Author Archives: Maxie Dunnam

Dying And Rising With Christ by Maxie Dunnam

I have a friend who is a Benedictine monk. The way we live out our lives is vastly different, but I feel a real kinship, a oneness of spirit with Brother Sam. One of the most memorable evenings, one to which I return often in my mind, is the time he and I spent together alone in our home, in sharing our Christian pilgrimages.

The vivid highlight of that evening still alive in my mind was his sharing with me the occasion of his solemn vows, the service when he made his life commitment to the Benedictine community and the monastic life. It’s difficult to grasp how serious that is. When a person makes a decision to become a monk, they make the decision to really remove themselves from the world and to be separated from the world for the rest of their life, and they take the vow of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Brother Sam said that on that signal day, he prostrated himself before the altar of the church, face down, prostrate, in the very place where his coffin will sit when he dies. As he was prostrated there, he was covered with a funeral pall and the death bell began to toll, the bell that rings at the earthly parting of a brother, and it sounded the solemn gongs of death. Then there was silence, the deep silence of death.

That silence was broken by the singing of the Colossian word, “for you have died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” (Col. 3:3) After that powerful word, there was more silence as Brother Sam reflected upon his solemn vow. Then the community broke into singing Psalms 118, which is always a part of the Easter liturgy in the Benedictine community. One verse of that Psalms says, ‘I shall not die, but live and declare the wonderful works of the Lord.’ Psalm 118:117)

After this resurrection proclamation, the liturgists shouted the word from Ephesians, ‘awake you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you life.’ (5:17) Then the bells of the Abbey begin to ring joyfully and loudly. Brother Sam rose, the funeral pall fell off, the white robe of the Benedictine order was placed upon him, he received the kiss of peace from all of his brothers and was welcomed into that community to live a life hidden with Christ.

It is a great liturgy of death and resurrection. When Brother Sam and I shared, I relived in vivid memory my own baptism, in a rather cold creek in rural Mississippi. Paul gave a powerful witness to it. Over and over again, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me.

This Wednesday, February 14, is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, what should be one of the most significant time periods for Christ Followers. This is a 40 day period when we deliberately concentrate on Jesus’ passion, suffering and death, all for our salvation.

The season will climax with Easter, the resurrection of Christ. There is a sense in which the dynamic of the Christian life is dying and rising with Christ. I urge you to join me during this season, seeking to deliberately die to sin and self, that our Hallelujah on Easter will be our most joyful ever.

Being And Living In Christ by Maxie Dunnam

In my last article I introduced the fact that “In Christ” is the central category of Paul’s thinking. This phrase, “in Christ,” or “in Christ Jesus,” is used by Paul in his letters 169 times. His definition of a Christian is an illustration of this. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has come.” (2 Cor. 5:17)

We continue our thinking. Persons who are in Christ are people in whom a new principle of life has been implanted.

I think of that in two ways. First, from the perspective of what we might call imitation, then from the perspective of immersion.

There is a sense in which the Christian walk is an imitation of Christ – a call to walk as Christ walked. Isn’t that the way it should be with Christians? “As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.”(Col.2:6)

There are all sorts of legends and fairy tales about people who pretended to be someone they weren’t – but one day they actually became that person they pretended to be. And there’s truth in that. Someone may say that it’s hypocrisy – pretending to be someone you really aren’t. But not in the Christian walk – when we walk in Christ, we seek to walk as Christ would walk. And, as Martin Luther would say, “We actually become little Christs.”

So, there is a sense in which the Christian walk is an imitation of Christ.

But it’s more than that. We must go beyond the imitation of Christ to immerse ourselves in Christ. Persons in Christ are people in whom a new principle of life has been implanted.

Conversion to Christ without immersion in Christ is a perversion of the Gospel. Stop. Don’t continue reading until you read that sentence again –

Conversion to Christ without immersion in Christ is a perversion of the Gospel.

Persons in Christ are people in whom a new principle of life has been implanted.

You can remember those key words. Conversion, immersion, perversion. My hope is that remembering those three words will bring awareness of the whole thought. Conversion to Christ without immersion in Christ is a perversion of the Gospel.

