Author: Ian Bothwell

It was a Sunday afternoon and our family was sitting around the living room having a gabfest.  I was about twelve-years-old when suddenly there was aloud resounding snap.  As we looked about to see what had happened we noticed to our dismay the television screen was shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.  Everyone in the room was expressing dismay over the loss but I was extremely thankful.  I could not believe my good fortune.  It occurred with a circle of witnesses that I had not done it.  From a life-time of past events I knew I would have been forever blamed and if I proclaimed my innocence I would have heard, “Well, someone did it. Television screens don’t shatter all by themselves.”  But it had!

It is difficult to be accused of doing something wrong and not being believed when you know you didn’t do it.  Jesus was blamed for doing all manner of wrong.  “This man eats with publicans and sinners.”  But wait.  He did!  They were telling the truth. They accused Him of saying He would “tear down this temple and raise it back in three days.”  That was true.  He did say that.  They accused Him of Sabbath breaking when He healed the man by the Pool of Bethesda.  According to their twisted interpretation of proper Sabbath keeping, He was guilty.

And the apex of the sacrifice for our sins was the cross when He took upon Himself, not only our sins but the sins of the world.  He was guilty of the entire gambit of the world’s crimes. And He paid the price.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”  Jesus had descended into Hell so we can ascend to Heaven.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 10, 2017

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Then this afternoon I saw something that reaffirmed my faith that not all is hopeless.  We were moving in a steady line of cars going 80 mph when off to the left came a mother duck with at least ten ducklings.  Seemingly oblivious to the situation she waddled across both lanes, babies in hot pursuit.  Brake lights lit up, cars moved onto the shoulders and to my amazement all ducks safely made it.   There is a children’s book entitled Make Way for Ducklings.  People do.

At this point I am tempted to write about Jesus weeping over Jerusalem when He said, “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.”   Matthew 23.   However, it doesn’t quite fit because the mother duck wasn’t caring very well for her babies.  Every duckling was on its own.  Jesus would never leave us on our own.   We cannot deny life supplies us with some very horrendous times.  But the Psalmist said, “Yea though I walk through the valley of death, thou art with me.”  Psalm 23.  And there is that fabulous passage in Psalm 139.  “ If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.”

I am encouraged.  More good than bad happens.  Usually it’s just the bad that gets broadcast on the news.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 7, 2017

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This afternoon we noticed that McDonalds had a special on pies – two for a dollar.  When we got to the drive-thru window the girl told us they only had one apple pie left but we could get a blueberry pie.  Much to my wife’s delight it was wonderful and she will most likely never again ask for an apple pie.  In Psalm 17:8 the psalmist wrote, “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.” The original meaning of the word “apple” in English was a generic term for any kind of fruit.  None of the Bible writers ever saw or ate what we now call an “apple.”  This gives any of us the prerogative to supply our favorite fruit in place of “apple.”

I think my wife is now going to render the text, “Keep me as the blueberry of your eye.”  So, just think of your favorite fruit and make the verse your very own.  “Keep me as the mango of your eye.”   I thought of watermelon but I’m not sure that is a fruit.  What’s your favorite?

The important idea is to know how much God loves us.  Think of our best and know that is what we are to our heavenly Father.  What God sees when He looks at us is not so much what we are now but what we will become.

I Corinthians 15 speaks of planting a seed and harvesting something  awesomely different.  Plant a tiny white seed and harvest a tomato.  They look nothing alike.

The blueberry pie was a serendipity for my wife.  We will be a serendipity to ourselves for we have yet to dream what God has in store for us.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 6, 2017

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When one is a pastor one meets a vast array of interesting people.  When I am eighty I want to write a book about the “Stray Dogs and Alley Cats”* who through the years attended my church.  (I need to wait until I am eighty to make sure they are dead lest someone put two and two together.) One morning when we had over three thousand present someone whispered in my ear that the Zodiac killer had been in church.  This was north of San Francisco.  In a different part of the country (We moved a lot.) on many occasions I had a man come who had confessed to me of taking contracts for the mob.  I could contrast this with an evangelist who told me his goal was to win so many souls for Jesus his crown would be the brightest in heaven.  We once had a man who brought both his wife and girlfriend to church and sit with his arm around his girlfriend while she snuggled.

