Advent devotional - John the Gymnast

"And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb." Luke 1:41

Proximity to Jesus was a big deal when he walked the Earth. Scholars and others within earshot of his preaching listened in speechless wonder. People climbed trees to see his face in a crowd and tore roofs off of houses in pursuit of his healing power. The mere brush of his robe could end a chronic illness.

Although the gospel writers aptly assigned him the title of "Baptist", John's in utero acrobatics in the presence of Mary and Jesus deserve at least a bullet on his spiritual resume. His "leap" in verse 41 may not seem like an extraordinary detail until Luke underscores it with a second mention in verse 44 as a leap "of joy". Even as a six month old fetus, John was apparently instructing us in the character of praise.

Let us be reminded of our own proximity to Jesus as we anticipate the celebration of his birth. John was no nearer to him than we are now. Through the soul-encompassing work of God the Spirit, God the Son occupies your very heart. With every dollar we spend this season let us remember the price he paid to draw us close. With every gift we receive let us give thanks for the gift of our future presence with him in glory. Feel the joy and peace that energizes us when he is the focus of our praise.

Like John the Gymnast, we have every reason to leap.

Advent Devotional - The Privileged

"The LORD has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm."  - Zephaniah 3:15

For two and a half chapters, the prophet Zephaniah spews a blast of verbal flame.  Judgment, destruction, and horrific disaster await Israel and all its neighbors in response to their idolatry and pride - a vivid backdrop that makes the encouraging words of 3:15 all the more soothing to our frightened ears.  How the faithful remnant must have clung to this promise that the LORD would be with them and restore them.

What they would have given to be us.  Imagine if they were able to look back to a point in history when this promise was ultimately fulfilled. Consider their amazement upon reading of a baby king, born in poverty, who would be revealed as God himself come to Earth.  How cut to the heart they would be to hear the detailed account of how He took away their punishment by taking it upon himself.  What praise would fill their hearts as they beheld, with newfound clarity, a love so extreme as to blow away all previously-held notions of power and might.

Sisters and brothers, consider how privileged you are to have heard this story of King Jesus. He will be with you forever.

More than Zombies - Reflection on Ezekiel 37

Let's face it, Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones in Chapter 37 is downright spooky.  Placed by God in a virtual sea of human skeletal remains, Ezekiel witnesses a gory reconstruction of bones, tendons, flesh, and skin in response to his prophesying, complete with "bone rattling" sound effects.  And then the bodies all lay there, not breathing, which strikes me as even creepier than when they were just dry bones.  But God, the Grave Robber (credit to Pastor Derek Baker for that one), is not finished.  At his command, breath of life blows in from the four winds and brings this vast army to its feet, brimming with vitality.

Such was his dramatically stated promise to Israel and to us, his church.  Living our lives apart from God, we are as good as dead.  But as we put our trust in him, God the Holy Spirit breathes life into us, filling us with a power that decisively triumphs over the deadly effects of sin.  Even as we agonize over that destructive habit that drags us down, that grudge that fills us with unrighteous anger, those words that we wish we hadn't said, and the constant reminders of sin and death all around us, we are nonetheless comforted and strengthened deep down by his presence.

My Testimony

Following is a testimony that I gave on “What the resurrection means to me”, Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010 at First Presbyterian Church, North Shore (meeting at Ipswich High School):

Good morning.  My name is Rich Mulley.  I grew up right here in Ipswich, Massachusetts and graduated from Ipswich High School in 1980.  I find it really funny that God has brought me back to this particular place to speak about him, because 30 years ago, on this very location, I was regularly engaged in some mischievous and even dangerous behavior of which I’m quite sure he did not approve.

I’d like to tell you today how I came to know Jesus Christ and what is the significance of his resurrection to me.

When I was a young child, my parents spoke to me on several occasions of a bittersweet and ultimately triumphant message. They told me that there was a problem with all of us, me included, called sin. Sin could make my life miserable and hopeless, but even more importantly, it could separate me from the love of God forever. They also told me that there was a solution to this problem by the name of Jesus Christ. He was the son of God who was sacrificed to pay the penalty for my sin. If I asked for his forgiveness and put my trust in him, I would live a life of hope and an eternity with no sin and suffering.

Even at that young age, I understood the first part of the message instinctively; I knew that my motives were not always pure. Now, at age 47, I really understand that fact. I didn’t fully comprehend the second part of the message at first (the solution), but I trusted my parents and sensed how serious they were about it. So, I decided to believe them and put my trust in this person Jesus Christ.

And that’s how I came to know him, the son of God who is God himself. I apologize if this is not the “mountaintop” experience that you may have expected, but that is the simple and deliberate way God first revealed himself to me. What I can say, however, is that my life since that point has been an ongoing series of “mini-mountaintop” experiences where God has steadily revealed his faithfulness, love, and power to me through the normal events of life.  Here are some examples:

Through my childhood, I did not have many friends who believed as I did. I didn’t like church very much and really didn’t have any close friends there. At 16, I was about to give up on church when God surrounded me with some new friends, and then a bunch more during my college years.  Through these friends, God showed me that relationships can go very deep, very fast and be extremely satisfying when they are focused on him.  One of those friends even became my wife. I am continually amazed at the level of trust that forms so quickly between people who have put their faith in Jesus Christ.

Witnessing the births of my three children and seeing their slimy and squirming bodies emerge from the womb left me speechless.  I marveled at the power and creativity of a God who could think of such a weird and wonderful way to bring new people into the world. These were three of the most spiritual experiences of my life. If there are any expectant fathers here that are squeamish about this kind of thing and would rather not be around at the appointed time, I will gladly take your place during delivery.  I don’t care if the expectant mother screams obscenities at me. I’ll even help her breathe.

