Scottish Art: Moon over Maybole West

My first parish church in Maybole, Scotland, affectionately known as the Glen Kirk.

4 Minute Devotions: Willie

There are some great people that we get to know whose Christianity is a blessing to everyone they meet. Willie from Maybole, Scotland was a great example of this.

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1 Timothy 6:6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.

I have been blessed in the Lord’s ministry to have worked with some wonderful people and deeply contented Christians. They have shown me that happiness in the Lord does not depend upon what we have, but what we give. They have been examples of faithful servants in God’s Kingdom and I feel very privileged for having known them. They remain dear to my heart and are ever on my mind.

For example, Willie was a great mentor to me and a partner in God’s work when I was pastor in Maybole. He was our Session Clerk, as well as being a lay preacher. Willie worked in the local bank and was well known throughout the town. He was a great smiler and always enjoyed being with people. He had a wonderful way of dealing with trouble and crises through his rich sense of humor. Many a time, when I would get all hot and bothered over an issue, Willie was able to disarm the situation by finding something amusing to say. It was a special gift and I became a better pastor because of it.

Willie had his own heartbreaks and troubles, but he never let them get him down or seriously damage his faith. When his beloved grand-daughter died of leukemia, he was heart-broken, but he didn’t let his tragic loss cloud his life. He still served God faithfully and loved serving the church. In my books, he was a great man and a wonderful Christian. I am truly thankful for having known him as a fellow servant for the Lord.

Willie has recently been taken into the hospice to prepare himself for that last journey that we all must take someday. If I know Willie, he’ll be making the nurses laugh and will still have that boyish sparkle in his eyes. It will be a sad loss for all of us who knew and loved him dearly, but it will be a joyous occasion on the other side when Willie is ushered into the Lord’s presence. One day, I’ll get to see him again and we can laugh together doing God’s work in Eternity. O how I love being a Christian! O how I love true Christian folk!

Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank You for the special Christians in our lives whose love makes it easier for us to come closer to You. Empower and enable us to become true examples of God’s servants, not in a self-righteous way, but in an endearing way. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.

John Stuart is the pastor at Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment upon today’s message, please send him an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.

4 Minute Devotions: Payback

Sometimes we are too zealous in our outrage at the world that we want to payback evil with evil. Payback belongs to the Lord; we are meant to love our enemies and forgive those who hurt us.

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2 Thessalonians 1:6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you.

Many years ago, I befriended a drug addict in Maybole, Scotland called Davie. We shared a common interest in art and throughout my years there, we drew some great religious pictures together. I still have some of them on my office wall here in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Davie’s conversion involved kicking his drug habit, which was very hard to do and extremely painful to watch as he went through withdrawal. He never fully beat it, but most of the time he managed to stay clean. Outwardly, he changed from an untidy, sour and angry person to becoming a brighter, happier, and smart looking guy. His new faith in Christ transformed him and I felt privileged to know him as a friend.

But sometimes his new faith got him into trouble. One night he decided to pay back one of the drug pushers in Maybole by beating him up. Davie’s zeal got the better of him, which made him choose the wrong moment to try this. The pusher was surrounded by a couple of heavies, who set upon Davie like a pack of wild animals.

In the wee small hours of the morning, the phone rang at the manse. It was Davie. He needed help, so I drove to where he was and was shocked to see him. His face was all bloody and bruised. He was shaking and could hardly stand. I wanted to take him to hospital, but he wouldn’t let me. Instead, I drove him up to the manse and helped to clean him up.

Davie wanted to pay back the drug dealer for all the misery he was causing in Maybole, and to show him what the vengeance of the Lord looked like. But all he got for his one man crusade was a bruised face and bloodied nose. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, to hug him or chide him. He had the right intention but he just went about it in all the wrong way.

Payback is something that we should leave to the Lord. As Christians, we’re meant to forgive those who hurt or harm us. It’s hard to do and sometimes we feel that the wicked go unpunished. However, that’s not the case, for there will come a time when God will take care of the unrepentant wicked. It’s not our responsibility. It’s not our cause.

Prayer: O Lord, forgive us for wanting payback in our lives and for being mad at those who are unjust, wicked, and evil. Teach us the hard lessons of loving our enemies, and of leaving justice to You. Help us to do whatever we can to make this world a better place through the strength of Your love. In Jesus’ Holy Name, we pray. Amen.

Sunday Sermon: Touching God

John 20:19-29 Jesus Confronts Thomas

It was just an ordinary day back in Maybole, Scotland. I had been making house calls in the village of Dunure, which was about 9 miles away from the manse. I was heading home and thinking about what Evelyn might be making for my dinner. The sun was shining and the sea looked beautiful as I coasted my way back home.

