Turn on the light

by Daniel Ulrich on Dec 23, 2011 in Devotion | 0 comments

One of the staples of Christmas décor is the Christmas light. Some like to wrap every inch of their yard in multicolored lights, while others are more reserved with candles in their windows. Whatever you fancy is in the realm of advent luminosities, we can all agree that lights make Christmas time much brighter. As Christians and the church we are called to be lights illuminating Christ. As the body of Christ our utmost goal throughout our lives should be to show the world who Jesus is.

The role of the church is to turn on a light. If we read through Revelation we see an interesting concept. In the first chapter John calls churches lampstands. Now we as hip north americans on the cusp of 2012 [the future] may not totally understand what he is talking about with the lampstand. We have lights and lamps, but the people of the early church would have gotten what he was talking about better.

If we research a little bit we can find that in Exodus the lampstand was one of the pieces of furniture that God instructed them to build and place in the Tabernacle. God gave specific instructions about how the lampstand was to be built, the kind of oil it should burn, where it was to be placed, and what it was to illuminate.

We can read this in Exodus 25:31-40. The lampstand was the only source of light inside the tabernacle besides the presence of God. A job of the priest was to just make sure the light never went out on the lampstand. The most interesting details about the lampstand is what its purpose was. Its purpose was to cast its light on the bread of presence or the showbread.

Now you are pretty intrigued huh.. A menorah that lights up a loaf of bread. But there is meaning behind this bread. It represented a bread offering given to the Lord to show that Israel was giving Him their bounty and also stated that God is the one who gave them the bread in the first place.

So this gold lampstand was made to sit next to a table and kept watch over to make sure it was lit so that it could shine and show the nation that God will always provide for them and He is always present. This is also the object that Jesus would use to symbolize his own body broken for us.

So we as the Church are called to be this lampstand. The church exists to shine a light into the darkness. A light that highlights God’s goodness and reveals Jesus in order that the world might know him. The soul purpose of the lampstand was to focus its beam on the bread of presence.

The same is true for the church, our purpose is to showing others who God is. He in turn can show the world. During this time of year with lights around us all the time we must be on our watch. It is our calling to keep the light burning bright, the wicks trimmed, the lampstand in the right place. If we begin to dim than we must take immediate action. Let us keep our light burning bright into the next year and the future to proclaim that Christ is Lord.

Today’s Readings – Psalm 93, 96, 148, 150, Isa 59:1-15a, Gal 3:15-22, Luke 1:67-80

Dan Ulrich is the director of youth and young adults at Sicklerville UMC. He is a former camper and has served in a variety of roles in the camp including his current position as vice president.

Waiting and Anticipating

by Steve LaMotte on Dec 22, 2011 in Devotion | 0 comments

Waiting is never easy. Waiting for Christmas is tortuous as a kid. My sister and I would agonize over our advent countdown and would take every opportunity to snoop through the house to see if we could find our gifts. We never did, until one year.

One Christmas morning- when my sister and I were about eight or nine years old, my sister just wasn’t very excited about her gifts. She opened them, smiled, and said thank-you to mom and dad. There was no paper throwing. No shrieks of joy. What we found out later was that my sister had found our parent’s super secret hiding place a week before Christmas and had opened all her gifts ahead of time before carefully re-wrapping each one so mom and dad wouldn’t find out. My sister’s impatience with Christmas backfired and sapped the joy out of Christmas morning.

Waiting is never easy.

In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the parable of Ten Virgins. Some were wise and had plenty of oil for their lamps and would be prepared when the bridegroom came to pick them up. The others were foolish and did not have enough oil. The foolish virgins went out to buy more oil and, consequently, missed the arrival of the bridegroom and were shut out of the wedding banquet. Jesus says, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour (Matthew 25:13).”

Advent is a season of waiting and anticipation. We anticipate the celebration of the birth of Jesus, and, we wait for and anticipate when Christ will return. Let’s be honest, people have been waiting for the return of Jesus for nearly 2000 years. Waiting is tough! But we have promises from God that Jesus will return- and when he does that creation will be redeemed and restored. Salvation will be fully realized.

Who are we in the parable? Are we the foolish virgins who were not prepared for the arrival of the bridegroom- therefore missing the wedding banquet? Or are we more like the wise virgins who were prepared and waiting for the bridegroom and welcomed into the wedding banquet?

This Advent and Christmas season, we must consider how we are waiting and anticipating the coming of Christ. Are we living a life that makes the most of our waiting? Will we be ready when Jesus returns? Are we telling others so that they, too, can be ready when Jesus the Bridegroom comes to take his bride, the Church, to the Heavenly banquet?