John A. Mackay, former Dean of Princeton University Theological Seminary, has captured the truth with succinct clarity in just two sentences: “We receive Jesus Christ without cost because of what he has done for us, but it becomes costly business to receive him, because of what he will do in us.” And then the second sentence, “God’s free grace in Jesus Christ, to which faith responds, becomes costly grace when Christ takes command.” (God’s Order: The Ephesian Letter and This Present Time, New York: The McMillan Company, 1953, p. 111).

Now what that means in a practical way is that our choice is not whether we will be new persons or not – that is a matter of grace. Christ makes us new creatures. Our choice is whether we will start to become new persons. It is our choice to start that gives Grace the opportunity to make us new persons.

The start requires the two things we have indicated: requires imitation and immersion. We begin to walk as we think Christ would have us walk, and we immerse ourselves in Christ – that is we surrender ourselves to His Spirit within, and allow His grace to make us, in fact, the new persons we already are, in principle.

“All on my own,” you may be thinking and asking. Not at all! Paul, the person who most clearly and powerful sounded this in Christ reality speaks for all of us, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

I’m sure you know people as I know – a young woman who is just finding it – a life in Christ and a source of strength to rear three little children alone; a 45 year old man who is suddenly alone because of the death of his wife – but is not going it alone – Christ dwells in him; I could name five recovering alcoholics who make it one day at a time and they would tell you they make it by the power of Christ.

Scores of people are serving God’s people in need in my community with a love not their own. It is the love of Jesus in them. Many of them are new at this and could not have pictured themselves loving and serving in this fashion even a year ago. There are persons who are breaking out of prisons of prejudice, and are beginning to think in terms of brotherhood and community. They will tell you it’s not their doing; that they’ve been as racist as any of us – but something new is operating within them – a new source of strength.

I close this article the way I began. Remember the story I repeated in the beginning – about three year old Ryan – and Jesus walking around inside. When I told that story to a group some time ago, Tom, our Director of Youth Ministries, told me a similar experience he had had with his then four-year old son, Thomas.

Tom and Thomas were playing doctor. Tom held the stethoscope to his own heart so Thomas could listen. He got still and quiet. “What do you hear?”Tom asked.

Four-year old Thomas said, “It’s Jesus; He’s walking around.” But then he added. “Dad, why can’t Jesus get out?”

That says something about the mystery of the indwelling Christ. He dwells within – but He does get out. He gets out in power and his presence is known through us to others, when we walk in Christ.

In Christ by Maxie Dunnam

Three-year-old Ryan and his five-year-old sister, Lisa, were playing on the floor following a family dinner while the adults tried to have a conversation. Lisa opened her new toy nurse’s kit and convinced Ryan to be her patient. She took the little stethoscope and placed it on her brother’s heart, listened intently – as good nurses do. Suddenly she announced, “I hear somebody walking around in there.”

The adults smiled at this, but Ryan, matter-of-factly answered, “Why, that must be Jesus.”

That’s the amazing promise, and one of the central claims of the Christian Gospel – that Christ may live in us. Indeed that was Paul’s definition of a Christian – a person in Christ. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (II Corinthians 5:17).

When we think of Paul’s contribution to Christian thought we usually think, justification by grace through faith. The fact is “In Christ” is the central category of Paul’s thinking. This phrase, “in Christ,” or “in Christ Jesus”, is used by Paul in his letters 169 times.

What does Paul mean by this vital image? Hundreds of books have been written on the theme. Boldly, I’m going to write a couple of articles that will at least introduce the dynamic meaning of our being IN CHRIST.

To be in Christ is to become a new creation. Phillips’ translation of Paul’s definition of a Christian could not express the truth more vividly. “If a man is in Christ, he becomes a new person altogether – the past is finished and gone, everything has become fresh and new.”

So it is – to be a believer is the identifying fact of one’s being a Christian. But I insist that being in Christ is more than just another way of talking about the Christian experience; it is the definitive word. To be in Christ is to have our being, our life, in the very life of God. It is to live a God-centered existence.

To be in Christ implies spiritual renewal, a new creation, as Paul put it. I remember a family experience some years ago that helps picture it. In fact it’s quite a graphic picture of it. Jerry, my wife, gave her brother, Randy, a bone-marrow transplant.

