Last month I wrote about my apparent hatred of travel. Yet here I am preparing for yet another trip. Pray for us as we endeavor to travel over half the United States with my family all in one vehicle. We'll be visiting our old home in Phillipsburg, Kansas on the way to the Middle America Week Kirk (Small Church) conference, in Wagoner, Oklahoma (State Motto: “Just like the musical but without the singing”) We'll cap off the trip with a stop in Branson, Missouri. Because of this, I wanted to reprint this month a newsletter article I wrote for Christmas two years ago. True, I'm no longer 32, and have three kids now, but the minivan is still rolling. Hope you enjoy it, and that God uses the words to give you an even greater hope for heaven.
I called my folks the other day to tell them that we’d like to use the three days of vacation I have left to go on another trip with them after Christmas. I figured a family trip is a better way to spend our Christmas budget than on a bunch of stuff.
Last year they took us to Branson Missouri; Branson, home of nostalgic shows promising to take you back to the 50’s and 60’s (minus Korea, white and colored bathrooms, “duck and cover”, Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, and race riots); home of Yakov’s giant 25 foot head on every third billboard within a 90 mile radius; home of theaters owned or otherwise named after stars extending their fifteen or even twenty minutes of fame into a profitable enterprise in a land of condos and timeshares; home of Ozark hillbilly parody culture that should prompt real hillbillies to file a class action suit for libel.
But I’m telling you why I like Branson. (Trust me I’ll get to something spiritual soon)
If I had any interest in being thought “cool” I wouldn’t even bring this up. But as a 32 year old ordained pastor, married with two kids, and driving a 1993 Minivan, I think the “cool” ship has sailed. In my case it ran aground and sank on its shakedown cruise in 6th grade (but that’s another article). Still, I’m no music snob, but much that Branson offers is dorky even for me.
No what I like about Branson is that reality is suspended. It’s like there’s a sign that invites you to “please switch off all portable electronic devices along with any brain function required for worry and critical thought.” I like to stop thinking for a while.
I also like that in this place of neon, knickknacks and $5 sodas with ice, there are real people there who bring a smile to my face. Not the folks you see headlining. Not the guys and girls with big hair, lacquered teeth, and names I’m sure somebody knows. I’m talking about the bass player standing just outside the spotlight doing his best and making a bit of a living doing something he loves. He might never get his own billboard and I suspect he may not even want one. Or there’s the guy at Cedar Creek who will sell you a dulcimer even though you didn’t know you’d ever want one, because he loves to show you in two minutes, that even the most musically inept person can play a tune. And he does it with such joy. There are the two ladies at the flavorless buffet who are just so excited to be there on vacation, and are happy to chat with you. There’s also the twenty something guy sleeping on the floor behind the hotel treadmill at 6 AM, who was very polite as he left so I could run.
And that gets to the essential, spiritual thing. The world God created had no trouble; one man fascinated by his God-given bride, Fellowship with God, unlimited trips to the garden buffet. The world we now know as reality did not exist, or if it did it was an unpopulated place outside of a garden sanctuary. But when sin entered through Adam’s choice to trust his way before God’s, a new reality set in; one with death and sickness and pain and separation from God.
No, Branson is not a new Eden, no matter what the brochures might tell you. (Remember the guy sleeping in the fitness room.) But, Branson reminds me of what it means to be redeemed. He gave us a promise of a redeemer who would crush the head of the serpent who deceived us, while having his own heel bruised. (Genesis 3:15) By dying for us and rising again, Jesus promises an eternal world redeemed, with all the good stuff shined up and made better and all the bad stuff removed, like nostalgia but better and real.
The folks that make me smile for their humanity, their humor, their passion, and their giving their best, remind me that God redeems us too. God is joyful with His redeemed because he knows what we will be. Real people, who trust and follow Jesus, including my family, and I, as quirky, funny, confused, determined, joyful, and even “uncool” as we are, can know we are people that God loves.
The redeemed are people who bring joy to God, not for who we are but just because He chooses to love us. Jesus is the redeemer of those who God loves. Choose to love someone who God loves.
In Christ and on the Shepherd’s Path,
Mark
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