Marriage - A Journey

 Next week my wife and I will celebrate our 57th anniversary. I always thought people who reached their 50^th were old.  Why aren’t we?  I still feel young when I look in her eyes. We blew past our 50^th.  

  December 21, 1968 we exchanged vows.  I lifted her veil, kissed her and we left the altar hand-in-hand to start a journey that has spanned more than half a century.  We left the church in my 1960 Chevy Impala, the kind with fins. I opened her door, she took her seat, and we started our journey.  No seatbelts! Apollo 8 launched the day we were married, the first manned flight to leave earth’s orbit.  Neither of us imagined the journey we started that day would take us “to the moon and back.”  Or so it seems.

 We have embraced orphans in Brazil and watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace; viewed Michelangelo’s painting in the Sistine Chapel and visited St Peter’s Basilica; walked along the canals of Venice; stood on the mountains overlooking Salzburg; watched the striking of the clock in Prague; spent a summer in  Nuremburg and rode the trains across Bavaria;  visited Luther’s House in Wittenburg and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s home in Berlin; toured the DMZ between North and South Korea, met at 6 am to pray with believers at a Korean church in Seoul.  We stood where Jesus stood on he shore of the Sea of Galilee and walked the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem.

 You can go a lot of places and see a lot of things in 50 years.

 We have experienced sorrow and loss, the death of parents and loved ones. We have wept beside their caskets, said our goodbyes and comforted one another.  We have known discouragement and disappointment.  We have celebrated victory and accomplishment. We have wondered in awe at the miracle of children and grandchildren.  We have experienced God’s presence, seen His glory and worshipped in many languages.

 At our wedding my college roommate sang Savior Like A Shepherd Lead Us.  It is still our song.

Savior, like a shepherd lead us, much we need Thy tender care;
In Thy pleasant pastures feed us, for our use Thy folds prepare.
We are Thine, Thou dost befriend us, be the Guardian of our way;
Keep Thy flock, from sin defend us, seek us when we go astray.
Thou hast promised to receive us, poor and sinful though we be;
Thou hast mercy to relieve us, grace to cleanse and pow’r to free.
Early let us seek Thy favor, early let us do Thy will;
Blessed Lord and only Savior, with Thy love our bosoms fill.

Our faith, our gratitude and our love for one another is far deeper than it was on the day we climbed into my ’60 Chevy.  We know that old age will come, dying will come and our parting will come.  But we know better than we knew in our youth that His grace is sufficient.  His promise is true.  “You who have been borne by Me from birth and have been carried from the womb; even to your old age I will be the same, and even to your graying years I will bear you! I have done it, and I will carry you; and I will bear you and I will deliver you,” (Isaiah 46:3-5)

My book, The Jesus Encounter, is FREE as an eBook on Amazon this week, Dec. 16-20.

Christmas and Prejudice

 We are entering the Christmas season, for many a season for fairies, elves and fantasy.  But the Christmas of history is much more than that.  It is full of undercurrents that speak to issues we face daily.  Increasingly we must deal with prejudice, suspicion, resentment that is often fueled by politicians. These issues are intertwined with the Christmas story and the life of Jesus.

 The presence of the Magi at Bethlehem is not an afterthought.  They are integral to the larger purposes of God at the nativity.  They represent the fulfillment of prophecy that the newborn babe was sent, “at the fulness of time,” for all peoples. Isaiah wrote: “I will appoint You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon and those who dwell in darkness from the prison,” (Isaiah 42:6-7).

 The record of Herod’s slaughter of Bethlehem’s male children two years and younger reminds us that rulers have always found a way to inflict violence on the innocent.  Jesus was spared only because Joseph, warned in a dream, took his wife and child to Egypt.  They became refugees seeking safety like the Somalians and many others who seek safety in the United States.

