Our Lighted Path

  A traditional African-American church in Tennessee, has more than 33 graves: some in disrepair, others more recent. But as churches always have understood, the remains of departed loved ones are not the soul. As a Christian said on Easter morning, "He is not here." Cemeteries, sometimes, can give us some things to think about. As the preacher Paul contemplated the shortening of his steps on this side of life, he said Christians can't be hopeless. Brothers (and sisters), we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him." 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 In my own Christian walk, in my own recent experience, a preacher said we each have our own waking-up morning in Heaven — and that's despite the fact that millions are going home in Jesus. Often, funerals ...

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. The Bible isn't a black and white history. I believe there is ethnic diversity in the Bible. And I do believe the Bible is a record of God's guidance to people who God counseled for many millennia, whether the people listened or not. I believe God gave prophets of the Bible some important impressions, both of how life began (a thousand, times thousand, times thousand, times thousand, times thousand-plus years being as a "day" to our heavenly Father), and of how life eternal will one day manifest. And the Bible's countless impressions aren't only broad images of the landscape of life over time. The Bible includes vivid and impressionistic paintings of the first people who God gave a written record. Israel, in the written record, was a people set free from bondage to other peoples, time and again. At that time, they had not traveled to Europe or to other cold, less sunny northerly places. And, in all likelihood, there were African pe...

The story of Jacob (a.k.a., "Israel") and Esau, helps us see Israel as a faithful people who, being flawed, struggle against Heaven and against man. And doesn't that sound like much of humanity today? Whoever Israel was, ethnically, it's a people who traveled desert places before finding victory in faith, a people who struggled most desperately under Babylon, Egypt, and Rome — and a people whose internal conflicts included genocide of the mixed-race heritage it had in Edom (i.e., Idumea). But God has cherished Israel: knowing "His people" would steadfastly hold to faith in Jesus (Ye-su), the promised Redeemer, our one heavenly Savior. Like us as African Americans who later believed, God gave His word and plan to His most faithful people of struggle. Says a Bible prophet: In his love and mercy he redeems them; H e lifts them up and carries them all the days of old. Isaiah 63:9 God gave His word, plan, and deliverance to the faithful: to the faithful who were ...