The doctors were brutally honest. It was going to be tough for Randy – he was going to be brought to the door of death as all his marrow was destroyed and his immune system reduced to zero before he received the transplant – and even after that, if the transplant worked it would be a flirtation with death for a while. But his only hope was the transplant. What rejoicing there was when it was discovered that Jerry was a perfect match for the transplant.

I think I’ll never forget, and I know Jerry and Randy could ever forget, the day February 1 (1990), when the doctors made the transplant. Jerry was in a room down the hall from Randy – coming out from the anesthesia, as her marrow was being fed into Randy’s system. I was back and forth between the rooms during that six-hour process.

When the last drop of the marrow had gone into his system, the nurse took the i.v. bag down and said, “That’s it, Randy, this is your new birthday. You’ve been given a new life.”

I can only imagine the joy of Randy and the special oneness Randy and Jerry had – her life creating life in him.

That’s at least suggestive of the opportunity that is ours with Christ. Receiving Him, and cultivating His presence, we have a new life, a Christ-centered existence.

In Christ. We are who we are because of the personal love of God that comes to us in Jesus Christ.

I’ll talk more about this in my next article.

Saved to the Uttermost by Maxie Dunnam

In my last article I discussed assurance. Wesley testified about his Aldersgate experience,

I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

Assurance is the privilege of all believers, and there is a connection between assurance and perfection. Continuing his reflection on Aldersgate, Wesley wrote,

After my return home, I was much buffeted with temptations; but I cried out, and they fled away. They returned again and again. I as often lifted up my eyes, and He sent me help from His holy place. And herein I found the difference between this and my former state chiefly consisted. I was striving, yea, fighting with all my might under the law, as well as under grace. But then I was sometimes, if not often, conquered; now, I was always conqueror.

The two convictions, all can know they are saved and all can be saved to the uttermost, issued in Wesley’s teaching on perfection. For him, “Christian perfection,” was another term for sanctification.

There must have been confusion among his followers about this issue, because he wrote his brother Charles a lengthy letter, seeking understanding and agreement.

Dear Brother, some thoughts occurred to my mind this morning which I believe may be useful to set down: the rather because it may be a means of our understanding each other clearly; that we may agree as far as ever we can and then let all the world know it.

I was thinking of Christian Perfection, with regard to the thing, the manner, and the time.

By perfection I mean the humble, gentle, patient love of God ruling all the tempers, words, and actions, the whole heart by the whole life. I do not include an impossibility of falling from it, either in part or in whole … I do not contend for the term sinless, though I do not object to it …

As to the manner, I believe this perfection is always wrought in the soul by faith, consequently in an instant. But I believe in a gradual work both preceding and following that instant.

For Wesley, the terms Christian perfection, sanctification, and holiness carried the same meaning. Holiness is not optional for Christians. Jesus was forthright: “You shall be perfect, your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48 NJKV). The Holy Spirit, through Inspiration given to Peter, confirms the call: “As He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.” (1 Peter 1:15 NKJV).

Since our reflection may be hazy, if not clear, we need to remember that, for Wesley, the whole of salvation and the Christian life was all grace, and the power of the Holy Spirit, accessed through undoubting prayer and surrender.

With that, I will continue my reflection on sanctification in my next article.

Assurance by Maxie Dunnam

Most people in the Methodist Wesleyan tradition of the Christian faith know at least the broad outline of Wesley’s life. In 1725, having been nurtured by his mother, Susanna, and his father, Samuel, a priest in the Church of England, John, while a student at Oxford University, had a conversion to the ideal of holy living. There are few examples in history of a more disciplined religious person: he rose at 4:00 am, read the New Testament in Greek for an hour, and then prayed for an hour with his brother Charles and others who had joined him in what was derisively called the Holy Club. He spent time visiting prisons and gave to the poor all of his money except that which was absolutely necessary for his own living. He was a person desperately seeking salvation and assurance of his salvation.

Knowing that bit of biography makes his witness more powerful:

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

This was the watershed experience that gave him the assurance of salvation. Naturally, this became a part of his teaching. Assurance is the privilege of every Christian. Persons can know they are saved, and they can be saved to the uttermost.

