What 's in a Name

I went to a new Starbucks the other day and told the barista (I love that job title)that my name was Joe Coffey. I always get a kick out of their response. Sometimes I have to show my identification before they believe me. I like having a name that makes people smile every once in a while. Names used to have significance. The last name "Smith" was given to the family who were blacksmiths. The name "Johnson" was given to the son of John. "Bakers" were in fact the bakers. You get the point. In Isaiah 56 God promises the childless a "name better than sons and daughters". In the ancient world a man could hardly imagine something better than a son to carry on his own name. What could possibly be better? God was promising a better name than my own. Jesus has the name above all names. When Jesus went to the cross he provided a way for adoption for me and for you. My name in heaven is no longer Coffey. My name is now and forever connected to the One who paid a great price to adopt me into his family. I am a child of God. How great is that? Along with that name comes a family, brothers and sisters, a reputation, even an inheritance. I am rich...really rich. Because of what Jesus did for me on the cross God himself looks at me differently and I even begin to look different to God. I look more like him. It's like God the Father now says,"Hey, this is Joe. He is my son. He looks like me. He has my name". And with that I think the Father smiles. I love having a name that makes people smile but it is even better to have a name that makes God himself grin from ear to ear.

March Madness

The NCAA tournament is in full swing. There is bracket mania out there. For those of you who are not college basketball fans I am sorry to bring it up again. Sports bars are packed with fans. I was in the airport in Atlanta Sunday night and saw two Davidson College jerseys. Davidson is a tiny little school in North Carolina that happens to be my brother Brian's alma mater. In the past 25 years I have never seen anyone wearing a Davidson basketball jersey anywhere and then on Sunday I saw two and the reason is they have made it to the Sweet Sixteen. I heard that the loss to American businesses is in the billions during the NCAA tournament because of people sneaking out to watch. It is fascinating to see what our culture gets excited about. All this has me thinking about the March Madness that went on 2000 years ago. Can you imagine? Every sports bar in Jerusalem was buzzing with the rumor that Jesus the prophet from Nazareth was alive 3 days after the Romans had crucified him. People in every corner of the city must have been talking about it. Within a month you could be walking along the streets of Caperneum and hear about it. Inside of a year you would hear it whispered in the streets of Rome. By May of this year no one will be talking about the NCAA. Our attention will be on the Cavs or maybe baseball or maybe even something more important. But if you listen closely you will still hear people talking about Jesus. You will hear it in Hudson or in Cleveland. I will be traveling later on this year to Indonesia and then to Uganda and there will be people there who will be talking about Jesus. Davidson is in the Sweet Sixteen so people are talking about them. It is good news for those alum from Davidson. But that news is only good enough to last a few weeks. How good does the news have to be to last 2000 years and spread throughout the whole world? It is news that is still the best news I have ever heard. It is news that brought a smile to my face just this morning. The resurrection of Jesus Christ created the original March Madness and it hasn't come close to ending.

Good Friday

Today is Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified. It is a little after noon as I write this. Jesus has been awake more than 30 hours. Thursday night he did not sleep. After the last supper with his disciples he went to the garden of Gethsemane for the most difficult night of his 33 years. It was there in the Garden that he was betrayed by his close friend Judas and arrested by a mob of professional and semi-professional soldiers. By noon he has gone through no fewer than 6 trials. Three civil trials and three religious trials. He is convicted of breaking a religious law. He claimed to be equal with God. But it was the civil trial that sentenced him to die on the cross. In a misguided effort to get him released, Pilate had him scourged and hoped the people would have pity. He paraded him out with the infamous words,"Ecce homo", latin for Behold the man. The crowd was only incensed all the more that this one now swollen and beaten would claim equality with Jehovah God. The claim seemed more ludicrous than ever. By now Jesus has been hanging on a cross for more than 3 hours. Every breath is a labor to push himself up by the nails in his feet and gulp air before he slides back down and air is forced out and his lungs flatten inside his chest. When did God begin to receive payment for sin? Did the cloud of judgment that had been building over humanity begin to dissipate or did it gather with all the intensity of the wrath of God right over the bleeding head of Jesus? Could Jesus feel by noon the disintegration of his relationship with the Father? Did His soul feel the guilt of my sin yet? In less than 3 more hours it would be over. Jesus would arch his back in one last spasm of agony and scream,"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me"? And then he will die. Alone. Shattered. Bereft of hope. Why? Do you know why this Friday afternoon? For the love of you. "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends". And Jesus calls you his friend. Good Friday. The day that convinces me more than any other day that I am more deeply loved than I have ever dared to dream.

