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Palm Sunday & Lamb Selection Day

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This was originally published March 29, 2015, but has been updated with the sermon after the initial event.

Yesterday my wife and I were talking about Holy Week, Passover, and sheep. Part of the whole point of God having the Jewish people keep a lamb for a week was so that they would be close to it and attached to it before they ate it. It wasn’t just going to be food, it was going to be a sacrifice. It was a memorial of the Passover.

The Passover was the greatest event in Jewish history. They were delivered from slavery and became a new nation. Part of that deliverance involved killing a lamb, putting it’s blood above the doorway to your house, and waiting.

There is a lot more in here that I’m not going to cover, but it involves the Egyptian sheep god, the fact that Egyptians thought shepherds were unclean, the other 9 plagues that came before that, etc.

But this post isn’t about Passover, really, it’s more about getting a lamb, keeping it for a week, and then killing it. It’s one thing to read about it, and to read about how living with a lamb for a week makes you attached to it, and you love it. By the end of the week, you saw something dearly loved give up it’s life for you. Throughout the week you had the constant reminder “This lamb came into my house for one purpose: to die for me.”

The lamb was supposed to be without blemish. That means that people couldn’t save the deformed, diseased, injured lambs and ‘waste’ them on the sacrifice. They had to bring their best, cared for and curated lamb. It has an effect of fasting, really. You are constantly thinking about that critter, not wanting it to get hurt, preventing injury because of the Lord. You’re not just caring for the sheep, but in your care for the sheep, you are caring for a guideline set by the Lord.

It hasn’t been 24 hours yet, and we’ve already seen some great things. As I carried that 100 lb furball over to the park to graze on some grass, my affections grew. All of my kids ‘BAAAAAH’ out the windows throughout the day and they are all jumping around chasing Sheepie(as they call her).

My wife is attached too, calling her Miss Agnes in a funny baby voice. We are all becoming attached to this lamb, just like we are supposed to.

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Here is the sermon I preached after it was all over. It was the best Easter ever.

Lent Resolutions

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I’m terrible at New Year’s resolutions like 90% of the rest of you. For 7 years now I’ve resolved to juggle 5 by the end of the year, and only this year did I actually buy 2 more softballs to add to the 3 I can already juggle. New Year’s Day is a terrible day to start anything new anyway. You are tired, the day is short and cold, you aren’t in your groove because you have the day off work, and it’s rarely a starting day like Sunday or Monday.

Instead, let me present to you the ancient practice of Lent.

Lent is the period of time where traditionally, the church has fasted and prayed and repented in order to prepare for Easter. A period of treating yourself severely to make yourself more holy in preparation for Easter Sunday. Some people fast from chocolate, or red meat on Fridays, or social media. It’s like many other fasts, where people typically abstain from something that is really a good thing to abstain from. You’d be healthier and better off to lay off the chocolate and steaks on Fridays anyway!

Lent offers you a chance to change your life for better reasons than the changing of the year. You can change habits in your life because Jesus has risen from the dead! With an eye toward Easter Sunday, you can choose what stuff to give-up and add to your life in a different way than you would on New Year’s.

It’s not about holiness. Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection have fully completed all of our need for holiness. It’s not about self-improvement, because Jesus is using the Holy Spirit to work inside of you to make you as improved as He wants you to be. It’s about habits and preferences and the little things we do in the day that either stall life or point it toward the Lord.

Take these bright and getting brighter days leading up to the anniversary of the greatest event ever and give your habits a jolt. The increased time with the Lord will grow you and the time away from whatever you fast from will make you healthier. And then on Easter, your celebration of Christ’s resurrection will be richer because you aren’t just marking it on the calendar, but in practice.

Extra Presence for Christmas

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This week we have been doing one of the things that our Christian community, The People of Praise, does regularly all over the United States: we’ve been a ‘household.’ We aren’t the only ones doing this, from the looks of Instagram, but everyone else calls it ‘having house guests.’

Having someone stay at your house is inconvenient. You have to be sensitive to more people’s bed times, you have to wait an extra rotation on the bathroom (we only have one!), you have to NOT walk around the house in your boxers but actually take a minute to put on your pajamas and DEFINITELY close the door when you use the bathroom (we only have one!)

At the same time, there really is something holy about the whole ordeal. Keith Hueftle has a whole book on the grace-lovingkindness-hesed of God  shown in the Bible through hospitality. As we are continually considering others better than ourselves with our houseguest, we are given a chance to fulfill what Jesus said-

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. – John 13:34

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” – Matthew 22:36-40

Of all of the various spiritual exercises we do, don’t they all turn us from convenience and comfort towards fulfilling something that the Lord wants to do, as a practical activity (give somebody a place to stay) and as a spiritual one (help work out areas that I’m selfish) all at the same time? What is even better is that it is over Christmas, so all of our family gatherings, driving around town, and hustle and bustle (a phrase we only use during Christmas?!) have an extra player in the game. (Literally, we have an almost perpetual board game going on through December and she is always able and willing to join in and play.)

Joseph and Mary were house guests, since they had to leave their normal home and go back to Joseph’s family’s house to be counted in a census. All of the reality of travel and couch-surfing is often lost when we see the abandoned cottage with a few animals in it around Christmas.

It was crowded, they were away from home, a baby was being born, and stranger shepherds were showing up out of nowhere to give them compliments and be amazed.

Praise God for the greater reality He shows us every day about the real life of His Son and the Nativity on Earth.

Merry Christmas, dear reader. Now I have to go hit the shower before everyone wakes up. (We only have one bathroom!)

Tithing, Giving, and Sharing

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I am a part of a community that values keeping things in common. The funny part about that is, as I observe my own habits changing and adjusting to that lifestyle, I want to have fewer things.

I’m not sure if it’s because

  • subconsciously I don’t want to buy something if I have to share it, or if
  • I feel like I need things less because I’m getting personal fullfillment from relationships, or if
  • I assume that whatever the thing is that I want to buy is probably already owned by somebody else and I can borrow it.

It could be any of those things. My car broke down last week, brakes, transmission, electrical system (windows won’t roll down except for 1) etc. and I’ve ridden my bike all week. As I look for a car, and wonder how in the world I would pay for it, I can’t help but see that any $3,000 car purchase is competeing with my riding my bike 1.8 miles every day and putting that money into something else. Like my life. Like my life in community.

It really turns the Dave Ramsey stuff on it’s head. While the majority of the motivation for the Dave Ramsey stuff is guilt about credit card debt and goals to have a Disney vacation, I’m slowly being molded into having a budget and being thrifty because I care and love the people I’m sharing life with. Granted we don’t share checking accounts and give all our money away and all of that.

It’s not a legalism, it’s community.

You can do whatever you want, and as you share in the joy of being able to buy a friend a ticket to Avengers, or buy a few cases of Mountain Dew to share on your garden work day, you realize there is a joy in sharing that goes eons beyond the joy of tithing or giving.