The Aldersgate prayer meeting was for Wesley an evangelical conversion that resulted in assurance. That assurance is a testimony to present salvation, not presumption about the future. Once the Spirit makes that witness to us, the witness of assurance can be continually verified. It can be verified in at least five ways:

We can simply remember that the goodness of God once shown to us in Christ is the goodness of God toward us for all time.
We know that we have repented of our sins, and can continue to repent daily.
We are aware of change in our lives-and the awareness of assurance grows within us as we see changes continually happening.
Assurance is ours if we are aware of a new character being produced in us if the fruits of the Spirit are growing in our lives.
We know assurance if we find joy in the service of God.

There are few experiences that can provide more power in our lives than to have assurance of our salvation. Think what it could do for any one of us:

Our timidity and uncertainty about witnessing would be dissolved. We would not be intimidated by those “buttonhole witnesses” who come on like gangbusters.
We would know that tenderness, patience, and understanding are authentic testimonies, as well as words.
We would not get overwrought with our Christian friends who insist on future security, for we would be assured of our present relationship with Christ.
We would be joyous in our service for God, but not driven in our works or mistaken in the notion that our works would save us.
We would be delivered from frantic preoccupation with taking our spiritual temperature minute by minute, because we could relax in our trust of the Lord.

And all of that would help every one of us, wouldn’t it?

Persons can know they are saved. That’s assurance and they can be saved to the uttermost. That’s perfection or sanctification which I will discuss in my next article.

The Prevailing Emphasis of John Wesley by Maxie Dunnam

If not the most, one of the most prevailing emphasis of the Bible is salvation. Immediately after the beautiful story of creation, including the creation of us humans, the story of “the fall” becomes central. By our deliberate act, we separated ourselves from God, and from that point on, the restoration of that relationship dominates the Biblical narrative.

As John Wesley testified to being “a man of one book,” it is not difficult to see salvation as his prevailing emphasis. There was a uniqueness to that emphasis. Unlike many other teachers and preachers, he did not put the emphasis solely on our coming into the Christian life in confessing, repenting, and trusting Christ as Savior and receiving forgiveness.

Wesley’s understanding was broader. He used the term salvation to refer to the entire saving activity of God in human lives. Thus, in the Methodist/Wesleyan tradition, we talk about “going on to salvation.”

In a letter to his brother Samuel on October 30, 1738, he wrote:

“Dear Brother, with regard to my own character, and my doctrine likewise, I shall answer you plainly. By a Christian I mean one who so believes in Christ as that sin hath no more dominion over him; and in this obvious sense of the word I was not a Christian till May the 24th last past. For till then sin had the dominion over me, although I fought with it continually; but surely then, from that time to this it hath not (dominion) – such is the free grace of God in Christ.”*

In Wesley’s mind and experience, there was full salvation.

The two pivotal dynamics of full salvation are justification and sanctification. Both are works of grace. In justification, we are pardoned and reconciled to God; the restoration of the image of God in us is begun, which is the beginning of sanctification.

Justification may be the miracle of a moment, but sanctification is the process of a lifetime. The dynamic process of sanctification is to work out in fact what is already true in principle. In position, in our relationship to God in Jesus Christ, we are new persons; that is justification and new birth. Now our condition, the actual life we live, must be brought into harmony with our position. That is sanctification.

Justification and the new birth, is the starting point of sanctification. Over and over, in his journal, he confirmed personal testimony of salvation working in the lives of believers.

I believe [the new birth] to be an inward thing; a change from inward wickedness to inward goodness; an entire change of our inmost nature from the image of the devil (wherein we are born) to the image of God; a change from the love of the creature to the love of the Creator; from earthly and sensual to heavenly and holy affections, in a word, a change from the tempers of the spirit of darkness to those of the angels of God in heaven!

What a possibility! from the tempers of the spirit of darkness to those of the angels of God in heaven! Sanctification … saved to the utmost. So we pray as we sing:

Finish, then, thy new creation pure and spotless let us be.

Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored thee;

changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place,

till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise.

