Are you in the process of learning to live healthier? Maybe your New Year’s resolution was to eat better, exercise, or in some other way improve your physical health? Join us for the next few days as we offer scripture, insight, and encouragement to help on that journey.

Today’s scripture: Philippians 1:19-26 (NRSV) (The Message) (KJV) What might God be saying to me?

My thoughts (Keith Phillips):

Let me begin by telling you that I walk my dog four or five times a day, rather than shooing him out the back door to do his business. I climb stairs (four flights is my usual limit), rather than take the elevator. I cook my own meals, avoiding excessive salt, fat, and processed meats, rather than eat in restaurants (and when I do, it’s to be sociable, not because I’m hungry) or, God forbid, in fast food joints. And I’ve made a vow to never buy clothes any larger than what I wear right now.

I do want to take care of my body. It’s the only one I have, so far. That being said, I’m concerned about how America is such a youth-worshipping and death-denying culture, which goes double for my LGBTQ community. What other explanation is there for our insistence on coloring our hair, on wearing medically unnecessary contacts, and on maintaining unused gym memberships? What other explanation is there for our manic obsession with health care procedures, when no symptoms are present, just because we’re “supposed to”? What other explanation is there for personally producing negative social consequences because we want to live as long as possible, beyond the allotted “threescore and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years” (Psalm 90:10; AV)?

I’m old enough that my body no longer behaves like it used to. To get going in the morning takes a little longer. Strange aches and pains appear out of nowhere. I occasionally groan audibly, hoping the neighbors don’t hear and call 911, when I do yard work. And every once in a while my digestive system has a surprise for me, even though I eat plenty of roughage.

No matter how I care for it, my body is getting older and will surely die. So the spiritual question is: “Why the effort to be healthy?” Your answer may be different, but the apostle Paul and I agree that “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” or, as The Message paraphrases, “Life versus even more life! I can’t lose. . . . If I had to choose right now, I hardly know which I would choose. Hard choice!”

I eagerly look forward to death. Quite frankly, it can’t come soon enough for me. But at the same time, I am an instrument of God in this world, a jar of clay containing God’s Holy Spirit to benefit humanity. I am God’s hands, feet, voice, heart for estranged people. And to be all of that requires a functioning physical body. For me, to live in this body means that I can be unashamedly out with regard to my witness of God’s power and grace.

In hospice, we talk about neither prolonging life nor hindering death. I like that, because I know, like our patients, that I am also terminal.

Thought for today: May the answer to my “why?”s always be: To glorify God, now and forever.

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.

This is the third week of Advent, the Christian season of preparation for Christmas. We’re looking at some of the traditional themes of the season. This week: Hope and Joy.

Today’s scripture: Romans 5:1-5 (NRSV) (The Message) (KJV) What might God be saying to me?

My thoughts (Keith Phillips):

I love Christmas — the whole season!

But the celebration has to be pretty traditional for me to truly enjoy it. The tree goes up the weekend after Thanksgiving; it must be a live tree. It stays up until Epiphany, the Twelfth Day of Christmas on January 6. I love the lights; I love my decorations; I love the Christmas carols; I love giving and receiving cards and gifts. Most of all, I love the Christmas story, preferably from the King James Version.

One of the wonderful opportunities I have as a hospice chaplain is to be able to read parts of the Christmas story to a half dozen or so patients and families each working day for the whole month of December. I am constantly amazed that so many don’t get to hear it otherwise. Then we have prayer, and invariably I mention the traditional Christmas blessings of love, hope, joy, and peace.

I never tell my patients that the Christmas story is really very marginal to the Gospel. Two different versions are reported in Matthew and Luke, and that’s it. The oldest parts of the New Testament, Paul’s letters, barely mention Christ’s birth at all. Unquestionably, the New Testament focuses on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. But those traditional Christmas blessings of love, hope, joy, and peace everywhere abound, even here in Romans.

In this passage, Paul refers to “our  Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand” (verse 2a). This amazing grace which is ours through Jesus is, of course, that unmerited, unconditional love of God revealed when God’s only begotten Son came into our world. Love Came Down at Christmas.

