The (Sometimes) Unbearable Business of Life

As I write this, I am struggling hard to recall when it last was that Kathleen and I shared a day off that truly ended up feeling like a day off. You know how it goes … you only have this one day off in the week, and sometimes the errands you have to do to keep life going seem to consume the whole day!

In our marriage, Kathleen and I have always tried hard to make sure that we honor the principle of a Sabbath rest, even if the actual rest we take only amounts to a few hours in the day. Lately it just feels like we’ve failed. Maybe it’s because my speaking schedule has been jam-packed, often taking me out of town for a couple of days or longer.  Maybe it’s just that this time of year, there is so much going on with my ministry. Tomorrow, for example, our entire staff will be manning a booth at an all day Christian music festival. The preparation for this just seems to have consumed my week. Next weekend, we are holding the last of our Faith in Film screenings of the year. We’re gearing up already for a big Hanukkah fellowship at the end of the first week of December.

 The list could go on and on, if I was inclined to let it, but I don’t want to. I just know that I feel tired in body and soul, and although I sleep through the night, I often wake up not feeling very rested. It doesn’t seem like there’s much I can do about it, but I know there is Someone who can. After all, Jesus said:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Here I come, Lord, here I come.

The J-Phone

Key West

It’s been way too long since I posted to my own blog, mostly because I have been busy as the official blogger on the Jews for Jesus blog.

My wife Kathleen and I were down in Key West recently. I was speaking in a church on behalf of Jews for Jesus. The church I was speaking at put us up at the La Concha, which is Key West’s oldest hotel. The La Concha is used as a hurricane shelter of last resort, and you may have seen it if you’ve ever watched coverage of hurricanes in South Florida, because all the media people stay there.

We wanted to do some fun stuff which was just purely tourist, so we walked a couple of miles from the hotel to the southernmost spot in the continental United States — only 90 miles to Cuba from here! Behind me you can see a heavy wrought-iron fence. This separates the spot we are standing from a Navy base, and barely out of camera range are some massive radar and satellite dishes. It was kind of sobering to realize that our proximity to Cuba actually made that a spot considered strategic by the military!

Another curiousity which was just at the other end of the street where we are standing in the photo is the southernmost house in the continental U.S. — not to mention the southernmost hotel, the southernmost guest house, etc. I picked up fairly quickly that there is some competition for the title of “southernmost!” In fact even though this house to the right bills itself as the southernmost house, there is a plaque attached to the wall of the next house over which proclaims it to be “the southernmost southernmost house.”

All my life, I have heard people proclaim the beauty of sunsets in Key West. So, shortly before sunset Kathleen and I walked to Mallory Square, where each evening they have a Sunset Celebration, complete with street performers, hot dog vendors, and all the other ways possible to separate tourists from their money. Hundreds of us gathered along the shoreline, where I quickly detected a problem in our viewing of the sunset — there was an ISLAND in the way! As we were soon to find out, unless you are on a boat out on the water or on the roof of someplace like the La Concha, you can’t see the sun hit the water. It was a big disappointment to both of us, and I remarked jokingly that I felt like an entire island had swindled me. I did manage to get this shot of a sailboat and the setting sun, which proves something I remember my photojournalist father once telling me: “great pictures are all about timing!

Passover and Easter: A Sacrifice and a Gift

As I write this, I am finishing a 3-week speaking tour, presenting Christ in the Passover in churches throughout Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. I’m looking forward to seeing my wife again, to enjoying both a Passover seder with her and some friends, and to attending Easter services. Speaking on the subject of Passover for the last few weeks has given me cause to reflect on the meaning of Passover and Easter.

When I was growing up, Passover was an annual event that reinforced my identity as a Jew. I looked forward to the time my family would spend together during a seder. I anticipated the matzoh ball soup, and looked forward to vying with my older brother to find the afikomen. I cannot, however, really remember a time when I was growing up when anyone — mom, dad, or our rabbi — encouraged me to think about the deeper meaning of Passover: God’s redemptive power.

