Family and Children

Published in the Brechin Advertiser on 11 April 2013

We talk a lot about children and how they are our future. They are to be protected and on and on. Then we turn around and slam everything they do. OK a big paint roller kind of characterization perhaps. But it is a start to this train of thought.

I have the blessing of having all my children and grand-kids at home for the first time in 5 years. (Yeah I know, Ruth and I don’t look near old enough to have grand-kids... That is where you are supposed to laugh with me not at me.) It has been nice and I am enjoying the time, so if you don’t see me out and about much that is why—family time.

Anyway it reminds me of the verses that say “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward. 4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. 5 Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them…” [Psalm 127:3-5] I am blessed in many ways, I have good children, not perfect or always act like I want them to, but basically good. Granted they are not all raised yet but we are well on the journey.

Sadly too often it seems we don’t appreciate the gift from God that our children are. There is that wee bit that compares our children to arrows. Arrows are useless if they are not pointed to a target. Yet we are to do our part to do the aiming, the directing and raising of these gifts from God.

I watch and see so many abused kids it scares me at times. I read the papers and news reports and see two extremes of abuse. There are those that act in neglect, as if their children have no value and therefore can be treated with contempt and distain or worse. We treat them like evolution is true and they are little apes. The other abuse I see is those that give in to every whim and desire of the children. Neither approach can be good for aiming as both allow the children to aim themselves with no wisdom.

My hope is that we have not gone too far as a society and wake very soon to realize that the process is just repeating itself over and over. Just a bit of a thought that perhaps we can interact about in the coming weeks. Family is in meltdown and the basic bedrock of society is crumbling and yet we are not talking about how we are to raise children or the basis of marriage in our world and how this holds it all together. We talk about education and that is good but raising good kids is more than mere head knowledge and goes to learning how to use that knowledge properly.

Just thankful for my family,

Rev. Jon Bergen

Easter Monday Rumbling in the Brain

Published in the Brechin Advertiser on 04 April 2013

So Easter is past and we move through the year. Where have these first 3 months flown to. The daylight is staying in the sky longer now and it might actually get spring like now that the weatherman predicted more snow and ice through the end of April. I’m hoping he says we will have snow and ice all summer, it might get nice since every summer they say BBQ summer is wet and cold...

Well the Lord is risen, he is out and about interacting with His disciples and others. So a last thought for this year on Easter: Not sure who did this originally so if it was you and you happen to be reading this let me know--I'll be sure to give credit where credit is due. Just the thought adapted below made me think on an Easter Monday, hope it does for you too:

‘What if you had to describe Easter using only punctuation marks?

Maybe this Easter was a comma for you. It made you stop, pause, think and maybe even listen; but that's about it. Perhaps the day was a downer—a big bold full stop. You thought you'd feel excited, but instead it seemed to be more of an empty ritual. You felt as if you were not on the inside, but on the outside… just an onlooker. It was this day that life became a full stop for Jesus' disciples. He was dead. He was buried. The end to any and all expectations of hope and kingdom.

But wait—news of an empty tomb…the full stop is no longer a full stop, it became a question mark. That was worse than a full stop. Now there is doubt. Where was He? They were perplexed. The guards were gone; the stone was rolled away. He was not there. If not there, where had He gone? An angel spoke, 'Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was in Galilee, saying the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and how He must be crucified, and the third day He must rise again?’

Of course they remembered! The full stop is gone. The question mark is removed. There is only room for one massive exclamation point! That's what Easter is all about…an exclamation of gratitude and of praise for the resurrection of Jesus Christ and for the salvation His victory over death brought to us.’

So what do we do with this risen Jesus?

Will be an interesting journey this year,

Rev. Jon Bergen

Holy Week to Easter

Published in the Brechin Advertiser 28 March 2013

So we are, well into Holy Week things are moving fast now. We have enjoyed the thought of the triumphal entry and heard, I hope, the voices crying Hosanna to Jesus riding into Jerusalem on that Palm Sunday so long ago. Now moving through the week we look ahead to the Last Supper and then the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed asking if perhaps the ‘Cup’ could be passed over, yet with the resounding “not my will but thine”. Then the betrayal of Judas to the rulers and then we can hear the cries of the people as they shout out “Crucify Him”... It is perhaps Friday and the sound of the hammer striking the nails as they pierce the flesh of Jesus to nail Him to the cross that is then hoisted up to leave Christ hanging between Heaven and earth as an atonement for the sin of mankind.

Oh the darkness, the agony, the suffering, the heartbreak of the followers and disciples, how Mary the Mother of Jesus must have hurt and wept as she remembered the days from his birth a mere 33 years before to the tragic day before her... Oh, but as the old black preacher shouted out in his sermon:  “IT’S FRIDAY BUT SUNDAY IS COMING!”

So there it is, the disciples hidden away for fear, the body of Jesus, the one they thought was the Saviour, the Messiah buried in the tomb, wrapped up like a mummy and not a chance there was a future... The ladies headed to the tomb wondering how they were going to get in the tomb with the stone and the guards in the way, yet prepared to finish the job of embalming the body that had been so hastily and improperly buried on that Friday before the Sabbath.

So the big questions unanswered, the grave sealed, the doubt in the way—yet arriving at the tomb it is not at all what they expected. The grave was open, the stone rolled away. The guards gone and instead angels asking: Why are you seeking the living among the dead? He is NOT HERE HE IS RISEN AS HE SAID.

