Greatest Mom Ever!

I know every one thinks their mom is the greatest mom, and I do not want to disagree. Moms are the best—especially my mom. However, for my two girls their mom tops the scale with her unselfish devotion and strength of motherhood she lives out every day.

My wife, Kaye, doesn’t get enough recognition for all she does. Not only is she a great wife, a wonderful mother to our two daughters, and a person who is always taking care of the house-hold, but she also does so much more. If there was a poster child for a person who goes above and beyond it would be Kaye.

As I mentioned, Kaye does a lot for the family, however, she is also a full-time volunteer at almost everything. During the school year Kaye volunteers at the local elementary school as a helper in the third grade. She also lends a hand in the cafeteria, the office, the library, and where ever else they need her.

Then there is Girl Scouts, coach-pitch softball, picking children up so they can go to school, hiding Easter eggs, delivering lunches for the needy, and that is just during the week. On Sundays and Wednesdays she volunteers at the church to teach the children while setting on committees like the social and the maintenance. I’m telling you, I married up!

However, this Mother’s Day, Kaye went above and beyond with a selfless act that just shows what a great mom she is. Instead of asking for candy, flowers, or diamonds she asked for something that the girls would like. She wanted to take the girls, and myself, to see The Avengers —-how cool is that!

Thanks Wife! You’re the greatest mom ever!

So what have we discovered thus far?

* Your fault, my fault nobodies fault, things happen.
* Sometimes life isn’t fair.
* Jesus knows where we are and He wants to heal.

Today we are going to look how this man, with the withered hand (Luke 6), was caught up in the moment. He went to worship in the synagogue as he probably did each Sabbath. He might have arrived just before the time to start and then, because of the stigma surrounding him, snuck to the back of the room trying not to be noticed—but God had other plans.

As we have seen, this man was caught up in a controversy between the religious leaders and Jesus. The leaders were wondering if Jesus would heal on the Sabbath. The man with the withered hand was there to worship in his traditional fashion, but in the heat of the controversy he was told to expose himself for all the world to see.

“Open up,” “confession,” “tell all,” these are words that we, as individuals, hate to here. We never like to hear the phrases in the Church, “Come forward,” or “Come to the alter.” It leaves us with a sense of vulnerability and a loss of personal space. We tell ourselves (and sometimes the preacher) “The alter call is for the lost. It is for the new comers.” We might even say, “What if people heard that I went forward, they would expect me to live a different way?”

Jesus is calling men/women out. There is no such thing as a closet Christian. Just like this man with the withered hand, Jesus told him to stretch forth his hand for all to see. I imagine the man would have hesitated. He knew that everyone knew about his problem (that is obvious from the story), but there is a difference in thinking everyone knows and to expose yourself for everyone to see.

The man had the same decision that we do—trust.

Either we expose our lifeless and broken life or we don’t. But the one thing that is clear, if we don’t come out, if we don’t stretch forth our withered hand, we won’t get cleaned.

Argue with this as much as you will, but ask yourself, “How is that broken life working out for you, lately?”

Cecilia, my eight year old daughter, came to me the other day with a book of Bible stories. She had it opened to the story of the man with the withered hand. She had been listening to me talk about the message of the story and made a connection. I thought it was sweet that she left the book with me and told me I could use it as I prepared my sermon. Sometimes life is great!

As she walked away I noticed the picture in the book. The pictured showed Jesus standing in the center of a room holding out His hand to a man who was stretching out his hand to Jesus. Jesus was dressed in white with his tunic wrapped around Him, while the man was dressed in a very colorful blue with an orange robe. Yet, the thing that caught my attention was not so much the streaking forth of the hand, but that there were so few spectators (three to be exact). That was kind of odd. I would think there would have been hundreds of spectators in that synagogue. After all, this was one of the largest cities in Galilee. However, the artist probably wanted to make the scene easy for Jesus to find the man with the withered hand—if only life was that easy.

I was thinking of this man who was struggling with physical, psychological, and social struggles. Where would he be sitting in the synagogue? Would he be at the center of the crowd? Would he be up front? Or, would he be like us, trying to blend into the shadows in the very back? I think the back. However, this brings up an interesting question, “How did Jesus find him?”

I started thinking about Jesus going through the crowd looking at each person seeing who needed healing. Then I thought of something ridiculous, Jesus bobbing and weaving trying to find someone to heal. Then I thought both were foolish. Jesus was there to do God’s will, thereby, He would have known where the man with the withered hand was.