Super Tuesday

Today is Tuesday of Easter week. Our papers are full of our political candidates touting promises and trying to convince voters of their plethora of virtues. And it seems like every other week is a Super Tuesday when the candidates seem like they are everywhere at once making a crazed effort to convince any fence sitters who might go to the polls. I think of how much different this Tuesday was for Jesus. Jesus wasn't making promises or trying to convince people of his virtue. He wasn't trying to make sure people knew how much better he was than Pilate or the High Priest or whoever else was a possible candidate. He spent Tuesday teaching the befuddled crowd with stories of Wedding banquets and terrible tenants and a widow's mite. At one point he is sitting in the Temple watching people give their offerings. What would you be doing if you knew you were going to die this Friday? He sits and watches people. What do you think was going through the mind of Jesus? Was he looking at each face and being reminded of how much he loved each one? Was he wondering how each of us had gotten so far away from the Father and what it would feel like for that feeling of separation to creep into his soul on the cross? Whatever it was we know this, that Jesus last week was not spent trying to sell himself. He wasn't trying to win a popular vote. He was headed to the cross to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. On Tuesday no one saw it coming yet. Only Jesus. He knew. Every where he looked he saw people who needed a redeemer. Even the ones who were plotting behind closed doors to get rid of him someway. Even for them he would die. There is no love like the love of Jesus and no time is that more evident than the week we celebrate this week. So for me, this is a different sort of Super Tuesday. A day when the One who could have touted his accomplishments, denigrated the opposition, and shamelessly promoted himself did not. Instead he watched people as they came and went in the Temple. He watched the ones he loved so much and began to feel in his soul what they felt in theirs. He began to sense more deeply what you and I feel which is a little bit of lostness and a whole lot of selfishness. Jesus on Tuesday could see it in their eyes. Jesus on Friday would feel it in his heart and it would make him cry out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"? This is my Savior on this Super Tuesday.

Radioactivity, a Hot Water Bottle, and Jesus

I have found a new favorite thing. At my age this is really exciting. A good friend of my wife Karen gave her a gift. There is a group of friends who go out every once in a while to lunch and they bring gifts for each other. That is like an alien world to any guy I know. If we decide to get together every once in a while it would probably be to watch a game but we certainly wouldn't ever think to bring little gifts for each other. That is just one more thing that proves that my wife lives in a totally different dimension than I do. Anyway, this friend gave my wife an old fashioned hot water bottle. I didn't say they gave great gifts to each other. So my wife brought this home and as a lark I filled it up with hot water and put it under our sheets since my wife is almost a reptile when it comes to how cold she gets at night. This blog is not going to go over well with her. But the hot water bottle was wonderful. I mean it was the greatest thing. Now, every night I fill it up and put it under the sheets on my wife's side and it gives me so much joy it should be illegal. I have been trying to think for days how to relate that to Jesus. Do you know why I like to relate everything to Jesus? My self centeredness and selfishness and sin grows like a cancer in my soul. The ultimate remedy is the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross. That is what has forgiven me. But the cross of Jesus, the Gospel, is the only thing that really works on the sin right now. Thinking about the cross, the love of my Savior, the great exchange (II Corinthians 5:21)does something deep down inside of me that nothing else does. Trying to suppress my sinful nature with will power is pretty useless. Even if I am successful I tend to be proud of myself and BANG, I am right back in with vanity. I heard a preacher say that sin is like cancer and being reminded of Jesus is like radioactive material that shrinks the tumors. That is why I try to think of Jesus in everything. As far as the hot water bottle goes, I am going to have to keep thinking. Maybe some of you can help me out but even trying tends to make my thoughts radioactive for a while.

