Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

I preached at the Monroe County jail last night and it was a wild night. Not "wild" in the California surfer dude sense of the word, but wild. We hadn't had a night like that in a long time and I am not sure what was up, but I may write a post about that later. I was first introduced to this concept of defining evil as a violation of purposed by Ravi Zacharias and I do not know if it originated with him or with someone else, but it fit perfectly into the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12:13-21. You and I are made in the image of God and, as such, we have a purpose: to bear his image to the world. Basically we are to act in a manner that shows the world what God is like. The word "image" here is the same word as "idol" and, quite literally, we are created to be the idols of God. Not that we are to be worshiped like an idol is, but we are to be a perfect representation of God to our world. When we do anything other than that, we commit evil and we s...

I think I was a sophomore or junior in high school. I am not exactly sure, but this was a rather unusual assembly for us. There was a band there that was playing some Christian rock and roll and, being 1985 or 1986, this whole “Christian rock” thing was coming into its own. At any rate the band was pretty good and it seemed like everyone was picking up what they were throwing down. I remember one number in particular that rocked pretty hard and there were more than a few of my fellow schoolmates that hollered their appreciation. Yet that was not the song that arrested my attention that afternoon. No, the one that took me by surprise was centered around the parable of the Prodigal Son and had a refrain that went something like this: Then he ran to me, took me in his arms Gave me a hug and said, “My son’s come home again…” Of course, being the refrain of the song, it was sung multiple times. Each time I heard it the words meant more and more to me until, well, let’s just say ...

A while back I listened to a Rob Bell podcast about a funeral director named Caleb Wilde who had a positive death narrative like the one I have been trying to develop. It was a very good listen and I think that Wilde has hit upon some key areas and fleshed them out to a greater extent than I have. Maybe, being a funeral director, he has had to, but maybe he is just more perceptive than I am. At any rate, he made a statement where he said that we are "uncomfortable" around death because it is something that we are not familiar with. I can see where he is coming from with that perspective. I mean, the physical death of a cherished one is relatively rare in my life - especially as youngish as I am. The death of those I cherish will accelerate as I get older, but up to this point I have only grieved hard a couple of times. On the other hand, though, I find a perspective different than that of Wilde. I see death every day. I don't think the difference that I have with the f...