Sabbatum Sanctum

The feeling of today is two-fold. First, an intense sadness, replaying that horrible day when all the world was black, when there was no hope because the One who was supposed to save was dead. Dead... Gone... What were they supposed to do? Who would save them? Would they be perpetually stuck in their sin, separated from their Creator forever? Why did the world continue? The One who held the universe in place was gone, why did it not spin into chaos?

There is no Gospel reading for Holy Saturday in the Protestant Revised Common Lectionary. Yet Job says, "For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth." And the Psalms say, "I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living," and "Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you? Is your steadfast love declared in the grave?" and "Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!" Romans and Hebrews tell us of the Jesus who was raised, and the Spirit who now lives in us.

This is the second feeling of today. While we re-live the day when the only true Life was dead, there is still the knowledge, underneath the surface of our minds, that He is Alive! Tomorrow the Tomb will be Empty, Death itself will work Backwards, we will forever be invited to live in God's presence, no longer will we be separated by a veil and blood. Tomorrow... There is hope, beloved, all we must do is last the night for joy, Joy, JOY comes in the morning!

Lent Day 27: The Steadfast Love of the Lord

"For He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul He fills with good things."

Yes, it's still Lent. Two weeks to go!

Psalm 107

Section One: Tells the people to give thanks to God for His steadfast love. Section Two:  Tells of four different types of people, the situations from which God rescued them, and why they should praise the Lord. Section Three: A record of the way God deals with the evil (brings low) and the oppressed (exalts).

Jeremiah 23:1-8

A warning against the leaders who care for God’s people and an assurance that God Himself will be the One who shepherds them and restores them.

Romans 8:28-39

“..all things work together for the good…” God works out all things according to His Rescue Plan (Jesus Storybook Bible). Nothing can separate us from His love or tear us away from where He would have us be.

John 6:52-59

Jesus tells His listeners that they must feed on His flesh in order to live forever. Not literally of course, but figuratively. He is Spirit and we must partake in His Spirit, ingest Him, digest Him in order to be a part of Him. It’s like Aragorn’s ring, with the two snakes swallowing each other. We take part in Him as He consumes us.

I’ve been meditating recently on God’s provision, how He always provides. Last week I Skyped with a friend who is fund-raising in order to spend two months in Africa with World Harvest Missions this summer. I was trying to encourage her and was reminded of my own experience fund-raising. I thought I would never, never, never be able to raise that money, especially for the second year, but it happened. God provided in spite of my lazy bones. I was struck by this because I am currently in a place of similar dis-trust. In two months I will begin a serious job search back in the States (I’m really starting now, don’t worry, Dad!). I am not looking forward to it, and not-so-deep-down I don’t believe I will be able to get a job, or at least one I will enjoy. But thinking about fund-raising I was reminded of God’s ability to care for me, even when I doubt. This sin of distrust and disbelief in something that God has clearly demonstrated over and over and over and over again is so wrong. It’s a slap in God’s face, saying “I don’t care how much You’ve proved Yourself, I still choose to sit here and feel sorry for myself and directly contradict Your promises to me. So there (*raspberry).” How pathetic is that? But God will still provide.

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble…” ~Psalm 107:1-2

The Mix-Up: A Short Story

The office drones could tell something was wrong. The very air in the two departments was popping with static electricity. John felt like he was hurrying through the deserted streets of an old western town in the moments just before the big shoot-out as he made his way to one of the other cubicles.

“Did you hear?” he asked his fellow-drone Thomas.

Thomas hadn’t heard him coming and looked up with a start.

“Gods, you scared me,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Yes, I heard. Who do you think they’re going to blame?”

“We’ll be lucky if Mr. B doesn’t blow away the entire department. I heard they had already emptied the entire warehouse into the shipping containers and started distribution when the word came about the mistake. They’re not going to be able to re-call it all; some of it has already slipped through the cracks.”

Thomas was not a brave man and he shuddered. “Mr. B was so elated at the late order. And he never gets excited about anything.”

