Welcome to Pastor Jack Buckley's weekly blog and podcast.
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Friday, February 27, 2009
Last Man Standing
When the phone rang, I had just sat down with a couple of friends for a session of "Sermons R Us" for their critical feedback on my notes for Sunday's sermon. I knew immediately what the call was about. My brother was dead.
William Edson Buckley passed away suddenly at the age of eighty on Wednesday, February 25, 2009.
Just the week before, I had spent three afternoons visiting Billy in a New Jersey rehabilitation center. I was delighted to find him in fairly good condition, even with lung cancer and just a few days freed from intensive care.
He sat fully dressed in a wheelchair after an hour of physical therapy. His gift of gab was intact, his sense of humor in gear. We shared all kinds of memories, exchanged some favorite family folklore, and brought each other up to date on our adult children's comings and goings. To top it all off, his kids and wife showed up during each day's visit.
When the time came for one last prayer, hugs, kisses, and a mutual "I love you," I drove away knowing I would never see my brother Bill again in this earthly life. But I had no inkling the end would come so quickly as it did.
Just five days later, my niece called to report that Billy was back in intensive care. Less than twenty-four hours after that she called again to say he'd passed. My "Sermons R Us" friends lent strong support in my hour of need. We even made some headway on the sermon, finding connections between its Bible text and the news I'd just received. (More about that some other time.)
Billy was my last surviving brother, the third of five, with me the youngest. My two kid sisters have always enjoyed calling me their "baby brother." But now I'm their only brother. I'm not sure how I'll adapt to that fact, or if it really makes any difference at all.
What I do know is that his death brings my own mortality sharply into focus. Whether ten or twenty years from now, or the day after tomorrow, I will surely die. Until then I shall and I must live as God would have me live. For today, and each new day, with God's help I want to do just that.
posted by Jack Buckley at
10:41 AM
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Reflections on the Transfiguration of Jesus
Psalm 50:6; Mark 9:2-9
Wonder of wonders, right before his disciples' eyes, Jesus suddenly shines like the midday sun with the Glory of God itself! Imagine what it must have been like to be there.
This Sunday morning our youth director Elizabeth Campbell helped us all do just that. She began with a whimsical summary of Mark's story, then brought it up to date in terms of how we might catch sight of God's glory in this complex, confusing world today.
Lots of good questions to ponder... Even some healthy laughs... And finally, a saxophone solo.
You simply have to --
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
4:21 PM
Sunday, February 15, 2009
All New Life, Now and Always
Proverbs 10:1-12; 1 Peter 4:1-11
Whew. This post is way overdue. Since uploading the MP3 podcast I've had dental surgery, spent a week in New Jersey, and returned to a piled up desk. While I could write some kind of intriguing, or informative, lead-in for you -- Why don't you just...
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
10:02 AM
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Sink or Swim Salvation
Genesis 7:1-10; 1 Peter 3:13-22
If you're suffering for your faith, you're in the best of company. So says Peter in this week's sermon text. For Jesus himself suffered to the point of death at the hands of his worst enemies.
Not just the religious and political authorities, bad as that was. No, behind them and between the lines of Peter's message was the Devil himself.
Picture it... The. Son. Of. God. Hung out to die on a cross, like the commonest of criminals. Stone cold dead for all to see, then buried away for good. Out of the way once and for all. Satan chuckles, does a little jig step, at last laughs out loud.
But wait. What's this?!
Peter says that, there in the shadowy realm of death, Jesus preached his good news "to the spirits in prison." They'd been there ever since Noah's day (see Genesis 6 and 7 for details on that). In a sort of suspended spiritual animation, they waited and waited for whatever would come next in God's cosmic plan. And what came next was spiritual liberation!
Let's not get into charts and diagrams of the afterlife here, tempting as that can be. The main point I take from this for now is this: There is no corner of the universe where God's gracious goodness in Christ cannot do its redemptive work -- touching, forgiving, transforming, blessing any single soul with a penitent heart and mind.
So I picture the Devil and his demons breathlessly amazed at the sight -- Jesus and all the dead, just a moment ago securely locked behind spiritual bars, stand together now tall and proud in the power and freedom of everlasting life! Death and hell and the Devil himself have been blind-sided by the saving grace of God.
Pondering this in preparation to preach on it, I remembered Charles Colson. One of Richard Nixon's hard-nosed White House enforcers, Colson was ultimately tried, convicted, and sent to federal prison for his part in the Watergate scandal. In the process, he became a Christian and received a pledge of faithful fellowship and support for the duration, from the small group of men who'd led him to Christ in the first place. Colson served his time and eventually was released into everyday life. But life would never be the same as before, for now he knew what prison does to a person and to his or her loved ones on the outside.
Colson formed the Prison Fellowship ministries, to serve the spiritual and material needs of inmates and their families, and to press for prison reforms over the long haul as well. That was thirty years or so ago.
Our Alameda church has participated for the last five years or so in Prison Fellowship's "Angel Tree" project, providing Christmas gifts to inmates' children in our area in the name of their imprisoned mothers or fathers. Volunteers from the church family collect those presents and deliver them a few days before Christmas.
I don't know who is the happiest when those visits take place -- the kids, their parents/guardians, or our kind couriers. But I do know that the transaction drastically diminishes prison's power to deaden the human spirit, and that all the souls involved get to breathe in more deeply than ever the clean fresh air of God's gracious Spirit.
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
5:43 PM
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