From Pastor Tom Heaton's in Guatemala...hope t

Thank you, Goodbye!


Hola Beth Ann! Greetings from Guatemala!

Methodists like to meet. We call it conferencing. Methodists in Guatemala are no different...My Spanish is improving but still very poor. As I heard all these reports and speeches, I kept picking up words and phrases I understood. One phrase that was repeated over and over again was “Gracias adiós” or in English, “Hello goodbye”. I thought this was odd, but I have been surprised by other phrases I have heard here.

On the way back from the morning at annual conference, I asked Dr. Fredy, the Salud y Paz clinic doctor, why everyone kept saying “Gracias adiós” hello goodbye. Dr. Fredy looked at me strangely and then started laughing. “Tom, they were not saying Gracias adiós, they were saying Gracias a Dios… Thanks to God.” I started laughing too! How could I have missed that!

I have thought about my misunderstanding of this phrase over and over again. It is an easy misunderstanding since there is only a slight voice inflection change that makes the difference in word sound. Certainly, if I had been thinking about the context I would have figured it out on my own.

But isn’t it true that we often raise prayers to God asking God for help, and when we feel like the prayers have been answered we say to God, “Thank you, goodbye!” Until we hit another life crisis and need God’s help. Too often we live our lives saying to God, “Thank you, goodbye,” when we should be living each day of our life saying, “Thanks be to God.”

During my first few months here in Guatemala, I have found myself relying on God each and every day. I have an even deeper understanding of what the apostle Paul meant when he said, "God's grace is sufficient... in my weakness I shall be made strong." God's grace is enough for us. In our weakest and most difficult moments, we are able to realize that fact because we open ourselves to receiving and experiencing God's love and grace. God's love for us shines through each and every day. We just need to stop and experience it. God is always there for us allowing us to live each and every day to its fullest. We just need to stop saying, "Thank you, goodbye," and start saying, "THANKS BE TO GOD!"

Paz de Cristo,

Seven Stanzas On Easter

I'm using this poem in the sermon this mornings sermon on John 20:24-31 "Dealing with Doubt". I'm posting it here because I'm sure some people will want the full poem and I didn't have room for it on the teaching outline.

Seven Stanzas at Easter by John Updike
From Telephone Poles and Other Poems

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

Set Free

After the service on Sunday one of our young adults brought me a youtube for the Lighthouse Everything Skit. I had just preached on Jesus victory over darkness and death--using Mary Magdalene's life story as the example. She said that my message reminded her of this powerful clip about being set free in Christ.

It's awesome--I hope it blesses you. I know it did me!

The Heart of Our Faith

I receive a daily devotion by e-mail each morning. I want to share this one with you today. Remembering the true heart of the Gospel helps us keep "first things first". Believers may disagree about many things but this is the essence of our faith!

VERSE:
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-5

THOUGHT:
Some things are "first importance" things. They lie at the heart of the matter and are central to the issue at hand. For us as Christians, we don't have to doubt what those "first importance" things are. The Gospel of our salvation is built on one simple foundation: Jesus died, Jesus was buried, Jesus rose from the grave, and Jesus appeared to his disciples who were never the same after witnessing their resurrected Savior. Let's not let anyone distract us from these core truths or crowd out their simplicity with other matters they may claim to be essential. Our salvation is rooted in our faith and our participation in this simple, yet powerful Gospel.

PRAYER:
Dear God, I confess my faith in your work for me in Jesus. I believe that your Son and my Savior, Jesus, was crucified by wicked men just as you had said long ago in your Word. I believe his dead and lifeless body was placed in the tomb. I believe that on the third day, you brought him back to life, just as you promised. I believe that those most destroyed by his death, those who knew him best, saw him alive again. I believe their lives were never the same. I believe, dear Father, that as I have confessed my faith in Jesus and shared with him in his death, burial, and resurrection through baptism that my life is caught up with him in your salvation and victory over death. I praise you for this grace. I thank you for this assurance. I look forward to sharing in your glory when he returns for me. Thank you for my salvation, in Jesus' name. Amen.