#306 Cleansing

Back in September I had the privilege of baptizing my son, Jeremiah Brian. I really wasn't blogging then, so I'm getting around to writing this now, just a little while after his birthday. I've mentioned before (while blogging about my daughters' baptisms) how much I love baptism. There's something about this visible sign and seal of God's grace that really drives the meaning of God's work home. Administering baptism—particularly for my own children—is one of my great joys as a minister.

Every human being is a sinner. We have done wrong and disobeyed God. Our very nature is sinful. Worse, we cannot make up for our sins. The only way for us to be right with God again is for us to be cleansed—forgiven and made new. The clear water of baptism makes visible to us God's promise to wash away all of our sins as well as our sinfulness through the sacrifice of Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit applies the benefits of Christ's work directly to each Christian. Baptism can be done in a few different ways, but Tess and I chose to have Jeremiah immersed, plunged in the water from head to toe. For us, this was a beautiful picture of how God cleanses us entirely. Just as water washes dirt away, so, through Jesus, Christians' sins are gone forever. What a blessing to be cleansed!

Grace and peace,

BMH

#305 Being Jimmy Olsen

For this post to work, you need to know who Jimmy Olsen is. Back in the 1950s, when The Adventures of Superman was on TV, everybody knew Jimmy Olsen. Jimmy is a photographer at the Daily Planet, where he works with Clark Kent and Lois Lane. Traditionally Jimmy is roughly a teenager, a little bit younger than Clark and Lois, who are both working adults. Due to the TV show, Jimmy Olsen became so popular that he had his own comic book, Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen, which ran for 20 years. (And then Jimmy's adventures were part of The Superman Family, which ran for another 8 years.) That might not seem unusual, but Jimmy Olsen has no special powers or abilities. He doesn't really fight crime. His claim to fame is that he's friends with Superman. Jimmy wears a special watch that emits an ultra-sonic signal so he can get ahold of Superman when he's in trouble, which happens a lot.

A few months back I had a conversation with a church member who was really struggling with some health challenges. We talked on what seemed to be a particularly tough day, and after our conversation ended, I was feeling down. I wished I could do something to make this person feel better. As I walked home, it occurred to me that I'm not and can't be Superman, but I can be Jimmy Olsen. See, I'm nobody's savior. I've never demonstrated any miraculous powers, and there are a lot of troubles that are simply beyond me. But I know Christ Jesus, who can handle any trouble. In fact, He calls me His friend. I don't have a signal watch, but I can pray. What's more, I can trust that Christ will hear me and that He is able to help out. Like Jimmy Olsen tells people about Superman, I can tell others about Jesus and, in a sense, help them contact Him. What happens then is up to Christ, but I know from personal experience that He is powerful and good.

Grace and peace,

BMH

#304 Look! Up in the Sky!

So… it's been a while since I posted anything on this blog. Three-kid life has gotten to me. But today I have something that needs to be shared. It's the third installment in my ongoing adventures with Superbabes. (Check the first and second installments if you haven't already.)

Before we begin, you may enjoy this record of our adventures more with some theme music, whether from TV's Smallville (top) or My Adventures with Superman (bottom). (They are both pretty short, so you may need to repeat them.)

And now, the adventures continue! Superbabes streaked to the rescue with his incredible power of flight:

Arriving on the scene, Superbabes caught the evildoers off-guard by bursting through the wall:

We encountered Bizarro, Superbabes' imperfect duplicate:

Thanks to new high-speed camera technology, we were able to catch evidence of Superbabes' fantastic superspeed. To the naked eye, he would only appear as a red-blue blur:

Superbabes demonstrated his remarkable freeze breath:

Superbabes quickly destroyed a huge robot that was threatening innocent civilians:

With the threat taken care of, Superbabes imprisoned the criminal mastermind in the eerie Phantom Zone:

After another day of heroics, Superbabes paused for an exclusive interview with Lois Lane (photograph courtesy of Jimmy Olsen):

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings at a single bound, Superbabes is here to save the day!

Grace and peace,

BMH

#303 Preaching Words

As I prepare and preach sermons, I try to be consistent in prayer. I ask God to guide me to properly understand the text. I ask Him to help me explain each passage well, tie it to Christ Jesus, and connect it with the lives of His people today. Generally, I'm praying at the beginning of my study, as I transition into writing, and on Sunday morning before I deliver the sermon. Over the years I've landed on a consistent set of words for how I'd like to preach. I ask God to help me preach His Word