Today, as a Jew who believes in Jesus, I am able to see that deeper meaning more clearly. As I read in the story of the Exodus how my ancestors sacrificed a spotless lamb and applied its blood to the doorposts of their home (and therefore avoided death), I am able to see how this event foreshadowed a greater sacrifice, in the death of Jesus. Just as the blood of the lambs saved my ancestors from death, the blood of the Lamb, the Messiah Jesus, saves us all from death. His sacrifice on the cross was a greater atonement than any animal sacrifice, a gift that gives eternal life to those who place their faith in Him.

“For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16

It’s in the context of Easter that I am able to think about that gift. While the death of Jesus on the cross is the action that atoned for the sins of all, Easter is about the Resurrection. The Resurrection of Jesus is the miracle on which the claims of Christianity stand or fall. Take away the Resurrection, and the death of Jesus is without meaning. It was the fact of the Resurrection which transformed the disciples of Jesus from a defeated and dispirited group of men, who had seemingly seen all of their hopes and dreams die on a cross with their leader, into a dynamic group of men whose lives transformed the world as we know it. Quite a gift indeed!

May you have a joyous Passover and a Happy Easter!

A Modern Day Haman

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made international news recently, during his “World Without Zionism” conference in Tehran. Ahmadinejad made wiping out my Jewish people national policy for his country when he called for the destruction of Israel, saying, “bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad” (more literally translated from Persian, “vanish from the page of time.”)

Ahmadinejad is not the first to call for the destruction of the Jewish people — just the most recent. In a couple of weeks, Jewish people will celebrate the Festival of Purim, which commemorates a failed attempt to wipe out the Jewish people. Purim celebrates the events of the biblical book of Esther, in which it is recounted how a Persian counselor to the king, Haman, made plans to destroy the Jews of Persia.

There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from all other people’s, and they do not keep the king’s laws. Therefore it is not fitting for the king to let them remain. If it pleases the king, let a decree be written that they be destroyed” (Esther 3:8-9a).

Haman met a bad end by the close of the story: swinging from the gallows he had intended for one of the Jewish protagonists of the story. The book of Esther has always fascinated me, as it is the only book of the Bible that make no mention whatsoever of God.

But just because God isn’t mentioned in the story does not mean He is not present behind the scenes. In the miraculous way in which the young, Jewish Queen Esther finds herself in a position to preserve her people, I see the fingerprints of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is the God who called Israel his segulah, his treasured possession. Among the promises that God made to the Jewish people was that He would preserve them, no matter what madman might try to wipe them out.

The apostle Paul echoes this promise in the book of Romans, asking,

“God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be!” (Romans 11:1 NASB)

Paul answers his own question, stating,

“God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew.” (Romans 11:2)

Like many Jewish people, in a couple of weeks I will celebrate Purim in some traditional ways: I will listen to the reading of the megillah (the scroll of Esther), I’ll shout “BOO!” when Haman’s name is pronounced, I’ll enjoy the costumes of children dressed up their favorite characters in the Purim story, and I’ll eat as many delicious hamantaschen as my wife will let me get away with.

I’ll also keep in mind that I worship a God who keeps His promises. Though the madman may be named Ahmadinejad instead of Haman, I can trust that the Lord will continue to ensure the survival of all His people — Jew or Gentile — because He is a God who gave up that most precious to Himself: his own Son, Jesus.

Johnny Hart is my hero

Moves I can’t imagine

Well, here we are in Fort Lauderdale. It’s been quite a move and to be honest, my head is still reeling a bit. Kathleen and I left Los Angeles for good on January 3, and began driving east. This makes the 3rd cross-country drive on Interstate 10 for me in less than two years, and I’m actually a bit sick of it. Also, I have to say that while I know God has a purpose for all things I am really beginning to wonder if that applies to the stretch of land between El Paso and San Antonio.

