn that in our grief we can cry out to God (Psalm 6:6), we can ask for help (Psalm 71:12) and like the psalmist we can, in remembering the love and faithfulness of God, respond in trust and praise (Psalm 86:12).

Join us on Sunday as Emma takes us on a journey in understanding the Psalms of Lament. 

Keep on Keeping on.

You don’t have to be a basketball fan to know that Toronto is abuzz over the Raptors’ move to the NBA finals. And I think you would have to be living under a rock not to recognize the name Kawhi Leonard.

As Emily spoke about perseverance on Sunday during the KidsZone moment, I couldn’t help think of Leonard.  He and the Raptors were fresh in my mind after watching the series-clinching game the night before.

After Emily fiiinalllllly opened the jar, I recalled an interview with Leonard about his last season before coming to the Raptors. He was asked how he overcame one of the toughest episodes of his career to get to where he is now. 

Kawhi Leonard pointed people to God:

“Yeah. Last year was a very down year for me. Was going through a lot, with everything that was going on,” Kawhi explained, referencing the injury and team change.

“God is good,” said Leonard, who has “Fear God, not them” tattooed on his right arm. “I prayed every day and then ended up getting healthy. Now I’m able to play basketball, and you could just see what He does for you.’’

• Perseverance

• Humility

• Faith in God

Kawhi Leonard is known to be a man of very few words. He could have spoken about his intense work ethic, the hardships he has endured or his good luck, but in that situation he chose humility.  He chose to give glory to God.

Perseverance, humility and faith in God are qualities not just for sports heroes, they apply also to you and me.

Perseverance means having persistence and tenacity. It means being resolute and unyielding while pursuing or following a course of action and for you and me, it means persevering in the faith despite the many obstacles.

Romans 5:3-5 “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

So friends, keep on keeping on!

https://www.faithwire.com/2019/05/14/i-prayed-every-day-toronto-raptors-star-kawhi-leonard-says-faith-in-god-helped-him-through-low-point-of-career/

Extravagant Worship

On Sunday we talked about worship and ever since I have been thinking about the unnamed woman who had encounter with Jesus (Luke 7: 36-50). We’re not told much by Luke about this woman, and yet what we are told is enough to understand that this woman was a prostitute.  

Imagine, this woman waking up on this particular morning to the realization that she is alone and once again abandoned by the former night’s guest. Empty, alone, rejected and miserable.  

And perhaps, on this morning, outside her window she hears the sounds of voices, people begging for healing and deliverance and other voices shouting words of anger and hatred. 

I can imagine her going over to her window to hear what the commotion is all about. She hears the crowd quite as a man in his thirties speaks compassionately to an older woman, who was ready to bury her only son.

“Don’t cry” Jesus said as he reached out and touched the coffin

“Young man, I say to you, get up!” and the dead man sat up and began to talk.

From her room where she watched the crowd gather this woman realized that this man Jesus, was no ordinary man. Unable to leave her window she continued to grasp every word and clung to every phrase which Jesus spoke to the crowd that gathered around him.

He spoke like no one she had ever heard before. He spoke with authority, as if he were speaking directly to her. And as Jesus continued to instruct those gathered around, the woman hears for the fist time the tremendous truth of the gospel message. 

She understands for the first time that there is a God that loves her, that will never leave her, never forsake her. She believes what she hears, that there is a God that can fill her emptiness and make her clean.

And there in her tiny little hovel, in the darkness of her room she comes face to face with the light of redemption.

Tears begin to flow. She knows that she needs to be in his presence, if only for a moment,

 so she rushes to the street only to find the crowd dispersing and that Jesus had left.

In anguish and heart wrenching sorrow she cries out for the One who has changed her life. Desperately she runs to nearby alleys searching for the man of redemption.

‘No! Not again, has he left me too? I can not lose him, He is my only hope!’  She cries to herself.

And then someone says to her “if you are looking for the Rabbi he has gone to the home of Simon the Pharisee”

Quickly running to the place where Jesus had gone to eat, this woman finds Jesus reclining at the table. She falls at the feet of the Saviour and begins to weep. With tears flowing from her sobbing heart, she washed the Lord’s tired feet with her tears and wiped away the soil with her hair. Then she pours a valuable perfume upon His feet from her alabaster jar, which she carried with her. 

Can you imagine the depth of this woman’s tears being enough to clean the dusty feet of Jesus? Imagine the gratitude that moved her to boldly display her devotion and adoration. Imagine the courage it took to approach Jesus in the manner she did, but it didn’t matter, for her love for Jesus knew no bounds.

Luke tells us in this passage that the common courtesies of the day were not shown to Jesus by his host. The feet washing, being greeted by a kiss and anointing of oil/perfume upon the head. 

In verse 44 we read ….

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Jesus makes it very clear that it is not what the woman did that saved her, it was her FAITH.  

The extravagant act of love and worship came as a result of the forgiveness and love she received from God.  Her obedient act of faith then led her to respond in worship.

Jesus commends the faith that led to her extraordinary demonstration of love.  “Your faith” he says, “has saved you; go in peace”.

I long to worship Jesus as this woman with the alabaster jar of perfume did!  Excessively, abundantly, lavishly, …extravagantly.  Without fear of judgment or ridicule.

So what is worship?

True worship is when one’s spirit adores and connects with the spirit of God.  When the very core of one’s being is found in loving God.

True worship is not about songs being sung, although music is a wonderful expression of worship, it is not itself the essence of it.

True worship is a lifestyle and it happens when we put God first in our lives.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and will all your mind and with all your strength…. Mark 12:30. This verse, I believe, captures the essence of what worship really means.  WE can do all the right things, but if we are not doing this first, then we are not truly worshiping. 

Let’s worship God, extravagantly!