Doom turned to Joy. Sadness turned to Happiness. Despair turned to Hope. As the Apostle Paul said: “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death…”

Glory in Hope of the resurrection and have a very Happy Easter,

Rev. Jon Bergen

Catching up from Easter to May...Well that is the plan anyway...

I'm going to be catching up several 'Thought for the Week' thoughts in the next couple of days so start with the one before this and you can catch up.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Getting ready for Easter

Lead in to Thought for the Week for Easter 2013

Living a faith based life makes one want to be better in this life. But it is not always easy. The only way I can be better is by learning more of what the Bible teaches. I had an interesting conversation this week as I was reminded that there are many that do not live faith based lives. They are relying on the Bible not being true or that they can perhaps pick and choose which parts they like. I was asked point blank if I really believed the Bible is true. My answer is an emphatic ‘YES’, just in case you are wondering. I went on to explain to the one asking the question that the challenge is that too often while I believe it to be true, I still struggle at times to understand some of the things it says.

But one part is clear to me , it is that Jesus lived, God loves me enough for Jesus to come to earth to die and offer salvation to whoever calls on the name of the Lord and believes in the resurrection. (Romans 10:9) Which brings me to this next week as Christians prepare to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus on the day we call Easter.  Don’t get me wrong Christmas is precious and brings out warm fuzzy feelings in all of us. I confess Easter is a bit harder to digest in that we have to come to grips with the idea that that babe in the manger becomes the man on the cross. That the creator God knew from the beginning that Jesus would come to earth to suffer and die for us. But God also knew that there would be victory over that same death. 

The question has also been asked of me: If Jesus resurrection wasn’t real would you still be a Christian? My answer to that is an emphatic - NO!! Paul the Apostle also assures us that he wouldn’t have been a follower of Jesus either if he had not been convinced of that resurrection. In fact he said if there was no resurrection we would be most miserable of all men. Our misery would be more profound than the suffering characters in the story Les Mise̕rables. 

Thankfully there is a resurrection to look back on and forward to and so I hope that in the coming week you will find a place to worship and hear the story of the Jesus who changed the world. That in the next week you will hear of the power of Jesus as He entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and then hear the stories of the Passion Week that then lead us to the morning of Easter... (there will be services throughout Holy Week.)

This past Sunday I was preaching from John 8 and the verse I focused on was quoting Jesus as He said “I am the Light of the World.” Such a profound thought to bring me to Holy Week. It was spiritually dark in His day and I am learning that we face the same sense of spiritually dark thought today as well. People that have never read the Bible reject it. And even worse are those that have read it and reject the parts they don’t like. But I will still believe and teach it and celebrate the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. It is the power of the One who is Light who gives us hope!

Join me and other Christians in this journey of belief and understanding,

Rev. Jon Bergen

'you will never stop looking for love...'

Originally published in the Brechin Advertiser 12 July, 2012

 
“If you don't receive love from the ones who are meant to love you, you will never stop looking for it.”   

― Robert Goolrick, The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life

One of my Facebook friends put this on his wall, but it took a while to sink in but I thought what a great thought. I know so many folk that are looking for love, and as the country song goes, “in all the wrong places.” And the truth is too many times we all are looking to be loved. I remind us again of the thought of John 3:16 about God loving the world so much that He sent Jesus to come and be our Saviour. There is as well that verse in 1^st John that says the God is love.

How often do we just not ‘feel the love’. It is one of my standing phrases I use when getting the worst end of a slagging off: “Boy I’m feeling the love” (said with very thick sarcastic tones). But often it is how we feel we don’t sense the love or express the love to others in a way that is felt. I know so many that have said: I know my Dad/Mum/(fill in yours) loved me even though they never told me. I hope my kids will never say that of me. 

I have managed to stay married now 29 years, I know that it is not because I am a perfect husband and Ruth sometimes has to remind me to tell her that I love her, not that she doubts it, she just says she likes to hear it. Well from my perspective we have made it so far because my Heavenly Father has demonstrated His love into my life in a way that I can duplicate at some level because I have experienced what it is like to receive love so I don’t have to look for it, I instead get to experience it.

Then the beauty is that since I have experienced a great love from one who is meant to love me it is no longer about spending my life looking for it but rather recognizing love when it is given. Sadly my humanity still gets in the way and I don’t perfectly recognize it like I’d like to. I have my 3 lassies I interact with, and well two are too much like me and not demonstrative when it comes to cuddling, so every now and again I remind them that ‘Daddies have to have cuddles to survive...’

So God loves us, that is good to know. But do we show our love into the lives of folk around us that need it? Have others we needed love from showed it to us? Perhaps since we are mere mortals and don’t do this as well as we should we are still looking for love? But perhaps we can also learn and do better and find great love from the right place and then we can become the one that shares that love so others don’t have to look for it forever. 

Here is to learning to love others,

Rev. Jon Bergen

A P.S. if you will... I have since gotten the book and the story while one that goes against many of my Christian values is a powerful story or perhaps that should be series of stories. It is a must read type book, but be prepared to have your heart broken, your sensibilities assaulted and  even shed tears at times for the author and even, as importantly, for the many others in this world that have been through similar or worse. These are stories of a man who was brutally raped (rape to my mind is always brutal) by his own drunken father and has been looking for genuine love ever since. I wish there was a way to share Jesus with him personally and I have prayed that while I am not in a place to do so, that God would be gracious and put someone loving into Robert's life to do so in the most amazing way possible.