(Charles Wesley)

Leave Your Stuff Behind by Maxie Dunnam

Tucked away in the Old Testament story of Joseph’s journey into Egypt is a verse packed with far more meaning than appears on the surface. It teaches an eternal truth that we’d do well to consider as we enter the New Year. Rehearse the story.

Sold into slavery by his brothers, Joseph found favor with the Pharaoh and became one of the trusted officials in Pharaoh’s court. A strange irony of fate, obviously the providence of God, brought Joseph and his brothers who had betrayed him together again. A famine had ravaged the land of Canaan. The people were without food and they came to Egypt seeking to buy food from the Pharaoh.

It was soon revealed that the person with whom they had to deal was the brother they had sold into slavery. The tables were turned. Here they were asking for food from the person they had cast away. When it came to Pharaoh’s attention that Joseph’s brothers had come, it pleased him. He instructed Joseph to bring the whole family away from Canaan, promising to give them the goods of all the land of Egypt, and it is at this point that a power-packed Scripture passage is found. “Do this, said Pharaoh, take wagons from the land of Egypt for your little ones and your wives, bring your father and come. Give no thought to your goods, for the best of all the land of Egypt will be yours.” (Ex. 45:20) King James’ version translates that word this way: Regard not your stuff, for the best of all the land of Egypt will be yours.

There’s all sorts of meaning in that. Another translation has it – leave your stuff behind.

Six years ago, Jerry and I moved into a “life care community.” We have not had a single reservation. Being a Methodist preacher, we have moved numerous times. At our age and station, our intention is this is our last move, til the Lord moves us home with him. Though comfortable with that fact, we were not prepared for both the emotional and physical ordeal. Moving is tough!

The monumental issue: what do we move? What do we leave behind? Moving from 3600 square feet to little more than one third that size didn’t help. It’s amazing how much “stuff” you can accumulate in 66 years of marriage. Thus the pressing question, “What stuff must we leave behind?”

I invite you now to take a huge emotional/spiritual step with me … What is the stuff, the real STUFF, we need to leave behind as we move into 2024? Let’s be honest.

Self-pity is one bundle of stuff I want to leave behind. I don’t know of a heavier burden which many of us carry than self-pity. It’s the kind of burden we are unwilling to drop off. Someone hurts our feelings and we carry our hurt with us forever. We’re treated unfairly and we never forget it. Something happens in our family and it seems that we’re being put down. Someone else is receiving special treatment, so we get a kind of stepchild complex. We suffer physically and we get the idea that the whole universe is out to persecute us. Such an easy snare to fall into, self-pity. Let’s leave it behind this year.

The second bundle of stuff we need to leave behind is what I call illegitimate responsibility. I’m talking about the responsibilities which we rigidly claim for ourselves, but which don’t legitimately belong to us.

You know what I’m talking about? We bury ourselves beneath a great burden of responsibility we can do nothing about; that really doesn’t belong to us. We have simply, illegitimately assumed it.

Our journey into this New Year will be more meaningful if we can determine that there are certain responsibilities which are ours. These we will accept and give our resources to. There are other responsibilities which we simply have to leave with others and with God. Let’s leave it behind.

Along with self-pity and illegitimate responsibility, (we can’t name them all) I mention one other bundle that needs to be cast off as we stride into this New Year. I call it the bundle of cancelled sin. The phrase comes from Charles Wesley’s hymn, ‘Oh For A Thousand Tongues To Sing.’ He claims that this is the work of Christ:

“He breaks the power of cancelled sin,

he sets the prisoner free,

his blood can make the foulest clean,

his blood a veil for me.”

Scores of people who beat a steady stream to my study door for counseling are burdened down by cancelled sin. Somewhere in the past, they have done those things, been involved in those situations, had relationships about which they feel morbid guilt. They carry this burden around as an inside burden which no one knows about. But like a malignancy, it grows and spreads until it poisons the person and brings a sickness unto death. I doubt if there is a reader who does not have an idea what I’m talking about. The memory – the haunting memory of some past wrongdoing devastates our life.

It is the very core of the Christian gospel that God through Christ forgives our sins, and our sins are cancelled by God’s grace. But obviously, this fact and experience are not enough. Cancelled sin still has power – destructive power, in our lives.