In Miss P’s department the crisis was no less sensational, but the staff tended to follow the example of their department head and blame Mr. B. The talk was loud and emotional, rather than hushed and furtive.

“He did it on purpose, hoping they wouldn’t notice the mistake and he would get all the glory,” Mary M said to Mary K.

“I believe it,” replied Mary K, “All that snow and wind on all those poor people who had already packed up their heavy coats. Some of the farmers had already sheared their sheep. Can you imagine?”

“This has happened before,” chimed in Sarah. “You would think Mr. B would be more careful.”

“You would think,” said Mary M. “But you know how impetuous and hasty he is.”

The three ladies all nodded wisely. They knew. Mary M glanced at the huge, glassed in office at the end of the room.

“I just feel sorry for Miss P,” she said sympathetically, glad that she was the first to bring it up. “She does so look forward to this time of the year. She already had the shipping order ready and the first phase almost finished. Now it will all have to be pushed back for another three weeks!”

“I was on the snowdrop committee,” said Sarah, feeling the need to squelch Mary M’s self-important manner. “They turned out so beautifully this year. It’s a shame they had to be caught in all this.”

In her office Miss P sat brooding at her desk when her secretary’s voice came over the intercom.

“Miss P? Mr. B on the phone for you.”

Still staring straight ahead of her Miss P pressed a button on the phone and replied, “Put him through.”

She waited for the phone to ring twice before she picked it up.

“Boreas.”

Her tone was expressionless, belying her anger.

“What in the name of Zeus is wrong with you, woman?” Mr. B’s voice roared through the phone. Miss P winced and pulled the phone quickly away from her ear, “Didn’t you get the scheduling memo?”

“I could ask the same of you,” Miss P replied as coldly as she could. “All the signs were in my favor: the groundhog, the sun, the rain… Your time was up and you knew it.”

“Meddling woman,” Mr. B ranted, “Not even checking to make sure it was your turn before sending your little weeds pushing up through the dirt. The schedule clearly stated that I had one more go before you were let loose. You couldn’t even let me have that, could you? It’s not enough that the public adores you; you have to encroach on my duly allotted time as well. Well, I’ve had enough. I tell you this, Miss Persephone, if I don’t get an apology in the next week I’ll send Jack to visit every flower you’ve grown this year.”

“Apologize!” Miss P sniffed scornfully, “I should be demanding an apology from you, and demand one on behalf of all the people down there who you’ve caught unawares. They were all ready for Spring when your little flurries escaped the shipping containers and you had to go blowing freezing cold air through every crack in every house.”

Mr. B let out a blustery howl and slammed down the phone.

He was rampaging in his office when there came a timid knock on the door.

“What is it?” he roared, turning fiercely on the interrupter. His nervous assistant crept in and cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Spit it out, man!” Mr. B growled. The top three pages from a stack of paper on the desk  fluttered to the ground seemingly of their own accord.

“Sir, I have this, I found it, I mean, it just got here last night after you had left, I mean, here.”

He handed Mr. B a sealed note and hurried from the room, closing the door behind him and getting as far away from the office door as he could.

Mr. B opened the note, which was dated a week previous, and read therein:

Boreas,

Your last three weeks have been cancelled. Please make sure to collect any loose snow and store according to your usual efficient method. Many thanks for such a fabulous winter.

Sincerely,

Management

Lent Day 13

Psalm 72 is David’s prayer for Solomon as David is dying and Solomon becomes king. It is a prayer for God to make Solomon into a righteous and gracious and famous king. All of these things reflect God’s Kingship over the world. He is the righteous and gracious King, the King to whom all kings and people give tribute and obeisance.

Jeremiah 3:6-18 is a message from God to the people of Israel. First he reminds them of their and Judah’s rejection of Him as their husband. Yet He makes plans to bring them back to Him, and to be closer to them than ever, not separated by sin and blood and the Ark of the Covenant, but the very home of His presence.

Romans 1:28-2:11 is a New Testament reiteration of the Jeremiah passage above, in which God gives people over to their sin in order that they might be driven back to Him by the immenseness of their depravity.