All of this brings me to Harley Allen’s song Stray Dogs and Alley Cats.  Some of the lyrics go like this.

“To bad for heaven and to good for hell

Little wings are better than big tails

I don’t expect to sit at god’s right hand

I could empty heavens garbage cans

Hope there is room on those golden streets

For stray dogs and alley cats like me.”

I find myself thinking there is very little difference between killer and evangelist, except maybe, the killer knew he needed Jesus.  I’m not sure the evangelist did.  The good news is found in Hebrews 7:25, “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him.”

*My thanks to Harley Allen.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 4, 2017

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“I don’t believe in anything that is not somehow tangible.  I have to be able to see it, feel it, etc.” so said one of my undergraduate students.  I’m suspicious he was trying to appear sophisticated to the coed he followed into the classroom. I remembered him last week as I entered a room with a massive eleven inch thick door.  I think the radiation techs would have disagreed with him as they positioned me on the table and then quickly left the room.  Before the buzz of the radiation gun I watched that massive door close and seal.  In a few moments the door opened the techs came in and I was walking out.  I never felt anything.  I never saw anything. I never tasted anything. But it was there.  It was real and the techs knew it was real.

At the close of Matthew Jesus said, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”  Unlike many television evangelists who repeatedly recount God speaking to them, I have never heard His voice.  I have never seen Him.  However, I have no, not the smallest, doubt that He is. In Romans 1 Paul wrote, “The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; . .”

I marvel at me.  I marvel at you.  I am awed by your intelligence and your ability to think new thoughts.  I marvel at the muscle memory needed for a three point basketball shot.  I marvel at the dexterity of a concert pianist playing Rachmaninoff’s piano concerto number two when the hands are faster than my eyes.

Our creator and our redeemer is real and we, you and I, are the apple of His eye.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 3, 2017

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For over 50 years my wife and I have always shopped together for our weekly groceries.  However, for the past month or so she has had to go without me.  The unexpected plus side is each week she brings me a treat.  B. F. Skinner would say I am being positively reinforced never to go shopping again.  This afternoon she brought me a cherry Tasty Pie, a childhood favorite.  But, it wasn’t just the price that has changed since I was a boy.  It used to be flaky crust laden with cherries.  Now it is a hard sugar crusted piece of folded cardboard containing about 4 or 5 cherries.  Alas.  But it was the love that came with it that mattered.

There is such joy in giving to someone you love, which brings me to Heaven’s response to Jesus on the cross.  Most prominently there had to be horror at the extreme torture we heaped on Jesus.  There also had to be revulsion and a desire to rescue Him.  But, it was a gift. It was the grandest, most generous; most extreme statement of love ever expressed anywhere ever.  “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.”  When God gave us Jesus He made Himself poor.  There was nothing greater.  The Father emptied Heaven’s treasure chest as He restrained Himself from interfering.

When you love, giving is as natural as breathing. Today, 2000 years later, the Father continues to bless us.  “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”  Matthew 7.   Never hesitate to ask.  But don’t beg.  He hears us the first time and His generous wisdom will prevail.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 30, 2017

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In John 8 there is a wonderful story about Jesus being confronted by the authorities with a made-up scandal.  He dispatched the assembly by revealing the personal sins of each politician: priests or politicians were one in the same.  While reading the story I was struck with a modern equivalency of a hypothetical senate judiciary committee convened to destroy a career.  The intended prey calmly and with precision looks at the chair and reveals the hypocritical truth about him.  With precision he begins working his way around the circle unveiling each one’s deepest, darkest secret.  The news networks would love it.  What great theater! Jesus was a master and the people loved Him.  Those stuffed shirts (robes) had been abusing the people long enough.  Jesus was verity. Jesus was truth.