How then is the power of cancelled sin actually broken? There is one key: confession and inner healing. I believe that under most circumstances, not only confession to God but confession to another is essential for healing and release from the power of cancelled sin. This is the reason James admonishes us to confess our sins to one another and pray for one another (James 5:16). Once we have confessed to a minister or to an intimate friend, the poisonous guilt that has been bottled up inside is released.

A medical analogy is apropos. When an infectious boil appears somewhere on the body, antibiotics are given. If these do not destroy the infection, usually the infection is localized and has to be lanced. The surgeon uses the scalpel and opens the boil in order that all the poison might be drained.

Confession is something like the surgeon’s scalpel. Honestly opening our lives in confession, the poisonous guilt we have bottled up within has a chance to flow out. Confession becomes the cleansing process by which the self is freed from the power of cancelled sin.

Now there are two requisites for redemptive confession – one, you must trust the person, the person or the group, to whom you confess; and two, your confession must not be destructive to another person. We dare not disregard the health and wholeness of another in order to seek our own release. The big point is that the burden of cancelled sin is too great for us to carry into the New Year. You can leave that stuff behind, because God forgives. Let us leave it behind.

2024 is a new year. Leave your stuff behind — self-pity, illegitimate responsibility, cancelled sin, all your junk. Leave it. You are forgiven. Your failure and weakness is accepted. Your past is buried in the sea of God’s loving forgiveness. Go into the New Year with Christ, and go joyfully.

Emmanuel, What’s in a Name? by Maxie Dunnam

In the article last week I talked about Christmas in relation to the name given to the baby born on that day, JESUS

Rehearse a bit. Matthew reports that Joseph had a dream in which he was instructed to name his son, Jesus. The name means “God shall save us from our sins.” So, when the angel says, “His name shall be called Jesus,” the name reveals what he will do. The tradition of the name means He will save you from whatever holds you in bondage, and will lead you to the fulfillment of your life. But it helps us none unless we respond.

So let’s enlarge the perspective. Hold the angel’s announcement in your mind. “Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people, for unto you is born a Savior. There is more. The Gospel writer followed that announcement saying, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord has spoken by the prophet. “Behold, A Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel (which means, God with Us).” (Matt.1:22-23)

So that too is a name for the child of Christmas: EMMANUEL, “God with us.” The same prophet, Isaiah, had this to say about Emmanuel: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has … light shined … for to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:2, 6 RSV)

What promise! What hope! This is the word we desperately need to appropriate, for this is no naive notion, no surface optimism; this is the bedrock of reality which moves from the groaning of despair to hope and confidence.

I remember an old movie, The Day After, that has a message here. The declaration of that movie was ‘Look what the world is coming to.” Its detractors and its champions had their day in the media. As a political statement it was hotly debated. But more important, there was a religious statement to be noted.

The theme music in the beginning and at the end was that of one of our great hymns ‘How Firm a Foundation”. That theme music at the end was set against the haunting appeal that goes out from the destruction, devastation, and despair of Lawrence, Kansas. Everything is contaminated, all is in chaos, buildings have crumbled, flesh has been melted off human and animal skeletons, and most of the survivors are disfigured and dysfunctional. There is no good water and no electricity.

Some students and a professor have put together a radio desperately seeking to make contact with the outside world. “Hello, this is Lawrence, Kansas, is anyone there?” They plead “Can anyone hear me? Is anyone there?”

At the end of the movie there is a sweeping camera panoramic of the devastation and despair; and a shot of those seeking to make radio contact. The music floats into your attention as that longing, anguishing plea is sounded again: “Is anyone there? Can you hear me? Is anyone there?” And the music calls to your mind the words that we sing to it: “How Firm a Foundation, Ye Saints of the Lord, Is Laid for Your Faith in His Excellent Word.”

Whether he intended it or not, the screenplay writer made a profound statement. Not “Look what the world is coming to,” but “Look what is coming to the world.”

Even when the world is reduced to radiation and dust, and our cries of despair may echo in emptiness around us, our foundation is firm. Is anyone there? Can you hear me? EMMANUEL: GOD WITH US.