John 5:1-18 tells the story of Jesus healing a lame man on the Sabbath. Through this act He demonstrates His power over Creation. But it isn’t the healing of the physical body with which Jesus is primarily concerned. He finds the man later and tells him “See you are well! Sin no more…” The outward healing was a sign of the inward healing that Jesus had performed in the man.

I’m currently reading C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, which I’m finding to be very appropriate reading for Lent. It deals with the tempting of a particular new Christian by a demon named Wormwood, whose job it is to turn the man away from God. While I doubt the existence of a demon on each person’s shoulder whispering in his ear, I have no doubt that my own self works in much the same way as Screwtape urges Wormwood to work. Lewis posits that God’s greatest desire is for man to turn away from himself and towards God and others. This is important to remember during Lent, because it could be easy to fall into trap of wallowing in our sin and forgetting to look forward to the Cross, for which this 40 days is supposed to be a preparation. Screwtape puts it this way “Even of his sins the Enemy [God] does not want him [the Christian] to think too much: once they are repented, the sooner the man turns his attention outward, the better the Enemy is pleased.” Think on your sin, Christian, but for every one look at your sin, look ten times at the Cross (Robert Murray McCheyne), where each of your sins was taken from you and fastened on your Lord.

Lent Day 10

I decided to intentionally read each of these passages specifically looking for applications to Lent. First, what is Lent? Lent is about preparation for the Savior, for His death and resurrection. Why did He die? He died to pay for our sin. And there it is. Lent is about the thing that separates us from God, our sin. One of the websites I visited made this distinction, that Lent is about “Facing the reality of the consequences of sin and the terrible toll it takes on the world.”

Psalm 55 sees David once more crying out to God for aid, but this time is different. “For it is not an enemy who taunts me” (verse 12). A close, dear friend betrayed David, someone who walked with David in God’s house. See the consequences of sin, people faking friendship and betraying trust. Yet God is the Always Faithful One, the True Friend.

Deuteronomy 11:18-28 is a charge to remember God’s commands, to keep them in our hearts and constantly before our eyes, to pass them on to our children and never, ever forget. But we do. We daily, hourly, by the minute forget God’s commands, what they are and the great love He has shown for us that should make us eager and impatient to obey Him. We forget. The Fall has warped our memories so that this all important thing flies from our minds at the first opportunity. Yet God doesn’t forget. He loves us and rescues us just the same.

Hebrews 5:1-10 continues in the strain of Christ as High Priest. Who was the High Priest? He was the one who brought the blood of the sin offering of the people to God to be forgiven. He didn’t represent God to the people as much as he represented the people to God. That meant that he was just like all the people he represented, knew their struggles, knew their sins, knew their suffering. In all of these things except one Jesus is our High Priest. He represents us to God, bringing us to God and saying, “Forgive.” He knows our suffering intimately, He experienced it Himself, yet He was sinless. The Fall brought suffering to the world and made the blood sacrifice necessary. And God makes this sacrifice, for not only is He our High Priest, He is also the Lamb killed and the pardoning King.

John 4:1-26, the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, was harder to think about in this context. Sin separates us from God, and from each other. The Samaritans and the Jews worshiped the same God (as far as I know) and both were looking for the coming Messiah, but hated each other. The Jews were the chosen people of God and the Samaritans were nothing to them. But where sin separates, God brings together. Jesus is the Living Water, open to all who are thirsty for Him.

“O Changeless God… My heart is without affection, and full of leaks. My memory has no retention, so I forget easily the lessons learned, and thy truths seep away. Give me a broken heart that yet carries home the water of grace.” –Valley of Vision

Lent Day 3: Living Icons

Catholic icon from Italy

The Psalms for today are 31 and 35, both of which are pleas for God to save the author from pursuing enemies.  In Psalm 31 God saves David not once, but twice. It could be that this is the same salvation, just doubled for emphasis, but we see it twice. In verses 1-2 he begs God to save him. In 3-8 it seems that God has answered his prayer and has delivered him. “…you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.” The plea is repeated in 9-18, and salvation comes again in 19-24. Daily I am faced with Sin, my abiding enemy, but daily God promises rescue. “Blessed be the LORD, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me.” How glad I am that the rescue isn’t dependent on my own strength!

