all grown up....not really

I am leaving on a jet plane tonight for NY, Schroon lake NY to be exact. This little town hidden in the Adirondack park in Upstate NY is the place where I called home for 30 years. Throughout those 30 years I have had some unimaginable fun, whether it be in the summer skiing or riding horses or saving two people from the river in which they capsized their small canoe. My friend and I heard someone yell, "Little help here!".

I also went to school there, middle school, highschoool and one year of Bible college at Word of Life. Now Word of Life for those of you that do not know could be characterized as a medium security prison at times mixed with some Military school tactics for good cheer. I was one of those local kids who at one point was called to the Dean's office and honestly did not know if it was for, having physical contact with my girlfriend, going to movies, going to high school dances or other things. The Irony of it now is that recently I was asked by one of my friends, who is now the Dean of Admissions, to speak at the annual Father Son Banquet. It is so interesting becasue I am going back there, that place where one could recieve "demerits" for walking on the grass, so to speak.

I wonder what it will be like, my friend already told me that the numbers seemed low due to the weather. I emailed him and said, "maybe they are low due to who you have chosen to speak."

I am a little nervous about going back, I am much different now. I would not say for the better, but maybe not the worst either, just different. Everyone has a philosophy, and what I like about that word is people say it like it is this "absolute", like one might say "well our philosophies are just different, we do not allow long hair at our college, it is just our philosophy". The funny thing is a "philosophy" is just an opinion, but that word sounds a lot more "absolute" or mystical or spiritual.

My philosophy is much different than the folks I will be coming into contact with this week. I am not even sure what the dress code is yet! I brought a sport coat to be safe. The last time I was on this property My friend Bumper and I worked there. He was the camp's assistant director and I was just a life guard. Some of the fun we had I will save myself the embarrassment of letting all the viewers here of it, but it is amazing to say that least that after all these years and schooling, for some reason I am qualified now to "educate" these fine men and their sons.

We will see. My dad is going with me, and it is funny but I am the speaker and he is my dad. It seems like it should be the other way around. I am going to be 31 soon and it seems like yesterday I was at Word of Life running from the security or dressing up like snowcampers and raising hell on the staff. With our full face snow masks we attacked people, launched snowballs and through people in the snow. The word was out for the "tall campers who were causing trouble". No one could see their faces, no one knew it was us. As I sat in the counsellor meeting and heard what we needed to look for to stop this attack I laughed to myself thinking about when we would strike next.

I am speaking on the issue of "Like Father, Like Son" . I will try to integrate the idea that although our culture paints God the Father as this "town sheriff" in the OT who judges and condemns and His Son comes later and balances things out with his love. I want to point out 2 names for God in Genesis, Elohim and Yahweh. Elohim is this strong creator in Gen 1 and he is all-powerful, but then in Gen 2, we see a new name for God "LORD God"- Yahweh, A God who is faithful, a God who comes to Adam and Eve on there level, "Walking in the cool of the day" He could have pulled an "Elohim" on them, you know like, "Oh , You want to disobey me? Zap you are gone man, Oh I see you hiding over there, zap, now where are your legs?, Oh they are just bloody stumps, etc." But he doen't do that he wants to be known to them as Yahweh, A God who is faithful. We see this when he sends Moses to Pharoah, He does not want to be known as El ohim, that is already how the Jewish people view Pharoah, see El was not a knew name for God it had been around a long time and meant other Gods too. I wonder what kind of Dad I am, Am I an Elohim Dad or a Yahweh Dad? As I prepare to leave today I hope that maybe God will use me. I have been humbled alot in the last 10 years since I stepped foot on that campus. We will see, and hey it is not like they have to ask me back next year..........

Married Life

My wife and I recently celebrated our 8 year wedding anniversary. I could not believe it has been eight years. For fun we went to the Cheese Cake Factory and then to see the notorious Blades of Glory with Will Ferell. I am not sure how to spell his name. Anyway when we got home we got out the big box of college pictures. it was so funny to see our lives as we were so young and carefree, no responsibilities except whether or not we would go to our classes the next day or sleep in and what party to attend on the weekend. It was a hard life. We laughed as we stumbled upon some pics of an "eighties party" that we had and all the funny outfits and dancing to Depeche Mode and Def Leopard, (if you can dance to that). We laughed as we saw old friends and how young and skinny I looked.

I found some pictures of Abby and I when we were dating and how innocent she was, (now totally corrupted by me) and how easy things were. I realized again how college is just not real life at all. It is this serene adaptation in which everything is almost as close to perfect as it can get. People have not really known each other long enough to know their secrets, to know what their addictions are and struggles. You can almost mask them the entire 4 years and know one will really know. John Mayer says that dating and college is like an "A" movie. You show all your "A" movies first to people. Like maybe the first Die Hard, or Titanic, or Raiders of the Lost Ark, but sadly given enough time some of those B movies will come out. For instance given eonough time a "Police Academy 7 will slip out". Real life I think is what my wife and I experienced while we looked at those pics. We have been through a lot in those 8 years. She has found out alot about me, how selfish I am, How I have a very addictive personality, how I have a temper, how mean and selfish I can be. I have found out alot about her like how strong she is having lost her mom to a drunk driver when she was 11 and how she has dealt with that. At first I thought I wish that she had never found those things out about me, and that it could be like college and fun and utopian. But then I realized that is the fake aspect of life, and it is not real life at all. Real life is struggle, relationship, true relationship is work. It only happens when all the cards are on the table, and even though all through college I may have appeared to have a full house, all I really had was a 2/9 off suit, or if I was lucky "a pair of twos".