What’s in a name? More truth than we can comprehend, but an experience on which we can all lay hold. JESUS, for he will save his people from their sins; EMMANUEL God with us.

Yes, this Christmas—Jesus/Emmanuel, Savior, ever-present Lord and Sustainer, today and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow—and for all eternity! “For the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will never put it out.”

What’s in a Name? by Maxie Dunnam

We are in the midst of the Advent season. It’s Christmas time. Let’s stay with the story…at least reflect seriously for a bit.

A central figure is Joseph. He is perplexed, deeply perplexed. The woman to whom he is engaged is pregnant and he knows the baby is not his. He is wrestling with what to do. Will he expose her, making her a public example? He can’t do that; he loves her too much. He takes the only course acceptable to his conscience. He decides to divorce her quietly, privately, hoping to cause as little a ripple in the community as possible.

That decision, though it came out of the love and justice of his heart, didn’t set well. He continued to wrestle with it. In the deep midnight watches and wakefulness of his wrenching heart, an angel appeared with the astounding news:

“Do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for He will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:20—23 RSV)

Jesus will be his name. It had been declared by the prophet, Isaiah, centuries before. The angel had announced it to Mary at the time of her Annunciation: “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High…and of his kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke 1:31-32, 33 RSV) So, the question, what’s in a name?

“You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” That is Good News only when we are willing to admit the bad news about ourselves. The bad news is that we are sinners.

So let’s be very specific, name our common bondage and claim our deliverance.

Do you feel burdened down by guilt? Have you started to realize that the guilt may be from unconfessed sins?

Do you feel pain in your heart because there is a severed relationship that needs reconciliation?

Do you feel helpless because you are held in the tenacious grip of a debilitating habit? Alcohol? Drugs? Gambling?

Is your energy being drained because you live too close to the line of moral compromise —cheating in business? Preoccupied with sexual lusts?

Does your pride often put you in the position of thinking more highly of yourself than you ought to think, of looking down your nose at others?

We could go on and on, but you’ll have to do that personally.

Painful though the process of confession and repentance may be, the joy that comes as a result is “unspeakable and full of glory.” For the one whose birthday we are celebrating these days is JESUS. He will save us from our sins.

A Greater Miracle Than Healing by Maxie Dunnam

A minister friend told a story of a couple who had been married for twelve years when the woman was stricken with cancer. Medically, the situation seemed hopeless. But each day in the hospital the couple read together the stories of how Jesus healed so many people in his earthly ministry.

As they read, their despair turned to hope, and they began praying together earnestly, knowing that the Lord who loved her would also heal her. But she was not healed. After her death, her husband wrote a letter to his friends describing how their faith brought them through the long days of suffering. Even to the end their trust never wavered. They believed that God’s way is perfect, and that there is a greater miracle even than healing: resurrection.

There is nothing distinctively Christian about belief in immortality; many religions – and many people with little or no religion – believe in the survival of the soul, the Greek philosophy that regards immortality as an inherent attribute of the human spirit. When we address the issue as Christians, we either have to talk about Christian immortality or restrict ourselves to using the phrase “eternal life.” Christian immortality, or eternal life, is different from the natural wish for survival. Our faith in personal immortality is anchored in the resurrection of Jesus. We rely on Jesus’ promise: “Because I live, ye shall live also.”

As Christians, we believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. We do not go along with the Greek philosophy of drawing a sharp distinction between soul and body. We look upon a human being as an integrated whole. The “body” to which the Bible refers is spiritual rather than physical, thus the biblical language, “spiritual body.”

Jesus’ resurrection and his promise of eternal life speak to our feelings of worthlessness, our lack of self-value and self-esteem. The raging materialism of our day tends to reduce us to numbers. To our lack of confidence and feeling about value and worth, the promise of resurrection speaks a powerful word. Jesus is saying to us, ‘you are important, so important that I gave my life for you, so important that I offer you eternal life.’

Though we may not be able to explain the resurrection of the body and life everlasting, we affirm and proclaim this life-changing promise of Jesus: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”(John 11:25-26 NIV).

Healing we are not always promised, but the miracle of the resurrection gives us life anew. The mystery is profound, yet in faith we live with mystery in joyful anticipation until the full experience comes.