Milton Stanley posts that Rusty Peterman, minister and fellow blogger, suffered a stroke recently. Please pray for his speedy and complete recovery!

You’ve read the books. You’ve seen the movies.

So have I. But can any of us really force ourselves to experience what it must have been like on that first Good Friday?

The millions of words written to describe it can’t begin to. More gruesome than any horror story; more heart-breaking than any romance; more soul-wrenching than any account of innocents suffering and dying.

Because it’s not just one Man. It’s all of us. He dies there for all of us.

And we’re not innocent; not by a long shot.

One word from His lips could have stopped it and obliterated us all forever.

But that word was not, is not, cannot be in His nature.

That’s a very good thing, because He could still say it.

That makes today a very Good Friday.

I’ve never “given up” anything for Lent before. It wasn’t part of my religious tradition in the churches of Christ I’ve attended. Over the years, I’ve heard – and even made – jokes about giving up watermelons for Lent (I don’t like them and they’re not in season); the tragedy of folks who gave up chocolate just before Girl Scout cookie delivery time and such.

I don’t know why. I’ve fasted with prayer several times before, especially when Angi and I were trying to adopt and were blessed with our two beautiful children.

But this year I felt challenged by some fellow bloggers and article-writers who have made a Lenten fast part of their heritage, Catholic or otherwise, and have been blessed by it.

This year I stopped drinking soft drinks at the beginning of the Lenten season. That’s forty days and six Sundays without the bubbly stuff. It may seem silly or pointless or even easy for some, but it started out to be really difficult for me.

I love Mountain Dew. I work on a campus that has an arrangement with Pepsi-Cola, and there are Mountain Dew vending machines everywhere.

I promised myself early on (myself; not God – I wasn’t sure I could go through with it!) that I’d drink only coffee, tea, water, milk or juice until Easter. Each time I felt that insatiable craving for Mountain Dew, I would pause to be thankful – if for nothing else, for the luxury of living surrounded by a veritable sea of soft drinks!

As the fast progressed, I found plenty of other things to be thankful for. And I found the craving was diminishing. After a while, I occasionally even forgot to take that moment out for thanksgiving. Oops!

I knew it wouldn’t be a proper fast, though, if I didn’t celebrate it in the spirit of Isaiah 58:1-7. So I also resolved to save the coins I would have plugged into those vending machines, and instead plug them into a fundraising can for Riley’s Warriors. It may not be quite the same as God’s admonition through Isaiah to share food with the hungry, but it does benefit families with special-needs children, giving them a free, much-needed “day off” from that intensive care through qualified specialists and caregivers. Many parents of such children spend all they have – money, time, energy, love, enthusiasm – providing that care 24/7, and they deserve a break.

My children noticed my Lenten fast right away. They know I don’t like iced tea very much, yet I was drinking it a lot. So when they asked, I told them what it was all about.

I told them that there isn’t any way I can sacrifice enough to repay the debt Jesus paid on a Friday before Easter … but this is a way that helps others a little, and helps me remember – a lot, and often.

I’ve been faithful to the fast. I don’t know if I could have been as faithful if I had tried to fast like my blogging buddy Travis Stanley, who gave up blogging. And he has been faithful, to the point that I haven’t even seen him comment on others’ blogs for the whole season.

That just might have been too much of a sacrifice to ask of myself.

Maybe next year.

Because I’ve been very blessed by this fast. I don’t see myself giving up sacrifice for Lent any more.

And I’m thankful, more than anything else, that Jesus didn’t.

At a party – a wedding party, no less – the traditional first century beverage was the blood of the grape, distilled and refined and served with generosity.

Jesus, his mother Mary and friends were in attendance at one in Cana of Galilee (way up on the wrong side of Samaria and a good walk from home in Nazareth) when the wine ran out.

Respectfully – as was the custom of the time, no doubt – she actually made no request. She simply went to Him and shared with Him the bad news: “They have no more wine.”

Did He divine her thoughts? Did He have to, or did He just know what she wanted as a son knows a mother’s heart? He answered her fondly: “Dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.”