 Jesus’ family returned to Nazareth when the danger dissipated with Herod’s death.  It was there that Jesus matured into manhood.  After launching his public ministry those who had known him as a young adult rejected him.  “ Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are His sisters not here with us?” And they took offense at Him,” (Mark 6:3). 

  Their offense was heightened when he attacked their prejudice, reminding them that Elijah ministered to a Sidonian widow rather than an Israelite, and that Elisha did not heal lepers in Israel, but Naaman, a Syrian.  As a result, Luke says “ they got up and drove Him out of the city, and brought Him to the crest of the hill on which their city had been built, so that they could throw Him down from the cliff. But He passed through their midst and went on His way,” (Luke 4:29-30).

 He ate with tax collectors and prostitutes, made friends with Samaritans, healed the servant of a Roman centurion.  In Jerusalem the religious leaders were incensed because Jesus violated their prejudices and undercut their traditions. Consequently, they crucified him.

 We want to reject those who are not like us.  We are threatened by those who hold different beliefs, speak different languages, observe different customs.  We must always be on guard for the dark shadow of prejudice that stalks us all.  Jesus taught us to embrace all people of every nationality and every ethnicity.  During this Christmas season, and any season, we must not dismiss anyone as “garbage.”

Tinsley's novel, Bold Springs, is free on Amazon eBook Dec. 9-13.  Reader's Favorite chose it as Best Christian Historical Fiction, 2022. 

Putting Jesus' Words Into Practice

 Twelve years ago, world leaders including then President Obama and former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter traveled to South Africa for Nelson Mandela’s funeral.  Mandela died December 1, 2013.  

 As a young black lawyer in South Africa, Mandela became the leader in the movement to eliminate apartheid, the South African set of laws that discriminated against Blacks and Asians.  When his influence became a threat to those in power, he was imprisoned at Robben Island for 27 years. Mandela emerged from prison unbroken, taking up his earlier mantra to live for freedom or to die for it.  He was swept to power as President of South Africa four years after his release.

 Mandela’s story would be remarkable simply because he was able to rise from rural obscurity to national and international prominence.  It is more remarkable given his election as President of South Africa after spending 27 years in prison as an enemy of the government.  But it is most remarkable because when he was bestowed with power as President, he refused retaliation and chose forgiveness and reconciliation.

 How did he come to this position?  How did he rise above the natural passions of vengeance, hatred and corruption that control most men, especially those who come to power?

 

In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela states that he early became a member of the Methodist church, like his mother, and started his education in a Methodist school run by missionaries.  Later, when he was a young man he “became a member of the Students Christian Association and taught Bible classes on Sundays in neighboring villages.”  Perhaps in those early beginnings the seeds of his ultimate success were sown. In his autobiography, Mandela wrote, “ I saw that virtually all of the achievements of Africans seemed to have come about through the missionary work of the Church."

 But the record of Christian influence in South Africa, as elsewhere, has its issues. In South Africa as in the American pre-Civil War South, the systems of racial subjugation and prejudice found support in the churches.  Speaking of Apartheid, Mandela wrote, “The policy was supported by the Dutch Reformed Church, which furnished apartheid with its religious underpinnings … In the Afrikaner’s worldview, apartheid and the church went hand in hand.” 

 Many who profess faith in Christ are prone to adopt the world’s systems with its prejudices and presumptions rather than follow the teachings of Christ. It is, in the end, the degree that we implement the teachings of Jesus, regardless of denomination or affiliation, that makes the greatest difference. Jesus set the example by which we are to forgive as we have been forgiven, to love our enemies and do good for them.

 In 1994, Mandela addressed an Easter conference and spoke of "… the Good News borne by our risen Messiah who chose not one race, who chose not one country, who chose not one language, who chose not one tribe, who chose all of humankind!”

 Nelson Mandela is a reminder that when one man is willing to put into practice the radical teaching of Jesus, he can change the world.  In our families, our jobs, our schools and our communities, we can, every one of us, practice forgiveness, acceptance, respect and faith that transforms the world.