day seven of my week long fast toward resurrection sunday

Isaiah 53:1-6 NLT

        Who has believed our message
           and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
        He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
           and like a root out of dry ground.
        He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
           nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
        He was despised and rejected by men,
           a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
        Like one from whom men hide their faces
           he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
        Surely he took up our infirmities
           and carried our sorrows,
        yet we considered him stricken by God,
           smitten by him, and afflicted.
        But he was pierced for our transgressions,
           he was crushed for our iniquities;
        the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
           and by his wounds we are healed.
        We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
           each of us has turned to his own way;
        and the LORD has laid on him
           the iniquity of us all.

It is day seven of my week long fast toward Resurrection Sunday. I am not really sure what I have accomplished in this fast.  Again, I have lost a lot of weight. I am smaller now than I was at the end of my 21 day fast. I wear clothing smaller than ever before. That doesn’t hurt my feelings. However, that is not why I went on the fast.

On this fast, I have found that I need to connect more strongly with the church and with the Lord. That has been on my mind a lot.

I need that very badly.

I have given myself to both the Lord and to the church for almost forty years. I love both. I love the Lord more, but as I have made myself the servant of his body, I have a lot of love for it.

I guess the problem is that it has not always loved me back.

The church has driven my son away from the Lord. He saw the things that it was capable of and associated it with God. I tried to make him understand that the two were to necessarily synonymous, that God worked differently than the church did. I tried to tell him that God loves us even when his people don’t.

But, it is hard to argue with an experience. He saw them as being that way and it was hard to bring him to a different conclusion.

Now my daughter would go to church if the people there hit her with a stick on her way into the building. She  just loves God and loves his church.

Two kids, both responding in different ways to things that the body of Christ has done to their father.

I try to remember that Jesus, as he was dying, forgave those who were killing him. I try to have that same attitude in me as was in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2), but it is hard.

I find myself here in Lincoln, near the end of my life, far from those who love me and all my family.

But no matter – but it does matter – I love this church, this body of people who try their best to live like they think God wants them to. They are not always right in what they do, but that is my mission as a pastor: to teach them.

And it is my mission to love them. I do this in various ways.

I try to be with them in times of trouble. I feed them, both physically and spiritually. I give them coffee. I wait when they disappoint me. I laugh with them and cry with them. I am patient when they fall short of what I think they need to do.

And, above all, I love them.

Father God, I ask you for more strength in loving your people. Give me the same attitude toward them as you have. Make me more tender to them. I praise you. Amen.