In this passage, Paul refers to “our hope of sharing the glory of God” (verse 2b). We are hopeless until we realize that, created in the image of God, we are intended to become more and more like Jesus, which is, at the same time, to become most truly human. O little town of Bethlehem, . . . The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

In this passage, Paul encourages us to “rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (verse 2b; KJV). Because the Lord has come in human form, we have joy realizing that we are empowered to transcend the mundane, the superficiality, the meaninglessness of our culture. We can become what we are meant to be. Joy to the World!

In this passage, Paul refers to our “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (verse 1). God and we sinners have been reconciled through Christ. I heard the bells on Christmas day/ Their old familiar carols play,/ And wild and sweet the words repeat,/ Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

Thought for today: Just as there could have been no Easter without Good Friday (the emphasis of the New Testament), there could have been neither crucifixion nor resurrection without Christmas.

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.

My thoughts (Keith Phillips):

Yesterday I sat with a dying patient and her daughter. There was nothing for us to do but wait, expectantly.

The hospice nurse had given Mary some roxinol to make her breathing a little easier, as well as instructing the daughter in its use for later. Just a week or so ago the patient’s family had gathered from around the country. They had an early Thanksgiving together, knowing it would be the last with the matriarch physically present. Mary was especially pleased that “the black sheep” grandson had wanted to be there and had been welcomed by all. Now that everyone had gone home, Mary said she was “ready.”

Mary is old and tired; she’s had enough of this world. As she and I talked, she remembered old hymns, most of which had to do with heaven. She didn’t need to be concerned with the possibility of second chances on the other side of death. She assured me that she was “right with the Lord.”

So, there was nothing for Mary and me and her daughter to do, but to wait, expectantly.

God’s people had been in bondage in Babylon for fifty years. They missed their homeland; they missed their family who had not been enslaved with them; they missed the Temple where it was said that God dwelled. At the end of those years, Isaiah reminded them, “For even young people tire and drop out, young folk in their prime stumble and fall. But [my emphasis] those who wait upon God get fresh strength.”

Waiting demonstrates our trust in God and in God’s timing. Waiting indicates that we realize that it’s all in God’s hands and that’s okay with us. Waiting is what the author of Hebrews suggests is the manifestation of faith: “Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect” (11:39, 40).

As I write this, Mary is still waiting, expectantly, trusting God to take care of everything in God’s time. And, God will!

Thought for today: Some in Israel waited, expectantly, for Christ’s first advent. Some today wait, expectantly, for Christ’s second advent. How are you at waiting?

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.

My thoughts (Keith Phillips):

Seldom do I think to express my gratitude for places. With regularity I thank God for the beauty of particular places, and I am grateful for what happens or has happened at some special place. But, for me usually, it’s as though the location itself is incidental.

This is especially true for my church. I’ve been trained to understand the church as the assembly of God’s people. The building in which we assemble seems quite secondary to me. Yet, without that place the assembling doesn’t happen so easily.

King Solomon, fulfilling the promise of his father David, had just completed the construction of a magnificent place for worship, the Temple. God’s people had gathered for its dedication. The priests had just carried the Ark of the Covenant into the Holy of Holies, and the other worship leaders had led the people in a wonderful time of celebration. Just then “the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God” (verses 13b, 14).

Wow! The presence of the Lord was so strong in that place that the worship leaders couldn’t, and did not need to, lead God’s people in worship! How powerful that must have been! The place was filled with the glory of God.

I am grateful for our church, the building as well as the people. The place where we worship is called a sanctuary, a holy place, where we can expect to encounter God and God’s glory. Hardly a Sunday goes by when I do not feel the presence of God in that place.

Sometimes, though, I have to be reminded, just as the Israelites were during the Babylonian captivity after the Temple had been destroyed, that God and God’s glory cannot be confined to a place. I can powerfully encounter God’s presence anywhere.

The pastor met a five-year-old on the street and offered to give him a quarter if he could tell him where God was. “Preacher,” said the boy, “I’ll give you a dollar if you can tell me where God is not.”

Thought for today: God, thank you for that place, the sanctuary, where I know I can encounter You. I am thankful for Your church, the place as well as the people who assemble there. I am also grateful that You and Your glory are not confined to any place. Amen.

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.

