Field Day!

Hey everybody, in case you haven't already heard, CCVT is having a "Field Day" this Saturday at the campus house starting at 4pm and rolling on thru a free dinner and into the evening! We have alternatives planned for any and all weather conditions, and pretty much any preference of what you like to do for fun. There's something for everyone, so please come join us. Here are some more details you need to know.

Weather permitting, we plan to have a collegiate sized "slip-n-slide" down the hill behind the campus house. Could be epic. Feel free to bring any water guns you might have to supplement the water fun. We'll have some surfing tunes on tap to help set the mood. Being a Christian organization we want to err on the side of modesty, of course, so ladies, please wear a dark T-shirt and some shorts over your swim suit, and guys, dark T-shirts for you, too, I guess. Your swim trunks should be fine, I suppose. I hope it goes without saying, no speedos. Yikk, it was painful even to type that.

If slip-n-slides aren't your thing, or it turns out to be too chilly for that, no worries -- we have a variety of other activities planned: Capture the Flag, Volleyball, Ladderball, Cornhole, Boche, even Bryan's LED lighted Frisbee for after it gets dark. And you don't have to be an athlete to play any of these games. We have some variations on volleyball that will put any experienced volleyball players on a level with the beginners among us.

On the outside chance it rains, we have lots of indoor alternatives planned, too.

For dinner we will have plenty of pizza, watermelon, freeze pops, and desserts, and of course soda or lemonade. Alright, maybe we won't be able to wait until dinner to break out the freeze pops. Those kind of go with the slip-n-slide.

Anyway, please come join us for CCVT's first ever Field Day! This is your big chance to have some serious fun before things get real busy with the last few days of classes and the beginning of exams.

See you at the campus house 4pm Saturday.

Steve

Five Year Anniversary of April 16

Candlelight Vigil 4-16-12 on the Drillfield at Virginia Tech

I had the opportunity to attend the Candlelight Vigil tonight to remember the lives that were lost and to honor the survivors of the infamous shooting that occurred five years ago today. I've never written or said much about the shooting since the first several days after it happened. It feels too important. I've felt like if I start saying something about it, what I didn't get to say about it that is also of vital importance will eat away at me. If I tell one story or make one point, it will bother me that I didn't pick a different story or make a different point instead. People are only willing to listen to a very limited amount of information, no matter how important it is.

Besides, there is always so much work to be done among the current year's students -- I don't have time to dwell on the past.

Nevertheless, this five year anniversary of 4-16 has been on my mind for a couple of months now. Somehow I want CCVT to mark it, and not to let it pass without even saying anything to the larger CCVT community -- CCVT's supporters, Directors, alumni, parents.... I even prayed about sponsoring a Sunday of Remembrance to invite churches to pray for the families and for our campus and our campus ministry. But I finally resigned myself to the fact that there were even more vital priorities that we had to focus on right now, and we don't have the resources to pursue every worthy idea.

But I don't want to say nothing. So here is my something, and God, please deliver me from regrets about all the things I could have said, but didn't say.

In the days following the shooting I participated in prayer gatherings on the drillfield, comforted students, helped the university's counseling department support the students on their first day back to classes, worked with the campus ministers' association to help plan a memorial service, witnessed an amazing influx of media to cover the story, and fielded a flood of calls and emails from folks asking how they could help. I meditated earnestly and prayerfully about it all in the light of scripture, like so many others, trying to distill it all down to a few more manageable thoughts and principles to hang on to. It should come as no surprise that I never did succeed in boiling it all down to just one nice neat acronym or any such thing. The problem of evil is known by theologians as perhaps the most formidable of all topics, after all. I did, however, come up with one short, pithy saying that seemed to sum up at least a big chunk of what was on my mind. It came to mean enough to me that I ended up memorizing it, and have drawn strength from it many times since then. So for what it's worth, here is my proverb, born of my limited time in the refining fire of suffering, although my suffering pales in comparison to that of many others. Here it is:

"Suffering is an unwelcome reminder that while eternal life begins on earth, heaven does not."

Hopefully this is not too anticlimactic after all that lead up. It's an aphorism, so you have to read it a few times and really think about it, before you start to get much out of it. Just think about a time in your life when you were very distraught. You felt shocked that this could even by happening to you. How was this even possible? Now read the aphorism again.

Here are a few scriptures that will help you understand the aphorism, too:

“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." -- John 5:24 (NIV 1984) Note eternal life is spoken of in the present tense, and the "crossing over" is past tense. It has already been accomplished in the believer here on earth.

"Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you." -- 1 Peter 4:12 (NIV 1984)

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” -- John 16:33 (NIV 1984)

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." -- Romans 8:18-25 (NIV 1984)

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things." --Philippians 3:7-15 (NIV 1984)

"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness." 2 Peter 3:10-13 (NIV 1984)

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son." -- Revelation 21:1-7 (NIV 1984)

Get it? Stop expecting heaven on earth. Even good people are not exempt from suffering until heaven, and that does not come until the earth has been destroyed. A world without suffering is coming, but it is not here yet, and it won't be until Jesus returns. In the meantime, our challenge is to keep trusting God despite the suffering. In fact, I suspect that is God's purpose for allowing us to suffer so much in this life in the first place.

"Though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." 1 Peter 1:6-7 (NIV 1984)

"Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.... I have written to you briefly, encouraging you and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it." 1 Peter 5:6-12 (NIV 1984)

Never stop believing, even when God allows you to suffer more than you ever thought he would! "He who overcomes" will inherit heaven. Jesus did.

Steve Wilkin
Campus Minister