This story strongly applies to us. Often times we are like this man with the withered hand. We feel that God does not know where we are or what is going on in our lives. However, God knows exactly where we are. He is not bobbing and weaving trying to find someone to heal. No, instead, Jesus knows where we are and I believe He is getting ready to call us out.

Sometimes life seems so unfair.

I ran across a song sung by Jason Crabb called "Sometimes I Cry." It is a song that just grabs at my heart every time I hear it. The chorus goes:

But sometimes I hurt and sometimes I cry.
Sometimes I can't get it right
No matter how hard I seem to try.
Sometimes I fall down,
Stumble over my own disguise.
I try to look strong,
As the whole world looks on,
But sometimes alone I cry.

For more than two decades I have been working with hurting people. Sometimes they are the cause of their own hurt; sometimes they are the victim. Sometimes they are the cause of their own demise, but sometimes the circumstances of life changes and they hurt. It seems sometimes life is so unfair.

I know that every reader can relate to what I am saying. Or as the late John Wayne said in Big Jake, "Your fault, my fault, nobodies fault," life just seems so unfair.
I think of the man in Luke 6 who had a withered hand. As we started to examine the story yesterday, we learned the hand was withered, shriveled, and of no use. Luke also recorded that it was his right hand, giving the appearance that this man possibly was injured in an accident like the Gospel of Hebrews suggests. This would have had not only a physical hardship on the man, but a psychological and religious hardship as well.

To the Jews the right hand was considered clean, where the left hand was considered unclean. To offer the left hand to a person was tantamount to cursing him. Knowing this, the man with the withered hand would not have been able to participate in the activities at the synagogue or the Sabbath. He would have been considered unclean. That would have lead to a social stigma and a psychological hardship, one that obviously he did not ask for. From one accident this man with a withered hand had his life spiraling out of control.

You know he had to have struggled. You know he had to have hurt. His fault, their fault, nobody's fault—life seemed so unfair.

Can you imagine what it would have been like to have met Jesus when He walked on earth? To behold Him face to face. To listen to the Master teach His disciples. What glory that would have been.

However, we have to ask, “What would have drawn us to Him?” I mean, today we have the Holy Spirit who reveals the continual presence of Jesus in our life. Yes, He is seated next to the Father, but He is also fully God — omnipresent. Yet, what about, “in the days of His flesh” (Hebrews 5:7), what would have attracted us to Him. Didn’t Isaiah write,

He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.

Isaiah 53:2

So what would have drawn us to Him? I mean, if the Holy Spirit was not drawing people to Jesus it must have been something else? Could it have been all the miracles? The feeding of the thousands? Raising the dead? What? When you look at the Old Testament many of the prophets did what Jesus did (not all). So what would have drawn us to Him? I believe it had to have been His compassion.

There is a story in Luke 6 about a man with a withered hand. The placement of the story by Luke, as well as Matthew and Mark, is to stress the issue of who is lord of the Sabbath. However, I do not want to write, for now, about Jesus being Lord of the Sabbath. I think for the most part that is clearly understood. And, I think if we heed the words of Billy Graham with how we are to respond to the Sabbath, we will do just fine.

“Jesus tells us it is OK to help your ox out of the ditch on the Sabbath. But, if your ox gets in the ditch every Sabbath, you need to either get rid of the ox or fill up the ditch.”

Billy Graham

Instead, I want to write about the one person who was caught up in this controversy — The man with the withered hand.

Who was this man? How did he come to have a withered hand? These are always questions I ponder when I read a story like this. One tradition from the Gospel of Hebrews says the man was a stone mason whose hand was crushed in an accident. However, the language of the story gives the impression that he was born this way. The Greek word used for withered, xeros, means a member of the body that is deprived of their natural juices; to be withered or shrunken. Also, Luke identifies the hand as the right hand, possibly meaning he had a difficult time supporting himself.

Either way, whether he was born this way or was the victim of an accident, he probably was left to a life of begging. Struggling to get by, always in the rear watching the others get ahead. Today, we could say he was living from “paycheck to paycheck.” Whatever the cause there is one thing we can all relate to about this man . . . sometimes life seems so unfair.

Tomorrow we will examine how sometimes life seems so unfair.

Reinventing, starting over, making over, starting anew — whatever you call “it,” it is a process— a process of moving from where you are to where you want to be.

I am personally in the process of reinventing who I am. There really was nothing wrong with who I was (or am) it is just that I have lost focus and have fallen into a slump.

I use to know who I was and what I was going to do with my life. God had called me to preach the gospel—which I do regularly. But one thing led to another and I have found myself 60 pounds over weight, barely making my bills, and taking my God-given talents and wasting them. Friends and family say, “That’s just the way things are.” But is it really? Does everything change as you grow older? Can you not still strive for the dream you once had?

