Saturday, May 31, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

I am dealing with an odd juxtaposition of emotions as I attend my oldest son’s high school graduation this morning, prepare myself for preaching tomorrow, prepare for my grandmother’s funeral on Monday and a wedding next Saturday. In the midst of all of that we have about 20 people coming for lunch today after the graduation. I realize in this that I am participating in many transitions in the lives of those who are important to me and I feel the pressure to do it well and right and to say something of value and significance in the right place at the right time.

Transitions are important times in our lives and we typically aren’t as well prepared for them as we should be. Ceremonies to mark those transitions matter, we are initiating a new phase in life and at the same time saying good bye to the past phase. Baptism is the clearest ceremony of demarcation of transition we have in our culture as it relates to past, present and future. These other ceremonies I will participate in over the next few days all relate most clearly to one or two of those “seasons” but the connection with all three is less explicit.

Standing on the edge of a new season of life is a precarious place to be. We prepare for this transition but at the same time we are aware that we aren’t really prepared because we have no idea what actually comes next. The mixture of excitement and uncertainty is what the disciples must have felt when they were called to be Jesus’ disciples, when Mary Magdalene told them Jesus had been resurrected and told them to go and wait for him, when they were told to wait in Jerusalem, and on the day of Pentecost. Welcome to the great adventure of life!

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Thursday, May 29, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

My grandmother died today. At 47 I am fortunate to have had a grandparent still living. It is even more surprising when I realize that she has been my only living grandparent for 25 years. She never did anything great, she never even attempted anything great, but her life had meaning and purpose, she loved Jesus, other people and me. Read the rest of this entry »

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Wednesday, May 28, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

When the flood waters come on the earth, we have gone back to the state before creation began in some ways, with the exception of this life boat with Noah and his family and the animals on board. All that is left of life is floating on what on dry land would have seemed an enormous boat but on the face of the waters that covered the earth would have seemed remarkably small and inconsequential. Read the rest of this entry »

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Sunday, May 25, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

Rather than looking at the purpose of creation from a human perspective, since it is Sunday, it is a good thing to think of it from God’s perspective. One of the things I have been telling my congregation lately is that if your theology (words about God) doesn’t lead to doxology (praise of God) then you ain’t doing theology right. Creation reveals so much about the Lord that it should bring forth incredible praise from us. It tells us what kind of God we serve that He has given us this beautiful earth, imagine its glory if we hadn’t screwed it all up in the beginning and continue to do so today. Read the rest of this entry »

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Friday, May 23, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

Is meaning created by me or is it inherent in my existence? That question is at the heart of the Christian faith, the faith that includes the first book of the Bible. If the world exists because of the sudden expansion of a singularity without reference to a force behind the expansion and that from that this planet had a climate such that life could exist and within that life began from the stuff that was here, then meaning is something that is up to me to create for my life. Read the rest of this entry »

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Thursday, May 22, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

In his book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey encourages people who would be effective to begin with the end in mind and uses the example of living life so that what your best friend would say at your funeral about you would be what you would want them to say. The book isn’t “Christian” but that principle should matter to us. In thinking about knowing and living, it is important for us to consider the end as we begin. Read the rest of this entry »

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Wednesday, May 21, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

I wonder how much time and energy has been spent on the question of how this all came to be. Darwin framed the debate in those terms and since then the church and the world has been consumed by the question of how. It seems that this has done little more than side-track much of our work as the church. It isn’t that the question of “How” is an improper field of study for the church, I wonder though if it should be primary as it has been. If we believe in divine inspiration then we have to believe also that we got only the important stuff for life and if we were doing a better job of that we wouldn’t be as concerned about this question. Read the rest of this entry »

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Monday, May 19, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

In the Watergate trial the most famous and important question was “What did he (the President) know and when did he know it?” Genesis asks a famous philosophical question, “How do we know?” Read the rest of this entry »

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Sunday, May 18, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

The knowledge gained in the garden, the knowledge of good and evil, failed to produce righteousness. What was begun in sin, disobedience to the command of God, could not possibly produce its opposite. What was gained by the knowledge? The only thing I can see that was gained was a knowledge of sinfulness. As Lewis Grizzard said, naked simply means you have no clothes on, nekkid means you don’t have any clothes on and you’re up to something. That was what happened in the garden, the transition from naked to nekkid. Read the rest of this entry »

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Friday, May 16, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

The cliche is that males fear intimacy. The truth is that we all fear intimacy, being known. We have learned over time that some things aren’t safe to tell and some people aren’t safe to tell either. Vulnerability is dangerous business, always has been, always will be. Naked and unashamed (Genesis 2.25) is not something most of us relate to very well. Read the rest of this entry »

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