Preview(S): Special Edition...Holy Week

This Holy Week I find myself reaching back to something that I wrote a few years ago around this time.  You see every so often I re-read things I wrote in hopes that it might shake loose some new content from my brain.  As I wrote this I realized that I come to this point in the year...every year... and find the tank is more than a little empty, much like I did a few years ago.

March-April  2017 For Pastor Rus: Doctoral work,  Funerals, Lenten Teaching Series, Lenten Sermon Series, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, Easter Sunday... a different sermon for each.... it's official... my brain is empty.  I have no witty similes or metaphors.   I don't even have a fun pop-culture reference. The page is blank.  

I had an old English Professor who used to tell us students that the best way around writers block is to write.  I think he might have been being intentionally ironic for comedy sake but the point remains: in life the way past a problem is most often found straight through the middle of it (even if most of us try to figure a way around it). 

So, for a moment I want to say something in praise of being tongue tied.

Paul, least of the Apostles, even if he did work harder than the rest

of them...even if he did have to say so himself...never seemed at a loss for something new to say.  Once his sermon lasted so long that a listener drifted off to sleep and fell out a window and died (for the record no one has sustained a mortal injury as a result of any of my sermons). Of course Paul also prayed for the young man and he was raised from the dead...and I have never done that either.  

But, from time to time Paul just resorts to re-telling the story of Christ's life, death and resurrection.  There are no witty similes, no clever metaphors and not one pop-culture reference in sight.  This helps to remind us that from time to time we need to reflect on what it all means... absent the props and requirements of our day to day life.  

As a preacher, and interpreter of the Word, I spend a lot of time thinking about how I can help people take the scriptures and make them useful in their lives.  Sometimes though, I am convinced that we need to stop and look backwards at the word.  Sometimes we need to look at the word and focus on the message and instead of "what does this text have to do with  my life?"... we should ask "what does my life have to do with this text?".   

When we ask "what does this text have to do with my life?" we are asking how we can use the word in our life to live more for Christ.
There is nothing wrong with asking the obvious question of how do I take the wisdom of God and use it to live more for and through God in my day to day life.  In fact I wish we asked that question more.  But we run the risk of treating the scriptures like a "how-to book".  

We need to be willing to stop our busy lives and stand in the presence of the story and simply let it's grandeur awe us into silence. The word is the revealed face of God.  
We have to be willing to occasionally stop trying to mine the mountain of the scriptures for nuggets of meaning and wisdom and instead simply sit at the foot of the mountain, look up, and say "Wow! Look at that mountain!" 

Those are the moments when all our clever phrases and thoughts fail us and we simply stand in silent, tongue tied, writer's blocked, silent awe.