In Revelation 22:20- Jesus says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”

“Amen! Come, Lord Jesus.”

Today’s Readings – Psalm 50, 59, 60, 33, Zech 4:1-14, Rev 4:9-5:5, Matt 25:1-13

Steve LaMotte is the pastor of Hope UMC in Dover, Del., and has served as a dean, speaker and several other capacities at camp. He blogs at stevelamotte.blogspot.com. 

Don’t be fooled

by Dave Brown on Dec 21, 2011 in Devotion | 0 comments

So I was in my local grocery store recently, and I saw a sign advertising, “this week’s feature … pretzel roll sandwiches.” Now I’m a Delanco Camp enthusiast, so of course to me “pretzel roll sandwich” means a certain thing, foil wrapped pretzeliciousness. Whatever it is that the grocery store is offering is clearly not the real thing. It’s a fake. How do I know that? It’s because I have personal experience with the real thing.

There are a lot of things out there that are fake. Companies are telling us that if we buy their product it will satisfy us, but this is a false promise. We won’t find real satisfaction from buying something. Candidates are telling us that if we vote the right way we will be taken care of, but this is a another false promise, no elected official can protect us from the dangers of life. Our culture tells us that money and prestige bring lasting happiness, but this is false. All those things will be gone soon enough, and while they are here they will just bring people trouble.

The scriptures say:

Blessed is the one
who trusts in the LORD,
who does not look to the proud,
to those who turn aside to false gods.
Many, LORD my God,
are the wonders you have done,
the things you planned for us.
None can compare with you;
were I to speak and tell of your deeds,
they would be too many to declare.
-Psalm 40:4-5

There are two very different ways of understanding this Christmas season. One way is the way of the proud, the way of the false gods of more stuff, more lights, bigger shows, moneymoneymoney, and the joy of excess. The other way is the way of the true God who was born as one of the homeless, and who’s life took him to death row. Many are the wonders he has done. None can compare with him.

If you can have personal experience with the real thing, you won’t be fooled by the fakes.

Dave Brown is a former camper, summer staff member and has served in various administrative and volunteer capacities at the camp for many years. 

Beyond the Trappings

by Andy Bowen on Dec 20, 2011 in Devotion | 0 comments

The smell of palm flowers in the air. Hot, sultry days giving way to breezy cool nights full of the sound of exploding fireworks. Piles of juicy watermelons for sale along the side of the highway. The clay ovens being heated with wood fires to bake delicious pans full of bread made with cornmeal and manioc flour. Yup, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Doesn’t sound like Christmas to you? Well, what do you associate with Christmas? The smell of cinnamon, pine, and spices? Cold, crisp days promising snow? Quiet, peaceful nights and the possibility of carolers at the door? Delicious Christmas cookies and pies being baked in the oven and filling the house with sweet smells?

When I think about the sights, sensations, fragrances, and sounds of Christmas in the northern hemisphere and those of my adopted home, Paraguay, I realize they could hardly be more different. Gradually I’m learning to replace in my mind the American ones with the Paraguayan ones, but it’s a long process—these are emotional associations at a deep level!

But all of this has forced me to think about what are the important aspects of Christmas and which elements are really dispensable. It turns out that many of the aspects of Christmas that I have been so attached to are not in fact vital to the celebration at all! I’m obliged to return to Scripture once again and try to imagine what it must have been like for Mary when the angel said to her, “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus … for nothing is impossible with God!” (Luke 1:31, 37) Very few of her sensations in the moments and months following that announcement can have been pleasant or agreeable. There was rejection, discomfort, confusion, and loneliness. There was the understanding that her obedience to God’s plans would not be easy or convenient. But finally there was the calm and deep security: “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.” (Luke 1:38)

Tonight I will interpret into Guarani for my dad, who will preach a Christmas message to a house church in our rural, poor community in Paraguay. There will be very few of the trappings of Christmas in evidence in the simple gathering. But the heart of Christmas remains and, perhaps, shouts louder for the lack of adornment: “Come and see what God has done, how awesome his works in man’s behalf!” (Psalm 66:5) “We wait for the blessed hope– the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” (Titus 2:13-14)

Today’s readings: Psalm 66, 67, 116, 117; 1 Sam 2:1b-10; Titus 2:1-10; Luke 1:26-38

Andy Bowen is a longtime friend of the camp who serves as a missionary in Paraguay.