We paused in San Antonio for an extra day, so that I could speak at my old home congregation, Beth Simcha. It definitely ranked as a strange experience, due to a power transformer at the building burning out earlier in the day. One of the guys at the congregation hooked up a gasoline generator which was used to power 4 lamps, and an amplifier with a microphone running into it. I delivered a message titled “Peace: Behind The Headlines.” I got to reconnect with old friends, one of whom is one of the men who prayed with me the night I professed my faith in Jesus. I was moved to tears when he walked up to give me hug, then turned to Kathleen and simply declared, “I love this man.”

Finally we arrived in Fort Lauderdale, and things got a bit crazy. We’re renting a house from a guy who was super excited about having a missionary couple living in his place, and he has been fantastic. What wasn’t so fantastic was that the contractor he had redoing the ceilings did NOT finish when he was supposed to be finished. The contractor showed up the same morning as our moving truck, and it really stretched my sanctification not to get angry with him. We’re moved in and mostly unpacked, but every wall in the house has some substance called “knockdown” coating it. I don’t know what it is, I just know if I brush against a wall, it makes me itch like crazy. Our landlord is letting us pick whatever colors we want, so we want to get the painting done soon.

Now, I haven’t meant any of this to be taken as kvetching (complaining). Quite the opposite. You see, in the events that led to our move we’ve gotten to see God moving. For a year, we — and many others — prayed for Kathleen’s health. We saw God move in that every time we thought Kathleen didn’t have the strength to fight anymore, God gave it to her. We saw God move when it came to requesting a transfer, and saw Him move when it came to the leadership of Jews for Jesus working out the details of that transfer. I never could have dreamed that we would be sent back to south Florida, where Kathleen and I first met, and certainly never dreamed I would end up working under my best friend (who also happens to have been best man at our wedding)! We’ve seen God move in providing this house for us, and providing a landlord who is a Christian himself. We’re seeing God move in some small but immediate improvements in Kat’s health. After a year of watching my wife struggle to breathe day after day, it’s sheer joy to see her breathe so easily. I have no doubt that we are going to see God move in so many ways that I can’t even imagine over the next year — and I’m looking forward to every moment.

For now, I look around at the new home God has blessed me with, and all I can do is repeat what Abraham, and Moses, and King David, and so many other men of God have said: “Hineni, Lord. Here am I!”

Transitions

I’m amazed sometimes at how God works things out.

Since we got married and Kat moved to Los Angeles, she’s had some serious health issues. These have been primarily caused by some allergens specific to southern California, combined with the astoundingly bad air quality in L.A. It seemed like life was constantly made up of sinusitis, bronchitis, and ear infections. We’ve spent many hours in our doctor’s office, all too often ending with him shaking his head. After 15 rounds of antibiotics and 4 rounds of steroids in less than a year, one can understand his frustration.

We’d reached a point where every medical means short of surgery had been exhausted. All we could do was keep going to the Lord with our prayers, and seek counsel with those who might be able offer some solution. That solution was reached recently: we’re being moved. Ironically, we’ll be moving back to south Florida, where Kat and I first met and fell in love. It’s ironic because we met, fell in love, and made all these plans to spend time together. Then I was asked to go out on tour with the Liberated Wailing Wall.

In some ways, going back to Fort Lauderdale is perfect … which really speaks of God’s hand in it all, doesn’t it? Kat and I have friends there, a congregation we can plug back into, and Kat has family living not too far away. We’re also basically a day’s drive from both sets of our parents, which is making Kat in particular REALLY happy. My supervisor in the south Florida branch of Jews for Jesus was the best man at my wedding, and I can’t think of too many people I’m more excited to be working with again.

The final date for our move will be just after the New Year. Sounds like a good way to start a new year to me: a new location where Kat can be healthy, new challenges of ministry, and a new season of our marriage.

EU Declaration: Denying Israel’s Right to Exist is Anti-Semitism

I have to admit, both I and my colleagues at work were just blown away by this. Who would’ve thought to see such a statement come forth in our lifetimes (particularly considering who some of the signing countries are)?