Real life is having kids and being able to not lose my temper with them when they are doing what it is that kids do. Relationship is loving my wife as Christ loves the church and trying to make a covenant with my eyes every day. Married life has really been an eye opener for me. After 8 years I realized that for one I have not been married that long comparitively speaking to that of my grandparents who have 55 years under their belt. But I have learned that real life is not college. Married life as Paul says is the mystery of Jesus and the church. That tension, that struggle, that love, that committment, that self-lessness, that sacrifice, that daily sacrifice. As my wife and I looked through pictures we laughed and we cried. In a sense we missed the old times, but not as much as we love the new times..

the weekend

I always feel good when it is friday, I think maybe it is because I am able to get out of my routine. I do not have to follow the guidelines, I can assume to be surprised, I can assume to not have any plans. Now of course my wife always has plans for me on the weekend, but for the most part I do not have plans except to spend time with the kids and work on stuff. I have that option to accidentally fall asleep in the chair, or accidentally fall asleep on the couch, or accidentally fall asleep out in the grass, or shower, or just some random place on the ground, but seriously I often wonder if this was what the Garden of Eden was like all the time, (not random nap places) I mean yeah there was some work to do like naming the animals, but schedule? it seems as if before there was sin there was not routine. I am sure to some extent there was but maybe a schedule that was much more similar to that of a weekend schedule. Now this is clearly speculation but Adam's work that he did in the garden was "good" according to God so I would assume that it was the kind of work that one would like or love. In our world today very few people love their job, they therefore work for the weekend, as Mr. Lewis and the News said it best. Is it possible that if you love your job, which few people seem to do, then maybe we share that kind of "good" work that maybe Adam did? Tainted with sin in a fallen world granted, but I think that if you are satisfied with work as much as you or I look forward to the weekend, Monday does not seem so bad, It could in fact be good?

Passover

I am in the midst of teaching the Passover from a Jewish perspective in my 10th grade Bible class. As I taught the same thing over and over all day long I was pleasantly surprised by new things that the Lord brought to my mind as i read and studied. Jesus said to His disciples, " I have fervent desire to eat this last meal with you." That is pretty strong Greek. The more I thought about it, the more I could not let the idea go that there is/was a pretty high, positive attitude from our Lord as He prepared for the Passover knowing that He would die the next day, yet He remained in good spirits. The event of the Passover can really be broken down into two things: The event and the remembrance (meal). As we know the event is the time in history when The LORD had promised that the death angel would come and kill all the first born kids, despite race, and the only way to live was to make sure that you have the blood of the lamb on the door, I mean death really surrounded this whole plague, Death, for the wages of sin is death. Then comes the celebration, the feast of Unleavened bread, the celebration in which much of the emphasis if not all is put on the fact that the Jews first Born got a "get out of dead" free card, but than I took a closer look, they really did not get out of death, they just got it prolonged, a prolonged death, a prolonged physical death. This celebration is in the midst of an event in which its emphasis is on a prolonged death and physical freedom from death, but physical freedom is not enough, in fact wasn't physical death a blessing to Adam, "What shall we do lest they eat from the tree of life and live forever?" God banished Adam and Eve so they could die, if they lived forever we would not be here. So Jesus institutes something special in the heart of the Feast of Unleavened Bread that He is so excited to share with his friends. So many years earlier when Adam and Eve sinned they should have been cursed, instead they were judged, the cursing went to the serpent and the ground, man's curse, well let's just say God has been holding onto it for a long time. Jesus is fervently desiring to eat this meal with the disciples because He is about to take something that is saturated in death and physical freedom only and turn it into life and spiritual freedom, a Passover like none other. He then makes a promise, "I will not drink of the vine again until we are in my father's house. See next year Passover will be celebrated and the year after and the year after, just like it always had. But that passover was different, there will not be one like it until we are with Jesus in Heaven, he is not eating it until he comes to get his bride. The groom goes to prepare a place for his bride but he is not at his dad's house eating the wedding cake, He will eat that later after he comes to get her, his bride, us. God has been holding onto that curse for a long time, Jesus is fervent with desire to eat this with his friends because he is bringing death to life. The event of the Passover is followed by the remembrance of the Passover feast, incorporated in that is the event of Christ's death burial and resurrection, the real remembrance of that will be, not when we take communion again, but when we have that feast again at the marriage supper of the lamb. God has been holding that curse for a long time, he is going to give it to someone finally on good Friday, he should have given it to Adam, he should have given it to me, but he held it and blessed me with death so to speak, a physical death, so that I can have spiritual life in him. Adam fell to the sin of pride, he died, Jesus was tempted on top of the temple by the devil, "jump off the temple, let them see that you are God" What if he had done this? What if they had seen him descend and angels carry him to the ground, I believe they would have called him Lord and you know what? I believe that they would not have crucified him, Satan would have won. Jesus beat the devil in the desert.

Jesus was pumped to eat this meal for the first time with his disciples, because it would not be the last time that they did this, in fact, it is not the beginning of the end, but rather the beginning of the beginning of the beginning. Jesus was pumped to eat this with his friends because he knew He had made it, he made it to the end, He made it the point in which he would in hours beat death, He made it further than Adam, He made it further than me. He offers more than a supper representative of prolonged physical death, he does not represent anything, He is.