So hear I am, today, reinventing myself. Not that there was anything bad with my old self, it is just that I long for the dream God gave me. It is going to take work. It is not going to be easy, but here I go getting back on the path.

I hope you stay with me and see how I do as I reinvent who I am suppose to be.

It had to be an impressive site! 3,000 plus people standing on the banks of the Jordan River looking at Peter, who was standing waist deep in the water where this group was just baptized. Peter, that great apostle who preached that wonderful Pentecostal sermon, "repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins" (Acts 2:38), stands there looking back up at the people. What a message! What a moment! The broken hearted coming to Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit! What an event!

The Bible records that about 3,000 were added to their number that day. All because the Holy Spirit showed up and a small group of 120 people were willing to go out into the street and be used by the Holy Spirit. So there they were, 3,000 plus standing on the banks of the Jordan River looking down at Peter in the water. The elements of the sermon Peter preached are completed. Every thing he told them to do is done. So, . . . now what?

Haven’t you every wondered what took place the day after Pentecost? It’s like having a great revival moment at your church: everyone is touched in some way by the Holy Spirit. Then they go home. The next day they awaken with the idea, "Now what am I suppose to do?"

We in the Church seem to have all the answers, "Live like Jesus lived!" or "WWJD!" or "FROG." That’s great, but what is this suppose to look like? What am I suppose to do? When Peter walked out of the Jordan River and looked at the group of people standing on the banks, the church was in its "infancy" stage. I can imagine the questions coming to his mind as he tried to explain to them what needed to take place. Some were only staying in Jerusalem for a week or so. Others were residents of that great city. But one thing was clear, the "Great Commission" and the "Great Commandment" had to be brought out and worked through.

Her hands were deformed, bent, and gnarly. Her body broken and confined. Pain and anguish wracked every moment of her life. To simply pick up a fork to eat took will and courage. Yet, through all the suffering she never gave in to the pain; to her she had a life filled with hope and joy that was succumbed to an existence of a wheelchair.

Music had dominated her family for generations. Her father, John Wesley Brooks, and her mother, Mary Ellen Eshelman Brooks, encouraged her as a young girl to play the organ. She had so desired to continue the family legacy of music — yet, the Master, had other plans for her. As she inspired to fulfill her parent’s wishes and become an organist, her dreams were soon cut-short as she was hijacked by that dreadful crippling disease called arthritis.

Her name was Myra Brooks - Welch and to many she remains an unknown. She was more than a mere woman who was confined to a wheelchair since the early 1920’s. She was a writer who wrote beautiful poetry that captured the hearts of thousands. Her life is a story of being an over comer of situation and struggle. Once, while believing she was being pitied by a close friend, she told him, “And, I thank God for this,” while patting the arm of her wheelchair. But even through her triumph in tragedy and her beautiful writings she is still an unknown to the world.

Welch was a prolific writer and poet even at an early age. Later in life she was given the reputation of being “the poet with the singing soul.” Often she would wheel herself over to a desk, pick up two pencils, one in each hand, then with the erasers down she would fight through the pain and type out wonderful heartfelt poems that reflected the joy of her heart. Never bitter from the confinement, she went on to write three volumes of poems that were published by Brethren Publishing. Yet, it is the "anonymous" poem that she wrote in 1921 that has touched almost as many lives as Amazing Grace.

It is said that she wrote the poem in thirty minutes after hearing a speaker address a group of students. Not wanting to take credit for the work, believing it was a gift from God, she submitted it anonymously to her church bulletin and later to the Gospel Messenger, who published it on February 26, 1921. For years the poem was read in churches and other gatherings, but always with the credit, “author unknown.” It would be like hearing the first movement of Symphony 5 and never knowing it was composed by Ludwig van Beethoven.

Then one day, at an international religious convention the poem was once again read before a large audience, yet this time there was an unanticipated surprise. As the custom had become, the reader would finish the poem to a teary-eyed audience. Their sniffles echoing around the room, yet with a smile on their face as their hearts were blessed by those beautiful words. Also, as seemed to be the custom, the reader, with tears in his own eyes, would bestow the credit, “author unknown.” However, this time the ending would be different. This time the answer to everyone’s question would be answered as a man slowly stood from the side of the audience and said, “I know the author, and it is time the world did too.” As every eye turned to the man with hearts pounding in anticipation, the great mystery was solved, “It was written by my mother, Myra Welch.”

Finally the author of this blessed poem was known. No longer would the poem The Touch of the Master’s Hand be tainted with the words “author unknown.”