We all have secrets we want never to come to light. Paul said in Romans 3, “Righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.…”  Jesus knows all about us. Yet, He still loves us.  What He wants to say to us is exactly what He said to the woman at the center of the story in John 8.  “Neither do I condemn you.  Go and sin no more.”   That’s the Gospel right there in a simple statement; repeal and replace.

We sometimes wonder how it was that the religious leadership pursued the crucifixion with such vigor.  They had to. Jesus knew too much.  But, oh, how His heart yearned for them.  “Father,” He prayed, “forgive them.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 29, 2017

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While shaving this morning I wondered if Adam was created with a full beard and if not did he awaken the morning of day two with stubble and what facilities existed in the Garden of Eden that would have enabled him to shave.  I know.  That is a totally irrelevant question that has nothing to do with salvation.  But when stories from the Bible have been a part of one’s entire life isn’t it natural to wonder about inane details?

I also wonder about power: not the kind of power in a Corvette, but power over one’s self and over others.  Did not God create Eve from Adam’s side indicating a shared governance?  How is it then that some religious organizations think women should have a diminished role in the church?  It is true Paul wrote the following to the Ephesians, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.”  But he also wrote “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”  To me that would mean sacrificing everything for her safety, her well-being and having respect for her ideas and opinions. But, I sense a fear in men that by doing so they will somehow lose power, the opiate that addicts egos.

It was a thirst for unreasonable power that sparked the rebellion in heaven when the Morning Star said, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God.  I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly.” But Jesus who had all power never hesitated to set it aside and become one of us.  He took our lowly position that we could inherit His lofty place.  See Philippians 2:5-8.  This is a topic truly worth our contemplation.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 28, 2017

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I feel sorry for news anchors on the all news, all day, television channels.  A basic cardinal rule in broadcasting is there must not be dead airspace.  That, of course, means these anchors have to keep talking, even if there is nothing new to talk about.  I’m sure you have noticed that hour after hour they sit and speculate and postulate about something that might be days old.  They even call it “Breaking News”.  They should call it “Broken News” it is so beaten and worn.   They must be excited when something actually does happen and they can finally change the topic.

I was thinking about them when I realized I have been talking about the same thing, not for days, but for seventy years.  I was wondering if I should begin calling the Good News, “Breaking News”.  The Good News breaks hearts, breaks old habits, sometimes breaks relationships, and breaks biases and prejudices.  And it really is “Breaking News” if someone never before heard and understood it.  The Good News breaks the chains of sin, breaks us free from death and guarantees us eternal life.

Contrary to news anchors who have to weary of going over and over old news while pretending it is fresh, every day we can tell the story of Jesus and His love and never weary.  The Holy Spirit makes it fresh in our hearts and gives us new insights.  I love the hymn, “Tell me the old, old story of unseen things above, of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love. Tell me the story simply, as to a little child, for I am weak and weary, and helpless and defiled.”

I have “Breaking News” for you.  You are loved, forgiven and going to live forever.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 27, 2017

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Many years ago I spent the summer as a chaplain at a junior camp in the northwest corner of Iowa.  By chance I happened to look over the lake and to my horror a child was about to go down.  It seems that the teenage lifeguard was more interested in a pretty girl in a bathing suit than he was in watching the swimmers.  I never bothered to call to him I just raced for the lake.  In a few moments I was with a small boy only to discover he was a member of my church.  When I arrived he, like so many frightened drowning people, fought with me.  As calmly as I could I called into his ear, “Joel, it’s Pastor Bothwell.”  It was miraculous.  Instantly, he relaxed into my arms and soon we were safely on shore.

So often the pressures of career, family, health and life in general make us feel like we are going down.  We don’t seem to be able to metaphorically keep our heads above water.  It is then that, if we listen carefully, we can hear Jesus calling to us, “It’s Jesus and I have you.”  He did promise.  “Lo, I am with you always.” He is the good shepherd and has promised to lead us even through the valley of death.  See Psalm 23.  One of my favorite passages is found in Psalm 139, “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”

If we trust Him and relax in His arms, we will soon be safely ashore.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 24, 2017

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