Bad Mommy!

So, my son and I were supposed to go to our wonderful Riverbanks Zoo on Friday morning for a really cool program for preschoolers. I had been telling him about it all week. I had him all ready to take his beloved stuffed puppy, because the program was a "teddy bear clinic" in which the kids learn how the vets care for zoo animals, and they also get to learn to "take care" of their own animals. As I put him to bed, he told me how happy he was that he was going to the zoo with his puppy in the morning.

It was then that it hit me: I had not registered for the clinic!

Of course, when I tried to register us online after he went to sleep, the clinic showed up as "unavailable." After an e-mail and early morning phone conversation, still the clinic was "unavailable" to my son and me.

Sigh.

He was disappointed when I told him the next morning, but we still went to the zoo and took his puppy dog. We still spent the day together, and everything was fine.

But it got me thinking...

I messed up.

We humans do that...quite a lot.

We are not God.

We are imperfect.

On Sunday night, the Confirmation class of one of my churches and I discussed one of the prayers of confession in our hymnals. One of the things that we don't do enough in general, I think, is confess our brokenness and ask for God's help.

We like to think we have everything under control in our lives. We like to think we are capable of holding it all together all by ourselves. We often even choose to believe that we have power to control not just our own lives, but the world around us, too.

We forget that we're not the Savior. We forget that we're not God.

That's not a good thing to forget. I'm glad that every once in a while, I get a reminder. I mess up good (or rather bad). And then I thank God for divine mercy and forgiveness. And I ask for help from the Holy Spirit to do better. And I remember that I can't do anything without God's help. Because I'm just a broken human being.

Say it with me...I am not God. I am not the Savior. But with the Savior's help, I can do whatever God asks of me. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Amen.

My Hope Is Built

I know how the rest of the hymn goes...it's one of my favorites.
"My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness..."

It's true for me. The reality of Jesus is what my hope is built on.

Still, I've been thinking about hope a great deal recently, what with Christmas, Epiphany, and my friend and colleague Jim bringing musings on that subject for our reflection at a clergy meeting Thursday.

My hope is built on Jesus' sacrifice and his righteousness. But it is also built on God's determination and anger.

Hear me out. Jesus himself is proof of both.

In God's determination to draw all the world back to the divine heart, the Eternal Son came among us in the flesh to live, teach, die, and defeat the death our persistent sin has brought to us, so we might be raised to new life with him. In God's anger at evil and sin and their power, Christ was resurrected to initiate a kingdom in which Jesus' followers will continually fight evil, injustice, sin, and death's power as those forces continue to fight for control.

In the Trans Siberian Orchestra's popular song "Christmas Eve: Sarajevo," the first notes are from a melancholy cello plays, as the Rock Opera narrator explains, from amid the rubble of a war. As the lonely cello sings "God rest ye, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay," in booms angry guitars, beating drums, and loud keyboards shouting "Sweet, silver bells" and echoing the cello's "God rest ye...". In God's determination, Christ demands his way into the world to take it over and bring justice and righteounsenss.

In Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ, I love the Resurrection scene. Jesus looks angry to me. On his face seems to be written: I'm back. And I'm not going to let sin and death have its way anymore. Satan is finished.

God is angry at sin, evil, injustice, death, and their power over us and the world. And God is determined not to let them have the last word. Christ's life, righteousness, sacrifice, and resurrection are proof, at least to me, that God's word is the last word. It will be a word of life and peace for the world.

Until then, God is still angry and determined enough to lead Christ's followers to fight the sin and evil still seeking control in this world.

On this last word of life and goodness and God's determination to have it...on God's anger at evil and death and God's power to defeat it through Christ's resurrection...my hope is built.