When I got to the manse, I expected Lynsey and Lauren to come out to meet me, but they didn’t. I walked through the back door and met Evelyn in the kitchen. I could see in her eyes that something was wrong.

“John, I’ve got some bad news,” she said quietly. “Your Mom is dead.”

I was stunned. I knew that my mom was ill and had been for years, but this was sudden and completely unexpected. I obviously couldn’t take it in, so I think Evelyn told me again. I was quiet and couldn’t think of anything to say. Within thirty minutes, I was ready to head up to Glasgow to be with my family, to be with my Dad.

All this happened about seventeen years ago, but it was so much of a shock to my system that I can’t really remember what happened over the next couple of weeks. I can recall being with my Dad down at the police station to be with him when a detective inspector interviewed him. Because my mother’s death was so sudden and happened when she was alone, my Dad had to be questioned. The whole interview was surrealistic and it suddenly dawned on me that they were interviewing my Dad to rule out murder. It was an awful feeling and it seemed so unfair at the time because my Dad was still shocked by mom’s death.

He had left her on her own to go and select some library books. When he returned twenty minutes later, he found her slumped over in her chair. She was gone and there was absolutely nothing he could do. The coroner who did the autopsy said that she died instantly from a massive heart attack, so even if Dad had been there, he never could have saved her. She was only 57 years old.

As I said before, my memory of the whole event, funeral, and family gathering after it is all fuzzy. I can hardly remember any of it, and even today it all seems so unreal.

Sudden death can do that to people. John House, who is a great psychologist in our congregation, has probably had to deal with this on many occasions. Today, in this passage from John’s Gospel, we see something similar happening to Thomas. He has been emotionally stunned by Christ’s death. He has been totally shocked by how fast things happened during the week in Jerusalem. One day, Christ and His disciples are being welcomed into the Holy City and within less than a week, Jesus is arrested, tortured, put on trial, humiliated, and crucified.

Thomas, who ran away with the rest of the disciples, cannot cope with what has happened. All his hopes and dreams of being a major player in Christ’s triumphant ministry have been shattered and destroyed. He has nothing left spiritually or emotionally. He is empty and insecure, totally depressed and fearful for his life. This has been the greatest shock to his system that Thomas has ever experienced, and he just wants to get away from everyone and everything. He just wants to forget about the last three years he has followed Jesus. He just wants to get his life back in order. He just wants to go home.

But he can’t go home because people will recognize him, and he may get arrested by the authorities. So for a couple of days, Thomas is on the lam. He must have hid outside of Jerusalem and got lost in the Passover crowds who were returning home. He was lonely and frightened, possibly angry and sick within himself. He must have felt abandoned and hunted at the same time.

Eventually, the other disciples find Thomas. He must have been surprised to see them happy and delighted. He thought that they should have been dejected and depressed, panic stricken and anxious. Instead, they are delirious with delight and full of joy.

But when they explain to Thomas that Christ is not dead, that he has risen, it’s all too much for the disciple. He can’t believe what he is hearing, so he thinks that they are all crazy with grief and totally insane. But they keep insisting that Christ is alive until Thomas finally shouts out:

"Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

Today is the 76th anniversary of Amelia Earhart’s solo flight across the Atlantic. She was the first woman to do this, in a time when men were getting all the credit for being heroes of the sky. When she was given the opportunity to do this, the usual Doubting Thomases said that it couldn’t be done. To fly solo across the Atlantic required intellect and skill, focus and determination, energy and strength. A mere woman could not endure such a flight, and anyone who decided to attempt this must be a lunatic.

But Amelia proved her critics wrong. She even flew through a terrifying mid-Atlantic storm, which surrounded her with dark clouds that almost petrified her.

"When daylight came,” she later said, “I could see on my wings traces of the ice which had gathered—droplets of water and very small frozen particles. Probably, if I had been able to see what was happening on the outside during the night, I would have had heart failure then and there; but, as I could not see, I carried on.”

Even in the midst of fearful circumstances, she never doubted her ability to complete the journey. When she was interviewed after her achievement, she stated that "The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward."

When Thomas refused to believe the others, there was nothing on earth that they could do to convince him of the truth. I imagine that all week long, he was in a sultry, sour mood because the rest of the disciples wouldn’t stop talking about Christ’s resurrection. It must have almost driven him crazy, but there was nowhere else he could go. His fears were more than paper tigers; they were causing him sleepless nights and moments of high anxiety. He was in a crazy situation, amongst crazy people, and he couldn’t escape. He was so emotionally paralyzed with shock and fear that he could not decide what to do.

