On the second day of our stay in Rome, we got up super early, ate a hearty breakfast, put on comfortable shoes, and got on the subway headed for Vatican City with a tour book in tow. We were confident we would surely beat the crowd with an early start.  In addition, we were smart enough to plan our visit to this tourist-magnet in October, not in the middle of the busy summer months, so we figured we wouldn’t have to spend a lot of our precious time waiting in lines.  We had even purchased tickets online, and we felt good about ourselves!
But as soon as we arrived at the metro station closest to Vatican City, we realized that a whole lot of other people had the same plan!  As if we were competing in a speed-walking event, the three of us walked as fast as our short legs could carry us to get ahead of the mob of people headed in the same direction. Even with all that advance planning, however, we still ended up waiting in line for the security check and to rent an English audioguide for the Vatican Museums tour. You indeed need a lot of stamina and patience to visit the Vatican City.
They say you haven’t seen Rome unless you have been to the Vatican Museums so we were determined to take the time to explore every gallery.  However, we soon realized that doing this might take a whole week or more! The galleries were filled with so many amazing, breathtaking, magnificent (I need more adjectives to do them justice) works of art - paintings, sculptures, tapestries, etc. - that after a while my mind couldn’t handle any more.  It was definitely a case of too much of a good thing, an awesomeness overload!  But we had no choice but to move slowly with the mob in order to reach the pinnacle, the Sistine Chapel, with its famous painted ceiling depiction of the creation account by Michaelangelo.  Incidentally, the Sistine Chapel is also important in that the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church is elected there.
While I was glad to see the most famous ceiling image, “The Creation of Adam,” I was more impressed with and touched by the huge painting on the wall titled “The Last Judgment,” done by Michaelangelo some 25 years after painting the ceiling.  The older Michaelangelo depicts the second coming of Christ and the ensuing judgment.  With Christ in the center, the damned who are being pulled down to hell to be tortured by demons are to His left while the blessed who rise from their graves to enter heaven are to His right.  In addition, Christ is surrounded by important figures in church history, including many martyrs who suffered particularly painful deaths. One particular image that is still vivid in my mind is that of Saint Bartholomew, holding a knife in one hand and his own skin in his other hand.  He is known to have been martyred by being skinned alive.  What a painful and slow death he must have suffered for the sake of Christ!  As great as that suffering must have been, however, it is still nothing compared to being tortured by demons, as the painter seems to convey.
What really struck me was how many of those tens of thousands of daily tourists will just walk away from that painting, considering it as a depiction of a fairy tale or the artist’s wild imagination.  Many may even be shaken by the disturbing nature of the painting, but within a few minutes of leaving the chapel, will forget about it.  I too would have been one of those passerby tourists had it not been for Jesus Christ who saved me out of millions.  Why me and not them? I may never know, but I am eternally grateful for His amazing grace.  How about you?

From Pastor Sara’s Heart
October 28, 2012

“Pants for water so my soul longs for You” would probably be the appropriate response.  However, in recent times, the only experience that I’ve had with these creatures is along 495 going westbound, prancing along the highway, ending up on the hood of my car, ultimately leading to death on the side of a busy highway, and alone.  It seems to me, that there is a deer over-population issue in the DMV area.  A recent Washington Post article states that the chances of hitting a deer on the road is one in 102 in Virginia and in Maryland, one in 114.  So be careful as you drive.  Don’t text.  Don’t change the radio station.  Keep your eyes on the road because deer are everywhere.
The context behind this accident was that I was coming from a blessed evening of ministering to our college students, Impact, at the University of Maryland at College Park.  I was driving home from the meeting, thanking the Lord for His faithfulness, and out of nowhere I see a deer pop out right in front of me and with very little to no time to react, I hit the deer.  As a result of trying to avoid the deer, I had just missed the cement barrier on the left hand side.  But my car seemed to run fine so I continued home.  As I was making the left turn to enter my neighborhood, smoke began to fume out of the hood.  I was able to park but as I came to a stop, my engine shut off.  The Lord was indeed faithful to me and protected me from harm.  He is my Protector and my Shield and my Provider.  However, this is not a story of His protection, but more of the revelation of His grace through my sinful thoughts as I tried to make sense of this situation.
As I processed this event, I found myself trying to find something to blame and bring logic/reason to why things happen.  I asked the Lord “what did I do wrong?  Is there some kind of sin that deserves this type of punishment?”  Friends, the question I asked of the Lord may seem so absurd at first glance, but is that not the way we approach our relationship with Him and skew the concept of grace in our lives?  At times, it is extremely difficult to understand that, WHILE we were STILL sinners, Christ came to die for us.  That is grace!  That is good news!  Punishment was paid on the cross.  SIN DIED WITH JESUS!  But often times, we try to explain the corruption, evil, and all other sorts of injustice in the world by reason.  It simply can’t be done.  There’s no “logical” explanation for all the terrible things that happen to us and the world around us. 
Let’s take the other side’s approach.  We are blessed beyond words.  Most of us do not have to be concerned with where our meals come from day after day.  We are well provided for.  We do not have to worry about this upcoming winter, whether we will have a warm place to lay our heads or clothing to keep us warm when we do go outside.  So what separates us from those who do struggle with these issues among so many others?  Is it because we did something so good, worked so hard and have gained some type of merit to attain these things?  No.  I can only attribute everything that I have to the grace of our God and I can only respond with a humble “thank you, Lord”, confessing that every good and perfect gift comes from above.  So in the good and bad, God is unchanging; the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Let’s stop over-complicating things and trying to find “logic” and “reason” behind everything that happens.  It may be difficult for many of us, but I pray for faith, which is confidence in what we hope for and certainty of what we do not see, and wisdom to see that His grace has power to cover all of our lives.  God bless you.

From Pastor Keeyoung’s Heart
October 28, 2012