My thoughts (Keith Phillips):

I was raised in the Conservative Baptist Association, a denomination that broke away from another Baptist denomination because we believed that our understanding of the truth was more faithful to the Bible, and therefore our Christian witness in word and deed was better than theirs. Even as a child I did not understand this, in large part because my great-grandfather had been a pastor among those who were now being labeled as “wrong.”

As I was about to finish seminary, I was told by my denomination that I was not appropriate (good enough?) for pastoral placement. I had to be married and to have a degree from a more conservative seminary. I did not understand this, either. Now, as a hospice chaplain, my ministry is to respect each person’s spirituality. This I understand, for I assure you that mine isn’t perfect either.

In this passage of scripture, Paul is writing from prison. He tells the church at Philippi that, surprisingly, good things are happening because of his imprisonment. Other Christians “dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear.” Interestingly enough, “some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry [and] selfish ambition, not sincerely.” But this doesn’t bother Paul. He goes on, “What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice.”

You probably know that Paul was not an “anything goes” kind of guy. He makes that clear in writing to the church at Galatia: “there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed” (Galatians 1:7, 8). Paul had no stomach for heresy. But he had full acceptance of a difference in motivation, of style, of personality.

I have often told people that there are different kinds of churches because God, in God’s infinite wisdom, created different kinds of people. And I’ve noticed that not everyone is as nice and civil as I am. If anyone can hear the gospel from some mean, bigoted, hell-fire shouting preacher, thanks be to God! I, with Paul, rejoice.

Thought for today: The important thing is that Christ is preached, grumpily or graciously. The Good News is God’s, not mine; God can take care of it. And, if I’m accepting of others who differ with me, maybe they’ll become accepting of me.

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.

My thoughts (Keith Phillips):

Pontius Pilate was prefect of Judea from 26–36 C.E. He was the most visible representative of the Roman occupation. Josephus, a first century Jewish historian, depicts Pilate as an uncompromising bully, who, unlike his Roman predecessors, had no respect whatsoever for Jewish customs.

John’s Gospel portrays Pilate as a milder man, trying his very best to find a way around a difficult situation. My guess is that Josephus is more historically accurate, although Pilate surely had his hands full with Annas, Caiaphas, and the rest of the Temple crowd who were about as politically ruthless as the Romans.

Both Pilate and the Temple officials had the same hidden agenda: maintaining power.

Soon after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the high priests and Pharisees called the religious leaders together and said, “If we let him go on, pretty soon everyone will be believing in him and the Romans will come and remove what little power and privilege we still have” (John 11:48; The Message). A few verses later John writes: “From that day on, they plotted to kill him” (John 11:53).

In the back-and-forth of Jesus’ trial before Pilate, the Temple officials present the charge of treason against Jesus by telling Pilate that he had proclaimed himself to be King of the Jews. Pilate is not bothered by that. After having Jesus flogged, he mocks him by bringing him out, clothed in a royal purple robe and wearing a crown of thorns. He says to the religious leaders, “Behold, the man,” pathetically dressed up as a king. Finally the Temple authorities clearly tell Pilate, “If you pardon this man, you’re no friend of Caesar’s. Anyone setting himself up as ‘king’ defies Caesar” (John 19:12). Only then does Pilate cave in, because if a report of an alternative uncontested king in Judea were to go back to Rome, Pilate would be out of a job. So Pilate turns Jesus over to the high priests to be crucified.

Although unspoken and kept secret (hidden agendas always are), the motivations of the high priests and of Pilate were the same: to maintain as much power as possible for themselves. Therefore, Jesus, an unsubstantiated threat to that power, dies.

Contrast this with Jesus’ open and honest presentation of himself during the trial. When questioned by Annas, Jesus pointed out, “I’ve spoken openly in public…. I’ve said nothing in secret…. My teachings have all been aboveboard” (John 18:20, 21).  When asked by Pilate if he is the King of the Jews, Jesus clearly answers, “My kingdom doesn’t consist of what you see around you…. I’m not that kind of king, not the world’s kind of king…. Because I am King, I was born and entered the world so that I could witness to the truth” (John 18:36, 37). Such a difference! And Jesus still lives!

Thought for today: Since my hidden agendas are generally hidden even from myself, constant self-examination can help me be more like Jesus, and less like Pilate and the religious leaders.

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.