She had planted the seed. Whether He stood there or moved on, we aren’t told. But she turned to the servants and told them: “Do whatever he tells you.”

Was Mary just concerned about friends hosting a wedding party who were suddenly in an embarrassing situation? Did she just have confidence in His ability to stealthily pass the hat? Were the guests already soused and rowdy, and apt to riot if the news became known? Had she seen Him do something supernatural and super-quickly to stem an emergency before? Was she pressing Him to make himself known? To reveal His glory so His friends would believe in Him? That seemed to be His interpretation.

It certainly was the one which proved true. As obedient to His mother as He was to His Father, He looked around for an opportunity and spotted six big 20- or 30-gallon stone jars nearby, usually filled with clean water for dipping out to wash one’s hands during the long wedding party. This late in the party – the guests doubtless overstaying their welcome when the wine ran out – the jars were no longer filled. He told the servants, “Fill the jars with water.”

So they filled each one to the brim. Then He told them to draw some out and take it to the caterer.

Does it matter to you or anyone else whether the miracle was in the pouring or the dipping or the tasting? Did it matter to the servants, or to Jesus, or to Mary? What was the caterer’s opinion?

The caterer tasted what was brought to him, and was probably pretty well put out. He didn’t know where it came from, and he didn’t deign to ask the servants. So he pulled the bridegroom aside and told him that most people bring out the good stuff first and then the cheap stuff later, after everyone has already had too much to drink. “But you’ve saved the best stuff till now!” he exclaimed.

The best stuff.

Kegs of it. Maybe 120 – 180 gallons. Enough to keep the party going a long, long time.

Don’t get me wrong. This is no diatribe in defense of overdoing it with alcohol. It’s not a demand to serve wine rather than grape juice in the cup you drink from during Communion. It’s just an interesting situation to me.

The Son of God chose to perform His first miracle at a wedding party in Cana of Galilee, and He chose to exchange water for wine. Not cheap wine. But the good stuff. The best stuff.

His mother wouldn’t have had it any other way.

It wouldn’t be the last miracle He performed while in that body. In fact, for His last one He chose to exchange death for life. Not cheap, watered-down, sour, vinegar-y ‘take-away-a-little-pain- while-You’re-dying-on-a-cross- as-Your-mother-watches-You-bleed’ life. But the good stuff; the eternal stuff; the stuff that lasts and is worth having forever. The best life.

His Father wouldn’t have approved of anything less.

– from the account in John 2:1-11

(Nagged by a comment made by Fred Peatross on his blog months ago that Christian bloggers don’t seem to talk about Jesus very much, I’ve decided to start a new blog to pursue the quest started here. You can find it at this link: What Would Jesus Do Next?)

A promise once made to the mortal and lost
A present paid for at extravagant cost
A future for those who have already died
A new life for those who feel dead inside
 
A lie to all those who will not believe truth
A fairy tale to those who’ve outgrown their youth
A threat to all those who invest in today
A detour to those who must make their own way
 
A wholeness of body that can’t be destroyed
A perfectness filling an imperfect void
A reality that’s mostly unrealized
A treasure reserved for those dearly prized
 
A nail-mark still seen in His feet and His hands
A life filled with gratitude that it demands
A purpose, a mission for those He would send
A worship beginning … that never can end
 

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” – I Peter 1:3-5

I’ve just returned from three days at Space Camp with my 12-year-old son Matthew and his sixth-grade class.

As long as I can remember knowing about the Marshall Space Flight Center I’ve wanted to go; to see the Rocket Park and the museum. I’ve made pilgrimmages to Houston and Canaveral, but this was my maiden voyage to Redstone-land.

Yet, it’s not the extraordinary interactive exhibits, the glimpses of Space Academy simulations or the huge actual rockets (including a space shuttle, Saturns V and I-B, Titan, Atlas and several Redstones) that have left the most lasting impression. It isn’t designing and making a rocket from a paper tube or a hot-air balloon from tissue paper and paste. It isn’t the two IMAX movies or the technology or even the chutzpah of the pioneers of space.