The poem has inspired so many. It has touched the hearts of the destitute and the needy. It is a poem that has brought hope to tragic lives. It is a poem of hope and gladness. Yet for me the poem has so much meaning and will never be read the same as it was when I heard it read, one Sunday evening, at an old church on Santa Paula St. in Fort Worth. Read with the raspy old baritone voice of David “Davy” Crockett.

It was the bottom of the 4th inning with no one on base. The pitcher looked over his left shoulder with a snarl. He took the first signal the catcher gave him and shrugged it off. The second signal came and then a pause. After a moment he shrugged that signal off also. Finally, the pitcher nodded his head and the catcher bounced into position. His legs spread apart into a catchers squat. His glove extended just below the bat. The umpire arched forward over the catcher-then everything seemed to pause, that is, except for me. All I thought about was what I was going to do if I hit the ball. I watched the first baseman standing by his base acting as if I would be lucky to see first base. The shortstop actually went into his stance ready to charge a chip ball. The outfielders merely swatted flies as they waited for me to strike out. My heart began to pound as the pitcher hurled the first pitch.

"Strrriiiike!" the umpire yelled as the ball whizzed by me and slammed into the catcher's mitt.

"Keep your eye on the ball!" my coach yelled from 3rd base. "You can do it!"

I can do it. I thought to myself. I cam hit this ball and win this ball game.

"Strrriiike two!" were the words I heard next.

Strike two? What happened? I looked back at the umpire in confusion, I wasn't ready, and I surely didn't know the pitcher was ready.

I stepped out of the batters box and looked at my coach. His head nodded forward with his chin slunk into his shirt. I could see the disappointment on his face. This game meant a lot to the team and I was going to lose it for them.

I never was all that great at sports. I had played baseball since the seventh grade. Now I was a sophomore in high school and the team was hoping to go on to the state tournament. I never minded being a bench warmer; often it was fun just keeping up with stats and cheering on the players. But for some reason, I started developing at that time and the coach thought I should come off the bench and play in the game.

Sure my coordination had improved and I became stronger, but I had one very big weak spot-I had no confidence. I had warmed a bench for the past three years and now, out of the blue, my coach believed I should play in one of what I considered the most important games of our season. I had already been up to bat once in the game and I struck out. I didn't believe it would be any better the second time at bat.

"Watch the curve ball!" someone yelled.

Curve ball, what's a curve ball? How do I know what one looks like? Boy, was I pathetic!

I stepped back into the batters' box and again watched as the series of events repeated themselves. The pitcher looked over his left shoulder and took the signal. The catcher bounced back into position. The umpire arched over the catcher and braced for the call. And, at that very moment I made up my mind. I was going to swing.

What do I have to lose,and I thought to myself. It is all or nothing. I was going to strike out swinging or I was going to hit the ball ...

You are probably wondering what happened at the ball park in Roosevelt, Oklahoma, that fine fateful day as I stood in the batters box watching the pitcher play out my life with his final pitch? Well it ended something like this:

. . . the pitch was thrown and I braced for the swing. I kicked my left leg up to give the bat as much power as I possibly could. I briefly watched the ball not knowing if it was a curve, straight, or whatever; all I knew was I had to swing the bat, and swing the bat I did. As the ball approached the plate I did as I always had done; I closed my eyes. I never understood why I closed my eyes when I swung the bat, but I did. I believe it might have something to do with the anticipation of an object hitting another object. This is one reason I was never a good catcher, although I did try.

Anyways, all I remember after closing my eyes was hearing a tank.

It was somehow different than any other time I had hit the ball. This time it was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. I opened my eyes and began to run, but at the same time I found myself doing exactly what my coach told me never to do. I watched the ball. I couldn't help it, the ball was flying high and it had distance. It was as if there was something mystical between the bat and the ball that made this ball fly farther. And then like magic, or because the center fielder was playing too far in, the ball dropped right over the 300 feet sign. That's right! I hit a home run! The only one I ever hit. Sure I had hit a couple of base hits, a few doubles, and I think I might have hit a triple in Lone Wolf, Oklahoma, but now things were different. Now I had joined a club like no other. I joined in the ranks of the home run hitters club. I hit a home run! And not just any home nun, I hit one dead center over the center field wall (well, fence for that matter).

I remember rounding first base and watching the ball land just outside the fence. I could not believe it, as neither could anyone else on my team, especially my coach. But as I rounded third base my coach did what he did to all home run hitters, he stuck out his hand to shake my hand and swatted me on the rear. I had entered the club! It was all or nothing, and I took the all, and that has made all the difference.