Chopping the Poppy

Australians call it "chopping the poppy". It means cutting someone down to size. Aussies don't go for thinking more highly of yourself and they enjoy putting someone in their place. I just read where the governor of New York,Eliot Spitzer, has been caught using a high priced call girl service. The thing that makes it interesting is not just that he is a governor but the type of governor he was. His nickname was "Mr.Clean" because of his emphasis on fighting corruption. It seems there is a certain kind of elation that comes through the reporting of a story like this and a certain satisfaction in reading a story like this. One New York congressman decided not to try to hide his giddiness. Rep. Peter King said,"I never try to take advantage or gloat over a personal tragedy. However, this is different. This is a guy who is so self-righteous, and so unforgiving". Consider the poppy chopped. But what is it in me that is drawn to a story like this. Why does Peter King feel good about it? Eliot Spitzer is not as good a man as he tried to lead people to believe. True enough. I think there are two things going on inside of me. One is the deep desire to think I am better than Eliot Spitzer. Can you believe he was acting like he was fighting corruption and at the same time he was calling high priced hookers to his hotel room the night before Valentine's Day? What a cad!! And if I was talking to you now we would both be convinced that I was a better man that Eliot Spitzer and you could convince me you are better as well. I am thinking I would have a harder time convincing God. I want so badly to be better than others. That is why I read the whole article about Eliot. I liked the way it made me feel...about me. Of course we both know that I am not much different than Eliot...not really. I want people to think of me as better than I really am. If I was really much better than Mr. Spitzer I wouldn't need a Savior but we all know different. Sin is always so much easier to see in other people. Here we are coming up on Easter. It is the day we celebrate the exquisite love, sacrifice, forgiveness, beauty, and power of a God who moved heaven and earth to reconcile us to Himself. I love Easter. Why is it that I detest needing a Savior? I mean I love it and I hate it. I want a Savior and I want to feel like I am better than other people and I can't have both. So, today, I pray for Mr. Spitzer and his family and I am thankful I have a Savior who loves me enough to continue to be my Savior even when I entertain thoughts that my sin is not as bad as someone else's. If "Chopping the Poppy" is putting someone in their place then the only thing that seems to be able to do that to me is Jesus. From one poor sinner to another this is just a reminder that He really is a wonderful Savior.

The Tombstone

I like questions. I always have. I particularly like questions that help me understand someone at a deeper level. One of the questions that is a good one albeit very difficult to answer is,"What would you like written on your tombstone"? I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK...one of my favorites. But I would want my tombstone to do more than make someone laugh. An epitaph is a legacy of sorts. It is not just how I want to be remembered, it is also a description of what I want my life to be about now. I think that is why it is such a difficult question. But it is a question I really want to wrestle with because it can help me with decisions now. I just read a great epitaph. Ruth Bell Graham, Billy Graham's recently deceased wife, suggested an epitaph for herself. It read,"END OF CONSTRUCTION, THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE". I love that because there is not just a sense of her understanding of what God had been doing in her throughout her life but also a deep sense of humility. I used to think I wanted my tombstone to read,"HE BROUGHT GOD UP CLOSE". But I think that is too much about me oddly enough. I think now I want mine to read,"THE LOVE OF GOD FINALLY BROKE HIM,REMADE HIM AND BROUGHT HIM HOME". I guess it will need to be a big stone. Think about how you want to be remembered. Some day someone will have a chisel and a hammer, a piece of rock and a memory of you. How do you want that to end? For me, there has been nothing better than trying to finally let the love of God flow through like a mighty river and completely undo me and then realize that what the river left was better than what it took away. May you live the rest of today with the end in sight and may the end be better than today.

Cranberries, Me and God

Someone offered my a cranraisin the other day. It is a mix between a cranberry and a raisin. It struck me what a "loose" fruit a cranberry is. I mean they will mate with anything. I had known about Cran-Grape, Cran-Apple and even Cran-Orange but Cran-Raisin was just too much. Do Cranberries have no moral code at all? Wow! Any way, the next day I was reading in the Old Testament and God was talking about how easy we fall into idolatry. Only since God is so much into relationship He called it adultery. God was saying that every time I make something more important in my life than He is I am jumping into bed with it. My highest loyalty goes to whatever is most important to me. It can be my family, my job, approval of others or a host of other things. I guess the thing that struck me is I am hardly different than the Cranberry. So, yesterday I spent with God talking about how I want to be His and His alone. I want to quit jumping around from day to day looking to other things to give my life ultimate meaning. The amazing thing about God is that He is always glad to have us back. So, from one Cranberry to another I invite you to spend today with the God who calls you by name and waits for you to come home.