In Deuteronomy 7 we eavesdrop on God’s exhortation to the Israelites. Their 40 years of desert-wandering are almost up; they wait at the edge of the Promised Land, poised to enter. But God wants to remind them of who they are and how they are called to live. Verses 6-11 remind them of how God chose them and rescued them, not because they were great, but because He first loved them. Flowing from this love then is the desire to live for Him. Verses 12-16 tell how to do this: Obey His commandments, the rules He laid out to their fathers. If they do that, they will be blessed beyond what they could ever imagine.

Titus 2 is a similar passage, with Paul teaching Titus how the Church is to behave. I wonder if the early church knew that it would be over two thousand years before Jesus returned. In this passage Paul says that we are to “renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ…” Think of that “waiting for our blessed hope.” Are our lives meant to be lived simply waiting? In some ways, yes. But our waiting lives are to be lived in such a way as to point people to Christ. I recently heard a pastor say that we were to be icons to point to Christ. The Catholic church uses icons, elaborate pictures and figures, to remind themselves of Christ. Such art was and is continually before their eyes so that they are constantly reminded of what Jesus did for us. That is what we are supposed to be, living icons that continually point to Jesus.

In John 1:35-42 we see Andrew and Simon Peter becoming Jesus’ disciples. Perhaps you all know about Andrew, who seemed to be constantly bringing people to Jesus (Peter, the boy with the loaves and fishes). He heard John say “Behold the Lamb of God!” about Jesus, then immediately went and found his brother Simon. “We have found the Messiah!” he says, and takes his brother to Jesus. His first reaction is to find someone whom he deeply cares for, and bring him to the long-awaited Messiah.

So what have we learned today? God loves us, fights for us, rescues us, which in turn prompts us to love Him and obey Him. Our lives then are to be lived in such a way so as to point others, including our closest friends and family, to this Rescuer, for whom we patiently wait.

Ash Wednesday

This year I actually began thinking about Lent far enough in advance to do a little research and commit to observing it. I found a 40-day scripture reading plan, each day containing Psalms, Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel. The theme for today (in my head) is Sin, more specifically confession of sin.

Today’s reading begins with Psalm 95, urging us into God’s presence with songs and shouts of praise, for He is the Creator. How appropriate is this? Unless we see God as our Creator and King to whom we owe our lives and allegiance and fealty, we will never see our sin for the perverse thing it is. The readings continue with Psalm 32, in which we are promised forgiveness if we will confess our sins. What, then, holds us back? We are assured forgiveness and restoration, why do we hesitate? Psalm 143 then is a plea for God to save us from pursuing enemies. What enemy is more destructive than our sin?  He promises to destroy our enemy for the sake of His great name, which is such an overwhelming comfort, because nothing we do can keep Him from fulfilling this promise.

The Old Testament reading comes from Jonah 3 and 4 and tells us of God sparing Ninevah because they repent in ashes and tears. I was struck for the first time by God’s words to Jonah in 4:10, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night.” God labors over us, makes us grow, gives us life. His stake in us is great, He will save us.

In Hebrews 12:1-14 we learn that self-discipline is a necessity in doing battle against sin and becoming holy, as we are called to do. I struggle epically with this. Well, maybe not so epically, since I always give in fairly quickly. The author uses the analogy of a race, “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely,” he says. What runner lets any extra weight remain on his body during a race? That’s crazy.

In Luke 18:9-14 we read the story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector going to pray in the temple. Luke says that Jesus told this parable to “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.” The moral of the story is Humility. We are truly nothing more than ashes while we remain in our sin, and we need to approach God in this attitude, though perfectly, completely trusting in His grace, which He promises us in advance.

Lent isn't supposed to drive us to despair, it is supposed to drive us to Christ. Interspersed with days of fasting and abstinence and tears are six days in which we celebrate our risen Lord, the One who makes our salvation possible. Take heart, Christian, the cross will take your sin and the tomb will be empty.