More than warm fuzzies

by Jerry Ruff on Dec 16, 2011 in Devotion | 0 comments

As a child neither my family nor my church family celebrated the season of Advent. We did not light an Advent candle for each of the four Sundays prior to Christmas. We did not have a Christmas Eve worship service. Since my arrival to New Jersey, however, I have adopted and embraced the traditions of the Advent season with a deeper appreciation of the larger Christmas event. When our children were young, Sharon and I established a family advent wreath, daily gathering for family worship before bedtime. The churches I pastored also emphasized the season of Advent and held meaningful and beautiful Christmas Eve worship services.

All of these traditions point to the coming of the Christ, God’s Messiah, in the stable in Bethlehem. That is what Advent is and does. And so we wait for the Messiah and Christmas Day!

The reality is that our Messiah has come. Jesus is God’s Gift and Light to the world. But we still wait–for His Second Coming! Jesus Himself said, “I will come again.” A pastor friend of mine told me that he would rather his flock would understand the impact of Jesus’ first coming before they become so enamored with Jesus’ second coming!

Our Scripture readings for today remind us of the breadth and totality of the Christmas event at Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus is more than a simple, momentary blip in human history, and definitely far more than the ‘warm fuzzies’ most people ascribe to the Christmas ‘holidays.’

Christmas is about the reality of Satan and evil. It is about Jesus being both Savior and Judge. Christmas is about transformation and new life. Christmas is about Jesus’ second advent who sits on the eternal throne while we cast our crowns at His feet and declare, “Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” Christmas is about being faithful even in the midst of tough times when we ‘walk the walk, and talk the talk.’

The Christmas message is simple and it is pervasive! It is known and unknowable! It is earthly and it is heavenly! It is simple and it is complicated! It is safe and it is dangerous!

Christmas is wonderful! Jesus is coming…….

Today’s Readings – Psalm 119:49-72, 49, 53, Zech 3:1-10, Rev 4:1-8, Matt 24:45-51

Jerry Ruff is a longtime friend of the camp who is the pastor of Sharptown North, a congregation in Woolwich Township that was planted by Sharptown Church.

Keep the long view in mind

by Brian Neville on Dec 15, 2011 in Devotion | 0 comments

“But you have upheld me because of my integrity, and set me in your presence forever.” -Psalm 41

I went for a walk with my brother on Thanksgiving Day. He was late getting to the family gathering because his 3-week-old daughter had been sick the night before. They ended up taking her into the hospital because she wasn’t breathing right. When I saw him, he was fine. His daughter wasn’t sick anymore and everything was going to be alright. These are the stories we like. These are the ones we want for ourselves. The resolution. The healing. The grace of God obviously at work in our lives.

But as we walked around the block that day my brother told me about something else, something hidden away in his heart. Years earlier my brother’s wife had two successive miscarriages. These had devastated him. He was elated at the possibility of fatherhood and crushed when he heard the doctor’s diagnosis. My brother had a flood of emotions – hatred, anger, frustration, sadness. He told me that day that he didn’t know how to understand God. Once he was certain that God’s love meant he could be dependent on a result. He knew he had favor from God because he was a Christian and he trusted God. But now he doesn’t know. Now he is marred with the loss of two children and unsure of whether he can trust in a God that doesn’t give him favorable results. Even today my brother can’t talk about these losses for more than 30 seconds without getting angry all over again.

Psalm 41 talks about enemies that hate us and best friends that betray us. By the end of the Psalm, though, it’s about triumphing over the enemy and being in God’s presence. How are these things compatible? How do we have both horrible defeat in our lives and triumph in God’s presence? I offer up two thoughts: 1. Evil springs from sin, Satan and free will. How can we blame God when bad things happen in our lives? We freely choose where we go, who we interact with, how much debt we get into buying Christmas presents. The results of these actions are on us, not God. Faithful living and integrity will get us a long way, but even that won’t lead to a perfect life. The enemy is at war with God so there will always be pain in this world. 2. Keep the long view in mind. This world is not the end. Our current pain is not the final story. Advent is such a beautiful season because we are reminded over and over again that Jesus will come again. When the Lord returns we will win! God doesn’t promise a perfect life with the results we want, but instead offers an eternity in the Lord’s presence. I will gladly bear the pain of this world for the promise of eternity. Will you do the same this advent season? Trust in the Lord. Live a life of integrity, devoted to God. Things may not always go your way, but you are guaranteed the final victory.

Enjoy the Advent season and Merry Christmas!

Brian Neville is an assistant pastor at First UMC in Toms River and a native of Buffalo who has been a speaker, counselor, teacher and team leader out at camp.