Happy Mother's Day, all you Moms.  We can't live without you, not even our Savior, so today we honor you as we worship our Risen Lord.  Easter has come and gone, but the results of the resurrection continue.  Yesterday I threw out the last of our Easter Lilies.  Our Easter flowers may have wilted, but what Christ did for us still continues.

          Jesus, the Son of God is alive and working for us, and that makes all the difference in the world.  It's been a crazy spring, hasn't it?  We've already seen weird weather, senseless tragedy, raging war, and tornado devastation.  It seems we've had too much tragedy this spring, so in the midst of this, we need some humor.  And the best comes from reality.  Here are some reportedly true stories I ran across recently:

1.       The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez oil spill was $80,000.  At a ceremony, two of these expensive seals were finally released into the wild amid cheers and applause.  A minute later both seals were eaten by a killer whale.

2.       A woman found her husband in the kitchen, shaking frantically with what looked like a wire running from his waist to the electric frying pan.  Assuming he was being electrocuted, she whacked at the cord with a 2 by 4, breaking his arm in two places.  Too bad, as he was just listening to his Walkman and swingin' to the tunes.

3.       In Bonn, Germany, two animal rights protesters were protesting the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse, when suddenly the pigs, all two thousand of them, stampeded through a fence and trampled the two protesters to death.

4.       An Iraqi terrorist, evidently a beginner, didn't pay enough postage on a letter bomb he had sent.  It came back to him marked "return to sender."  He opened it and blew off the side of his face.  True stories?  Could be...

          You and I had better keep our sense of humor in the midst of all the tragedy.  We need to keep laughing or we'll cry out in despair.  Moreover, we need to keep praying for the return of sanity.  What we're seeing around us these days is the result of a couple of generations of being taught that anything goes, that morality is whatever you decide it is, and that you're only guilty if you're caught.  If anything good can come out of our recent tragedies, it's that perhaps those responsible for tossing the Bible and Ten Commandments into the trash can will re-think what they've done.  And maybe then the humanists of our day will see the folly of having a society with no moral anchor.

          Today most people live a life that is far too hurried.  We're all so very, very busy.  Whatever happened to the simple, uncluttered life people used to have?  Or did we ever have it?  Only just yesterday it seems we were living in small towns or on farms, walking to school, going to town once a week for groceries, and getting to bed by 9 PM.  Now that's all been replaced by Pizza Hut, Internet and traffic jams.  The quiet life has given way to off-ramps, ATM's, and drive-thru restaurants.  Today nothing is simple.  Our lives are now so complex - and so hurried!

          "Charlie Brown", says Lucy, "Life is like a deck chair.  Some place it so they can see where they're going;  others put it so they can see where they've been;  and others so they can see where they are right now."  "Great," says Charlie Brown, "but I can't even get my chair unfolded!"  Some folks seem to have it together, but the rest of us are still trying to find it.  We live in hurried homes from which we live our hurried lives.  But Jesus Christ has help for the hurried home.  He slows us down and directs us in the right paths.

          In John 14:18 He said, "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you."  Then He told them He would send the Holy Spirit for strength, courage and direction.  In Matthew 11:28 Jesus tells us, "Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."  You and I really need that rest!  We even rush around getting things done we can try to get our rest!

          Not all of us live in a hurried home, but all of us are pressured to do so.  Our culture values the hurried life.  We're the instant generation of microwaves, fast food, and 400 Mhz computers.  Business rewards the hurried life, making it so that one's family must accommodate to the company.  People are moved every few years and kids jerked from school to school.  Media, especially advertising, exploits the hurried life.  We're encouraged to get more because they say we need more - and finer - and faster - and better.

          We think we're doing okay, but Madison Avenue says, "No you're not!  You need MORE!"  And sometimes our egos just demand it.  Ego is another word for pride, that driving force that says we must be first and best, or at least better than you.  Pride comes from our sinful nature and sin refuses to let us rest.  We search for peace in life, but rarely find it.

          What is true peace?  A contest was held asking artists to paint a picture depicting peace.  Of the two final entries, one was of a quaint cabin high in beautiful mountains.  The other was of a thundering waterfall, with a tree branch bending over the foam.  On the branch a robin sat undisturbed on her nest.  Which painting shows true peace?