And then Christ came back into Thomas’ life, just as suddenly as he had left him. One moment, all the disciples were in the Upper Room praying together on their own; the very next moment, Christ was in the center of the room.

Now if Thomas had been initially shocked by Christ arrest and crucifixion, this supernatural appearance must have almost caused him heart failure. Jesus was standing before him, just as the others had said. And before Thomas could drop to his knees and ask for mercy, Jesus called to him and said, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

I can picture Thomas with his mouth wide open and his eyes as large as the moon. For the second time in a week, he cannot believe what is happening. Slowly, he reaches out his fingers to touch the nail prints in Christ’s hands and even to touch the wound in His side. All of a sudden, it is too much for Thomas, and he falls to his knees, crying out, “My Lord and my God!”

This is the most important passage from the Gospels about the resurrection for our people today. And I’ll tell you why.

In recent years, there has been interest in the so called Gospel of Thomas, which many people falsely believe has secrets about Jesus that the Church wants to be kept hidden. This Gospel was written by a group of people called the Gnostics, who believed that Jesus wasn’t crucified because God had taken Him up to heaven and that it was a ghostly image or a specter, or what we would call a hologram that seemed to be crucified on the Cross. In other words, Christ’s physical body was never there, so He didn’t suffer any physical torment, excruciating pain, or death itself.

This has led many people to believe that the resurrection of Christ was only a spiritual one. This Gnostic garbage was prevalent in North Africa during the 4th – 7th centuries AD. So when Muhammad started to write down the Koran, he was influenced by the false teachings of Gnosticism, so that to this day the Muslims believe that Christ never actually suffered on the Cross. And, as Mark Twain delighted in saying, “Bunkum! Absolute bunkum!”

And this is further compounded by the fact that even in the PCUSA, we have misguided pastors who do not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, but insist that the Gospel of Thomas should be researched, studied, and read in church in order to bring us closer to the real Historical Jesus who, as one of these pastors recently said, died and His body has decomposed and turned to dust in a forgotten cave somewhere in Palestine.

When Thomas touches Christ, he is touching a real body that has been miraculously resurrected by God. This whole passage refutes any belief in a spiritual resurrection of Christ. And I would say to you, and anyone in the world, that if you do not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, then you are not a Christian. You can be a modern Gnostic, you can be Muslim, or you can be a skeptic, but what you cannot be is a Christian.

And where do I get this conclusion from? It comes none other from Jesus Christ Himself, who finally says to Thomas: "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

Those words are meant for us, two thousand years in the future. We have not seen the resurrected Christ and yet we believe in Him. We have not yet touched Him, and yet we believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. It’s what makes us Christians in the first place, and distinguishes us from other religions. Jesus is our Risen Lord and He is also the God of all creation. He is no paper tiger, or spiritual phantom. Christ is no figment of the true Gospel writers or an apparition of a bunch of hysterical disciples. Jesus is the Resurrected Christ, whose wounded, dead body was raised by the power of Almighty God, whom we worship, adore, and serve, both now and forevermore. Amen.

John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Erin Church Growth Ideas: The Coffee Club

Years ago, when I ministered in Maybole, Scotland, I set up a weekly Bible study at the church and called it “The Coffee Club.” It started with about ten people and we gathered in the church hall. We sang some hymns, shared some prayers, and discussed different passages from the Bible. It was a wonderful group and as the years passed, it grew in size, faith, and fellowship.

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Isaiah 2:3 Many peoples will come and say,” Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.”

Recently, I’ve wanted to get back to some basic Bible teaching, so I have decided to establish a similar group over here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Like the Maybole group, we’re going to meet on Wednesday mornings, have coffee and discuss a chapter of the Bible each week. It will be similar to the Maybole Club, but with the new technology that is available, the club will be extended in several ways.

First of all, there will be a Coffee Club extra held on Wednesday nights for those who can’t make it in the mornings. Secondly, home study material will be made available to everyone on Sunday mornings, that way if they can’t be at the Wednesday meetings, they can study at home.

Thirdly, the study material will be available online via email – which means that anyone, anywhere in the world, can sign up for the studies, just by sending me an email at pastor@erinpresbyterian.org

These are exciting times for the ministry of the church, both here at Erin and throughout the world. We begin a 17 week session with the Gospel of Mark, starting next Wednesday. I’m looking forward to this new journey of faith.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank You for the stories about Your life that are contained in the Bible. Thank You for the words of encouragement and inspiring events that mean so much to us even today. Help all of us to make and take time to study Your ways, works, and words. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.