Heard a great little chorus last week from the Wilds. Can;t much remember the tune, but as is usually the case with me, it was the words that struck me anyway:

Help me give anything, everything, holding nothing back from You.

I'll go anywhere, everywhere, You have work for me to do.

Lord take this one small life, my little sacrifice,

In your hands it can be multiplied.

With self aside, Lord, here am I.

You'll like this!!!:

 http://youtube.com/watch?v=caspTsRGdos

This is where my xanga name comes from, just in case you wondered. It's my all time favorite poem, written by a man named E.H. Hamilton. Hamilton wrote it after hearing of the martyrdom of a fellow missionary, Jack Vinson. Vinson is quoted as telling his Chinese killers:

"Kill me, if you wish. I will go straight to God."

Afraid? Of what?
To feel the spirit's glad release?
To pass from pain to perfect peace,
The strife and strain of life to cease?
Afraid? Of that?

Afraid? Of what?
Afraid to see the Saviour's face,
To hear His welcome, and to trace,
The glory gleam from wounds of grace,
Afraid? Of that?

Afraid? Of what?
A flash - a crash - a pierced heart;
Brief darkness - Light - O Heaven's art!
A wound of His a counterpart!
Afraid? Of that?

Afraid? Of what?
To enter into Heaven's rest,
And yet to serve the Master blessed?
From serice good to service best?
Afraid? Of that?

While I don't necessarily wish for a martyr's death, I do hope to have such courage, even if I am never called upon to use it. After all, didn't He do even more for me?

Another Rant...I just can't help it!

Well, I guess I just can’t refrain from commenting on current events. What can I say? It’s the world we live in, like it or not. Now all the buzz is about the latest archeological find. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the ‘silver bullet’ that secular historians and archeologists always knew was there has finally been discovered:

The tomb of Jesus Christ.

Right.

Forgive my skepticism, but this is coming off to me like a badly written sequel to The Da Vinci Code. I don’t even know where to start in addressing this. Were it not for the media hype, I’m not sure it’d even be worth it. Still, it’s more interesting than yet more mind-numbing Anna Nicole drivel. (Just let the woman die in peace already!) Here’s the quick synopsis for those of you who maybe missed the story.

A documentary aired early this month on the Discovery channel claiming to be about the "Lost tomb of Jesus". The basic subject matter is over a collection of ten first century ossuaries, evidently discovered in 1980. The claim is that these boxes contained the bones of Jesus. (And his family?) The ossuaries are inscribed with the following names: Jesus son of Joseph, Maria, Matthew, Joseph, Mary the teacher, and Judah son of Jesus.

Here’s where things get fuzzy, at least for would-be proponents of the discovery. The names, significant though they be for Christians, are pretty common where first-century Jewish families are concerned. "Yeshua" can be Jesus or Joshua, we know of at least four Marys in the gospels alone, and two Josephs. Ah, but the intrepid filmmakers are a step ahead of us. Yes, they contacted (drum roll please) the statisticians. Here’s the ever-so-compelling evidence from a math professor in Canada: "The numbers range from 1 in 100 to 1 in 1,000 that there is some other family [with these names]".

Since the actually reliable historical record about Jesus doesn’t reveal ANY family, I’d say the odds are a lot better that these are the bones of another family. Oh, and how are we to be so certain that the Jesus and Mary found here are married? Easy. DNA taken from the bones says Jesus and Mariamene weren’t brother and sister.

So they must have been husband and wife, and therefore also must have been Jesus and Mary Magdalene?

Okay...

Here’s why this story caught my attention. It’s more frustration than anything. Why is there an attitude among supposed scholars that immediately rejects the Biblical accounts of Christ, but runs to accept anything and everything extrabiblical about Him? For a document that has never been disproven, the Bible gets no respect from these guys. For example, the director of this ‘documentary’ says: "We don't have any physical record of Jesus' existence, so what this film ... shows is for the first time tangible, physical, archaeological and in some cases forensic evidence."