It’s the Space Camp counselors.

And their diversity. Not just in race, gender, size, shape, innovation, flexibility, knowledge of their material and personality. What impresses me most is the diversity in the two most important areas: their love for the kids, and their passion for telling the story of the space program.

Robert took us boys and parent-chaperones to our quarters in the Habitat. He’s a by-the-book guy: fall-in, count off, zip it when ordered. He was new, and referred frequently to his prompt cards. His job was to communicate a certain amount of material to his charges, and they were not there to prevent him from doing his job.

Steve, on the other had, adored the kids. His fall-in call was “Kool-Aid!” and their loud response was “Oh, YEAH!” He knew his museum by heart and shared it the same way.

The 77 kids from both campuses of my son’s school – and all the parent-chaperones – were parsed into three groups. Our group (the self-named “Space Monkeys”) was assigned to Tammy the first day, to Ashley most of the second day, and to Tammy again in the evening. Soft-spoken Ashley’s fall-in call (they each had their own) was “Can you hear me now?” and our response was “Loud and CLEAR!” Though she was new and still referred to her cards often, she telegraphed her enthusiasm for the subject. She reversed the definitions of “rendezvous” and “docking,” but she had a great example that the kids could act out.

Tammy didn’t have a fall-in call. She didn’t need one. The kids just seemed to know from her non-verbals what she wanted and needed them to do, and they fell in because she was willing to completely re-do their schedule on the spot so they could spend cold-and-wet weather time indoors and visit Rocket Park when it was warm and sunny.

I heard other counselors as we wandered the museum during the “Museum Search” time. I encountered one young lady in particular who knew more about rocketry and more about the space program than anyone at the Smithsonian or NASA. Her delivery was absolutely arresting. She held the children in her group spellbound, telling all the little inside stories: Alan Shepherd’s bladder dilemma atop the Mercury/Redstone stack … Gus Grissom’s difficulties with blown hatches and corned-beef sandwiches … John Young’s attempt at the highest jump ever on the moon in a spacesuit that weighed only 30 pounds there, but still had 180 pounds of inertia. She could and would answer each question. I would tell you her name, but my eyes never left hers to see her name tag.

You could tell the true believers from the self-deceivers in a matter of moments.

You could almost predict which ones would wash out in weeks, and which ones would still be docents well into retirement age, as many of the museum docents were.

And, inevitably, I had to ask myself: How do I come across when I’m sharing the Story?

The Story I’m compelled to tell is not a story of space and time, but of unbounded love and eternity. Do I tell it with passion? Do I put it into action? Do I check my crib sheets too often? Do I cherish each listener?

Or am I just doing a job and trying to keep the rowdy in line?

Why is it so difficult to reconcile?

Broken promises, people, homes, nations. We’ve broken faith.

We can’t un-do the damage done. We grasp our grudges. We harbor hate. We can’t forget, even when we can forgive.

God can. He, too, has offered His trust … and been betrayed. Still He yearns for reconciliation.

Like a Father to a prodigal child. Like a hen to her baby chicks. Like a Man on a cross to the ones who put Him there.

It should bring us to our knees in prayer and praise. But …

Do we dare say our thanks and sing our worship to Him while still at odds with others His Son died for?

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” – Matthew 5:23-24

I’m past the stage of shock now, two weeks after catching up with my best friend from junior high school.

“Catching up” isn’t the right phrase, though. It was as if I had him back, for a few moments. Then I lost him again.

Let me explain. We were inseparable from the moment we met. He attended a church that would have – at least in our parents’ eyes – made us spiritual cousins, but we knew we were brothers. We played chess. We launched rockets together. We talked Trek. His birthday was exactly one year behind mine, to the day.

When he went to college, he showed me this incredible device called a computer to which only he and a few others had lock, key and password access. It was fantastic. He showed me a game that printed on a plotter the path of a landing lunar module as you periodically typed in thrust commands and the screen displayed remaining fuel and distance and speed. He wanted to become a medical doctor, but I could tell he had a great affinity for this new device. I encouraged him to think about what it could mean if someone created, with the device, a huge repository of medical information from which doctors could draw.