Three times over the past decade I have suffered multiple-month bouts with extreme anxiety and stress.  As I neared the point of despair in each instance, God gave me comfort that clearly overpowered the suffering I had experienced.

Nonetheless, I often question God, as some of you probably do. When I think of the holocaust, the attack on the World Trade Center, my constant battle with sin, giving into temptation for the bazillionth time, and losing my temper yet again, I wonder why a good and all-powerful God allows these bad things to happen.  The fact is that he has never given us a precise answer to this question. What he has given, however, is this:  the assurance that he is bigger, more powerful, and more trustworthy than I can ever hope to totally comprehend in this life and that somehow he has it all under control.  This assurance is enough for me.

But what does all this have to do with the resurrection? Well, if Jesus didn’t walk out of that tomb 2,000 years ago, then you can disregard everything I just said. Taking the punishment I deserve and dying in my place so that I could live a life of hope and an eternity with no sin and suffering was the ultimate act of love and self-sacrifice in all of human history. But his coming back from the grave is what confirmed for me that he was who he claimed to be: the all-powerful God of creation who was victorious over even death itself, for whom absolutely nothing was impossible, and who was worthy of my trust.

Two things I know: 1) that Jesus is alive, because his power and presence are more real to me than the air that I’m breathing at this moment, and 2) that he will never abandon me, because the price he paid was far too high.

This is the God in whom I put my trust.

The Attachment Irony

When people find out that my wife and I are foster parents, we often sense some underlying feelings of guilt on their part. Perhaps they feel that we have some hidden agenda aimed at shaming them into a similar pursuit of social justice, or maybe some are experiencing honest conviction about their lack of concern for the underprivileged among us. They probably wouldn't feel this way if they knew how much we agonized over our initial decision to become foster parents. While we are glad to encourage people to give it a try, we certainly don't feel that anyone is obligated to do so.

Some people go as far as to offer us excuses as to why they are not foster parents. By far the most common of these is fear of attachment, which is usually expressed in either the form of a question ("Don't you get attached?") or a resigned statement of self-awareness ("Oh, I could never do that because I would get too attached."). Somewhere around the twentieth time I heard this excuse, I had to resist the urge to blurt out a sarcastic response such as "Well, once you become cold and uncaring like us it's easy to resist the trap of emotional attachment and become successful foster parents."

The irony of this excuse is that the people who are most prone to become emotionally attached to foster children are probably the best candidates to parent them. It is precisely this attachment that will provide children with the most developmental benefit, even if it only lasts a few weeks or months. I don't doubt that some people would be driven to the edge of despair upon experiencing foster parenting's inevitable cycle of attachment and separation, but I suspect that most people are emotionally strong enough to withstand it. Perhaps their excuses are indicative of an internal struggle of conscience. 

Nobody should feel obligated to be a foster parent, but I would encourage those who have ever considered it to remember what I call the "attachment irony":  The stronger your fear of attachment, the more reason you have to become a foster parent.

For those who are interested, here's a good foster parenting testimony: Molly McCullough's Testimony

Why ask Why?

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Cor. 12:9

Several people in my church have experienced extreme suffering over the past few years.  I posted this message on the church Facebook page last year and decided to resurrect it this weekend after the death of our youth pastor's son.

Our associate pastor pointed out in a sermon last year that God rarely reveals to us the specific reasons for our suffering.  By faith, I accept this fact.  However, when I suffer or see the extreme suffering of others, I can’t help but pray, “why, God?” 

Can we legitimately stand before a holy and omnipotent God and ask this question?  With care to avoid irreverent and selfish whining, I think we can - and should. After all, King David and Job frequently posed the question to God and even Jesus himself prayed on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).  Surely “why” can find a proper place in our prayers.

    

Like many Christians, I focus too much on “keeping it together” during periods of suffering.  We should study those among us who are able to shed this mask of false bravado and cry out to God with “holy complaining”.  God is visible in their desperate pleas.

God has drawn them especially close, as He often does in the midst of suffering.  In the safety of His embrace, they feel compassion and empathy that dwarf any human estimates of the same.  In feeling His power, they are simultaneously confronted with the truth of His absolute control over all of their circumstances, both good and bad.  This unexpected concoction of awe, comfort, and confusion compels an eruption of desperate, reverent, and hopeful “complaining” to the One who knows every answer and has felt every pain.

In their brokenness, they will progress beyond needing a reason for their suffering. Healing will come from the God of infinite comfort and hope.

Obligatory first post

Like many middle-agers, I struggle to find my inner social media self.  As an end-user computing expert, I probably understand the social media industry better than most, and yet I haven't been able to find the place where I feel truly free to express myself. I love Facebook, but mostly as a stalker (in the harmless sense) and occasional commenter.  My hyperactive tendency toward self-editing prevents me from posting too frequently.  Twitter is just too rapid-fire for my style, and besides, I'm getting tired of hash tag humor. #grumpygeekcomplaints

So, I thought I would try blogging. I am hoping that the blogosphere is the place that affords me the room to record my occasional thoughts about life without leaving my comfort zone for completeness. We'll see.

I also like that there is one place that I can store, access, and share some of my writing.  I don't expect that a lot of people will read it, but I will be satisfied even if just a few of my family members and close acquaintances occasionally stop by.

For now, I have named it "The Little Things" because those are the things in life that interest me most.  You'll see what I mean.