I hate to disagree with directors, but we absolutely have a physical record of Jesus’ existence! The Bible makes reference to how many eye-witnesses to the resurrected Christ? Eleven apostles, plus Saul/Paul, the ladies who went to His tomb, plus over 500 others? That would be more than enough witnesses to land someone in jail for life, but it’s not enough to prove He existed? How ridiculous. Even secular historians, for the most part, accept the fact of Jesus’ existence as clearly established.

So why am I writing about this? I don’t know. For Christians, there’s nothing these people can present that will shake our faith. For many others, it’s just another excuse to throw over their true reasons not to believe. I suppose the only group about which I’m really concerned is those who somehow haven’t yet come to a true presentation of he gospel. Does this have the potential to be a stumbling block for them?

Over already???

Well, the War on Terror was shortlived, wasn't it?

I don't mean for this to be a running political commentary, but some things definitely bear mentioning.

Last week, the US House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution rejecting President Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq...all the while loudly proclaiming "We still support the troops!" Yet the moment the resolution was passed, talk began of repealing the 2002 measure by congress authorizing the use of force in Iraq, and restate the extent of the president's authority in the use of said force.

I don't think these guys get the whole 'Commander in Chief' thing. Constitutionally speaking, Congress doesn't really get to decide what authority the president does and doesn't have in military matters. The founding fathers wrote it that way for a reason. One can't help but wonder if they foresaw exactly this kind of debacle.

Still, constitutional and legal matters aside, there's something fundamentally wrong with the mindset behind all of this. Essentially, these clowns - clowns that you and I elected, by the way - are sending a very severely mixed message to our troops. First, they vote to send them to war, both in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now last I checked, nobody forced these men to authorize force in the first place. Nobody was there with a gun to their heads or pinning their arms behind their backs, leaving them no alternative but to vote yes. If they had such a problem with going to war, that first vote would have ben the time to voice it. It's a little late now. Yet now that we have men and women, our best, by the way, on the ground fighting and dying to accomplish their mission, Congress says "We don't think it's a good idea to send you reinforcements now...but we still support you!"

The glaring hypocrisy ought to make any rational-minded person sick. Does one who supports firefighters oppose the extinguishing of fires? Does one who supports policemen oppose the arrest of criminals? What a ridiculous notion. How can one who opposes war support soldiers...whose job is to fight wars? Somebody make this make sense. Do we want to win this thing, or don't we? It's become very clear that the politicians don't want us to win. What about you and me? Personally, I don't like losing, and I really don't like the idea of the world's only superpower slinking away from a two-bit terrorist organization like Al-Qaeda. If we were taking on Hizbollah it might be more frightening, but Al-Qaeda is far from the world's largest, most organized, or deadliest terror group. If we can't handle them, how can we hope to protect ourselves from bigger and badder enemies. They're out there. Iran, North Korea, and other would-be nuclear nations will take note if we back down now, and what they're seeing is not going to bode well for us in the future.

Here's a shining gem of brilliance from Senator Levin: "One thought is that we should limit the mission to a support mission - in other words, an anti-terrorist mission to go after al-Qaida in Iraq, to support and train the Iraqi army, to protect our own diplomatic personnel and other personnel in Iraq,"

...isn't that what we're DOING NOW???? All these guys are after is recognition for themselves, and evidently they've come to the conclusion that the best way to get attention is to oppose the war, or at least pretend they oppose it. But since they can't afford to make military families angry, they have to also support, or pretend to support, the troops. They can't both be true.

People, we've got a problem. And the only ones who can do anything about it are you and I. If we want to win against terrorism around the world, fine. Then let's do the job, by whatever means necessary, and beat these guys. If we'd rather come home, isolate ourselves, and pretend everything is okay, then fine. Bring the soldiers home and we'll wait quietly for the next attack. But what we can't do is send our troops out to fight a war, then leave them hanging because we can't decide whether we support them or oppose the war more. It's wrong on every level, and it's got to stop.