DUDE!!

Long time between posts. Has my brain been empty? Yeah, sort of.

No doubt you’ve seen the Bud Light commercials that feature only one word. The commercial follows around an individual as he goes to a football game and he comments every time something bad happens. Someone breaks in line – “Dude!”, someone sounds off a bullhorn in his ear, “Dude!”, he walks into a bathroom stall that someone has just polluted, “Duuuude”. It’s especially funny to me because long before he was on Saturday Night Live, Rob Schneider used to talk about the word “dude” in his act, saying that it could literally display ANY emotion. But most of the time, this guy in the commercial is getting hosed, therefore he emits a frustrated tone with his “Dude!”.

Next time you pray, ask yourself if that’s what you’re doing. Are you bowing your head, and asking God, “Dude?”. You know you do. That’s when we all pray the most, when the Big Guy has thrown us a knee-buckling curve ball that we weren’t ready for – DUDE! I have a theory that I don’t think God minds this, even though his answer could be, “Oh, you’re talking to me again? How nice of you to drop by”. Much as we all like to make fun of the athlete who wins the MVP of the World Series and then proclaims, “Well, uh, first, you know, uh, I uh, have to credit to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, uh, you know, with him all things be possible!”, at least give him credit for giving it up when the gettin’ is good. Weed through the “uh” and “you know” sprinkled in there and what you have is someone who is giving an energized, fist-pumping, “DUDE!!!!”

Every now and then….. no, more often than that, make it a point to look up to he heavens to give God a positive, “Dude!”

Easter

It happens to me every year. By the time Easter rolls around, I have become an “Administrative Christian”. You know what I’m talking about. If you’re involved in a church at all, you have either been or come in contact with the AC. Spring has sprung and there are lots of things to be done. Fix-up projects around the buildings, assembling the softball teams, planning the upcoming summer events for kids and a whole host of other plans take front and center. There are meetings and committees. More meetings and sub-committees. There are arguments over every little mundane detail of the service, bickering about who was sitting in who’s pew, and all out fights over how we spend our money. And before you know it, you’re walking through the church as though it were a municipal building.

You don’t notice the stained glass or the cross with a black veil draped over it. You don’t notice the palms stacked up.

But the moment I hear the opening notes of “Christ The Lord Is Risen Today”, I feel a wave come over me and I am reminded of why this is truly a day to stop and reflect on what God has done for us.

Go to church this coming Sunday. It is hard not to get caught up in the splendor that is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Dissecting the Bible

I find this verse one of the most interesting in the Bible:

Romans 13:1-7 (New International Version)

1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Read it two or three times. George Bush, Bill Clinton? These guys are God’s servants? I wonder if Kenneth Starr is going straight to hell for finding the “stained dress”. “For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but those who do wrong”. Does that apply to Fidel Castro? This is one of those verses that we all use to make our point about something, but we don’t want it to apply to something else. And our Bible is CHOCK full of them, baby. And on another note, I’m pretty sure that God did not assemble our current City Council here in Roanoke. He must have been busy overseeing another election and let these morons slip in.