• Faithfully - This is the biggest one for me. I want to understand what God is saying through the Bible passage and communicate that truth to God's people. I don't want to stray into theological errors or start bringing my own ideas into the text. I hope my preaching accurately reflects who God is and what He has done for His people and what that means for our identity and lifestyle.
• Effectively - I want to use relatable words and images. I want to show how God's Word relates to the joys and struggles of our everyday lives. I hope and pray that those who hear me preach feel like they and their concerns are being addressed. God's Word should affect us and draw us closer to Him.
• Boldly - I want my preaching to be first and foremost about the good news of Jesus Christ. I want to be honest about our need for salvation and the fact that only Christ can save us. Where it's necessary, I want to expose the lies we and others tell us. I want to point out where God is at work in our world. I want to proclaim His message, even when it's not what I or others want to hear.
• Enthusiastically - I want to proclaim Jesus with joy and conviction. Our God is awesome. His love is extravagant. His faithfulness is overwhelming. No one can compare with His holiness, His righteousness, His patience, His wisdom. I want God's people to be excited about God.
• Creatively - This is least important one, but I want to express God's truth in my own words. I want to communicate something different with each different sermon. Sometimes even hearing a familiar truth in a new way helps us unlock better and fresher understanding.

That list is intimidating. I can't do that on my own, and I know I have lots of room to grow. So not only will I keep practicing, but I'll keep praying. May God be glorified when I preach.

Grace and peace,

BMH

#302 A Decade!

Last week Tess and I reached ten years of marriage. A decade! Since Tess and I were married on July 20, 2013, we've gained three children and lived in three different homes in two states. As a former math major, I noticed that our 120 months of marriage equaled the sum of our kids' ages. They were at 77 months, 41 months, and 2 months on July 20. That doesn't really mean anything, but I thought it was pretty cool.

That nice round number of ten years makes me want to reflect a little bit. In 2013 Tess and I were just out of college. We'd both had steady jobs during summers and consistent part-time work during the school year, but neither of us had had a "real" job before. I had spent a few months living in Indonesia, but we didn't have much experience living on our own in our own place. It would be an overstatement to say we moved from Wisconsin to Michigan without a safety net, but, like many newlyweds, we were figuring out a lot of adulthood pretty quickly in those first years. Seminary helped me—and, after a bit, us—with making friends. Tess found a job after a few weeks. We learned how to live together, how to plan our meals, how to coordinate our schedules. The move away from home had challenges, but I think it ultimately was good for us. Tess and I had to depend on each other and support one another as we navigated not just a new stage of life but a new place. We grew a lot closer together over those first few years.

Ten years after getting married, it's pretty hard for me to remember what life was like without Tess and basically impossible for me to imagine going through life without her now. She is my best friend, my closest confidant, my partner. After a decade, I am confident that I love her far more now than I did on our wedding day. I've learned so much more about Tess through the experience of life together, and I think I've learned how to love more over these years. I am so thankful that God has brought us together. He has given us ten wonderful years, and I am looking forward to what's yet to come.

Grace and peace,

BMH

#301 Dopamine

Let me tell you something: dopamine is a powerful thing. Now that it's summer, I do most of my running right away in the morning. I'm using a marathon training plan that only requires three runs a week, but calls for all of those runs to be hard. So I wake up, hydrate, and go out to work my tail off. By the time I'm done, I am drained and sore and… in a great mood. When the run goes well, I experience the thrill of conquering a challenge. Even when I fall short of my goal, my frustration quickly fades because I've still gotten the workout done. That dopamine floods my brain. It's a beautiful thing and enough to motivate me to get out there and keep pushing, even as the mileage climbs.

Grace and peace,

BMH

#300 What's in a Name?

We've hit three hundred posts! Let's talk about something near and dear to me.

The summer of 2008 was a big summer for me. I was in between my junior and senior years of high school. Over that summer I made a lot of great memories and also felt like I came out with a much clearer sense of who I was and who God was calling me to be. A large part of that was reading through the book of Jeremiah chapter by chapter. At seventeen years old I was beginning to feel God tugging on me. A few people in my life had planted the idea of leadership—specifically, ministry—in my head. I was pretty skeptical about that being a good idea for me. Jeremiah seemed pretty skeptical about God making him a prophet. I could relate to Jeremiah's doubts and questions and even complaints about God's calling on his life. Jeremiah felt too young, too unqualified, like I did. But God reassured the prophet: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Those words were extremely comforting to me as well. I felt like God was answering my concerns and promising that He would be with me. Reading Jeremiah's words gave me hope that I wasn't alone, that I wasn't crazy, that God use me as a minister.

After Jeremiah made such an impact on me I decided that if I ever had a son, I would name him Jeremiah. This was more than a year before I met Tess, almost nine years before we had children, and basically fifteen full years before we had a son. But as I was starting to figure out back in 2008, God was calling me into pastoral ministry. So Jeremiah Hofman's name has special meaning to me. It's an ongoing reminder of what God has done in my life.

Grace and peace,

BMH