          Today is Mother's Day, a day we honor those special people who know what busyness is all about.  Mothers - and fathers - so easily get ensnared in the hurried life.  Even Jesus' mother once did.  Mary and Joseph forgot their son on their way home from church.  It was a busy time of life, and they thought He was with the others.  They lost a couple of travel days looking for Him, and found Him in church.  When they told Him of their worries, He said, "Don't you remember I must be in My Father's house?"  As often happens, the child taught the parents!

          I was once left at church and spent the afternoon in the parsonage.  I didn't teach my parents anything, but I learned what a good cook Mrs. Krenzke was.  We're so busy!  A mother who didn't work outside the home said she felt like a taxi driver, room-mother and full-time volunteer.  She said, "I'd like to go to back to work so I can slow down."

          Jesus knows our predicament.  He says to us, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."  The rest He's talking about is not just a nap.  It's peace with God and peace with yourself.  It's feeling good about your life.  It's knowing you're doing God's will.  It's being busy but knowing the important things of faith and love and hope are being taken care of.  Most hurried families today have little faith and hope and not even that much love.  So many of us long for love and peace, but we're too hurried to try to find it.

          Being hurried is hard to avoid.  In the past years our society has shifted from high gear to overdrive.  In Tim Kimmel's book, Little House on the Freeway, he gives characteristics of a hurried home.  Taken separately they're bad, but together they can be deadly.  They attack the faith, hope and love we all need.  Here are his marks of a "hurried home."  Does one of these describe you?

1.       Restless - can't relax, too busy, noisy (intimidated by silence), always new projects.

2.       Unsatisfied - continually upgrading, shopping, contentment just around the corner.

3.       Overachieving - success equals winning, much pride but little humility, can't handle failure.

4.       Wandering - unfinished projects, no absolutes, insecure, 10 Suggestions, not Commandments.

5.       Suffering - can't say "no", doing good for wrong reasons, neglecting the important things.

          The way I see it, these marks of a hurried home have common threads:  (1) A lack of knowing what's important in life - people have a lot of stuff, but not the right stuff.  (2) An inability to trust, other than yourself - pride and fear get in the way.  (3) A general discontent in life.  Life is just not fulfilling our dreams.  All three of these are a result of our sinful nature.  Unchecked, sin will destroy us.

          You and I all have basic human needs:  (1) Acceptance and Love:  God loves you and me in Jesus.  He forgives us in Jesus and helps us love our self and others.  (2) Affirmation and Purpose:  To live we need purpose.  We may find purpose in our work, but we get our true purpose from a relationship with God in Christ.  He forgives us and loves us so we can forgive and love each other.  (3) Assurance and Hope.  Christ's resurrection gives us hope.  This life is not all there is.  There is an eternity out there awaiting us.  Question is, where will we spend it?

          Like many of you, I grew up with Elvis Presley.  He was a talented singer, and a generous man from humble roots.  He was a religious man and very personable, but was deeply troubled.  Though surrounded by wealth and people who adored him, he was lonely and empty.  He was talented, yet had no real focus in life.  He lived too hard and died too soon, and just burned up.  Though some people call him "The King," he had no anchor, no one in whom he could find rest.

          When Jesus said, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest", He wasn't making an empty promise.  Unlike Madison Ave, Jesus delivers.  What He promises, He gives!  When you and I let Him be our Lord, life comes into focus.  Our #1 problem is not being too busy or too hurried.  It's being busy and hurried with wrong things.  To rest in Jesus takes faith.  It means making adjustments.  It won't happen by itself.

          Jesus is the real help for the hurried home.  He helps us straighten out our life and gives us the Spirit's power.  He gave the Spirit's power to the disciples and also to us.  There are some things I believe we must work towards if we want help for our hurried home.  To regain our sanity, we must  (1) Live life within God's Word,  (2) Seek a forgiving heart,  (3) Discipline our desires,  (4) Help those less fortunate.

          God will give you strength, you Moms.  He will give you needed rest, and He will give us all help for our hurried homes.  Jesus spent much time in His Father's house - will we do the same?  Go to His Word.  Turn off the TV and open the Bible.  Let God speak to you.  He's got some great things to say.  Listen to Him and get some great help for your hurried home.  AMEN!

Copyright © 1999 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.