We didn’t stay in touch, other than Christmas cards and the occasional phone call over the many years. The Christmas cards stopped a couple of years ago. Now I know why.

I Googled his name one day out of a sudden stroke of curiosity. The results happened to show up more or less chronologically.

He had become a medical doctor. He had written scholarly papers about creating medical databases and how doctors could use PDAs in the rounds, years before these became common practices. He had labored at the forefront of protecting those databases from corruption in a Y2K crisis.

Then, just five years ago, he volunteered as a street medic at some anti-war protests, expecting to treat the sort of injuries that one treats at marathons and street fairs and parades. Something went wrong. There was some violence. There were serious injuries. My friend began writing articles about methods used to subdue the protests. He began to wonder why unarmed people would put themselves into physical danger to protest war as he followed more rallies in other cities.

He began to research their claims, and to write extremely well-written, documented, and defended articles about war, peace, protest, and policy. He left the profession of medicine to pursue the profession of peace. He maintained at least a couple of Web sites. He pulled no punches. He had no fear of authority. Always articulate, he coined some quotes which found their way around the Web and became more or less famous. Other sites quoted him as an authority. I was sad to see that a couple called him a humanist. Eventually, he came to host a locally-produced – but widely syndicated – television show about topics of war, peace, protest and policy.

Then, two years ago, the television show’s Web site announced his departure. His Web sites went offline. His e-mail addresses apparently went dead; my e-mails to him were returned undelivered. There were no online records of him past 2003.

Now you have guessed why I haven’t shared his name, for I do not know his fate. Whatever it is; wherever it is, he will always be my friend. True to his beliefs, true to himself, true to all others. Because when he cannot be true, he will be silent. He is Kipling’s (and Solomon’s) “Thousandth Man.” I would no more want to endanger him nor his beliefs by pursuing his friendship than he would mine.

I know what he believes. And I know why.

We are brothers.

“They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.” – Jeremiah 6:14; Jeremiah 8:11

The feet anointed for burial by a sinful woman had walked many miles, and into many places of worship.

The feet nailed to a cross had walked through Samaria to bring good news of worship in spirit and truth to another sinful woman whose concept of worship was tied to a mountain.

The nail-scarred feet His followers clung to as they worshipped Him had returned so He could remind them of His example of mission and worship. He came back to commission them to do as he had done, and – before those feet were lifted from among them one last time – to promise He would still be walking with them in Spirit.

For the beautiful feet of His followers bear a message of salvation and praise that is one and the same, just as prophesied many hundreds of years ago:

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” – Isaiah 52:7

Like my blogging buddy James Wiser, I’d be wiser to just stop writing this blog entry right now.

I’ve really got nothing against Promise Keepers. Many of my friends have found the rallies to be moving, profound, powerful experiences. I’ve never been. I’ve never been drawn to. Maybe it’s the advertising.

This morning I passed a billboard on the way to work for a PK rally in my home state. The headline was:

“Want to Be a Part of History?”

Hmm. I think I already am, as long as I have a blog. As long as I have old newspaper columns online from my career at the Abilene Reporter-News, or bylines from articles at other newspapers I’ve worked at eating themselves up on acidic newsprint in library archives. As long – as Dr. McCoy of Star Trek might say – as people remember me.

Someday I’ll die, and my obituary will be part of history, too.

It has to be hard to market something like a Promise Keepers rally. You wouldn’t get far with a headline like “Discover Your Feminine Side – Your Wife!” or “Abandon Your Family for a Weekend – They’ll Love You For It!” or “Hug and Blubber With Your Buds in a Big Stadium!” or “Get Your PK T-Shirt Here!”

But can’t they do better than “Want to Be a Part of History?”

How about, “Be A Man – Like The Son of Man”?

Or “Learn to Serve God Through Your Family”?

Or “New Marriage Paradigm: Christ Gives Himself Up For His Bride”?

Or “What Would Jesus’ Dad Do?”