Anna Resurget

I just left chapel at the seminary.  John Ewart, a professor here, was preaching.  His text was from John’s Gospel and was the narrative of the death of Lazarus and the events surrounding Jesus’ raising of Lazarus.  My morning was already filled with thoughts of Anna for various reasons, as most mornings are, and so this sermon was particularly poignant for me.  It was one of those services that are at once extremely sweet and extremely painful.

In the course of the sermon, John portrayed Jesus as calling forth to Lazarus and telling him to come out of the tomb.  He told how Jesus hated death, his enemy.  He was calling out to Lazarus telling him how to escape from death.  “Lazarus, come out this way!”  And Jesus defeated death that day, by calling forth Lazarus and raising him from the dead.

But what about Anna, or my mother, or the countless other believers who have died?  Has death won in their cases?  No.  I believe not.  Jesus still calls to each of them.  Just as forcefully as he called to Lazarus, saying, Come this way! Jesus called to Anna, is calling, and will call finally at his second coming to Anna, saying, “Anna, come forth from the grave!”  And just as surely as Lazarus was raised, so Anna will come forth from the grave.

It is a beautiful picture indeed.  And it will be a beautiful day indeed.

A while back I showed a picture of Samuel and Anna playing an Indonesian game where you have to tie a string around your waist, hang a pencil from the string behind you, and then try to lower the pencil into a bottle strategically placed beneath you.  I have often wondered if it is a form of Indonesian potty training.  If you’ve been there, you understand.  In the comments to that post, someone asked me if it was the “eel in the bottle” game they had heard me mention previously.

No, it is not the “eel in the bottle.”  Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a brief excerpt of the Eel Relay.

Samuel has asked:

I have found that God is all one thing or all the other except on one occasion.  This occasion is anger.  God is either one thing (on) or the other (off).  He is never in the middle except in anger.  He says to be slow to anger (the one exception) and abounding in love (on).  I think that we should be the same way.  Not only slow to anger and abounding in love, but in all areas of life.  Let me know what you think about this.

He is asking some thoughtful questions.  Check out his blog, Making Waves, to comment there.

Last night I was going through some old photos from our first year in Indonesia.  I looked at some of the brief videos we made with our little Kodak digital camera.  I will try to share some of these as we go along.  Here was one of Anna reading a book to me before her bedtime.  She is reading Angelina Ballerina and you can see me holding her Angelina doll in my lap.  Anna was four at the time.  The sound is a little rough at the beginning, but it seems to clear up toward the end.  Enjoy.

No Comment Needed

I recently learned of a new blog that you all need to check out.  It is called Making Waves and is designed as a place for discussion of important themes.  The creator of the blog, a fine young man from Wake Forest, NC, is choosing a topic for each week.  The initial topic is the issue of panhandling.  Check it out, but if you do, be sure you put your comments into the discussion!