Freedom, Here and Now
Obviously, the exciting part of this story is the serpents. The Hebrew words are peculiar and hard to translate, so there’s endless fun trying to figure out just what kind of creatures are biting the Israelites—the footnote in most Bibles tells us they could be “fiery serpents,” which captures the imagination.
Then there’s the cure, the “bronze serpent.” The language and imagery are complicated here, too. And for us Christians, it’s even more so because Jesus uses it to talk about himself and his death on the cross (John 3:14). I’ve never been quite sure what to do with that. I have some ideas, but it always feels just out of my complete grasp—which is probably about right, theologically speaking.
That’s all interesting and complicated and worthy of deeper reflection. But what’s got my attention in this Lenten season is the thing that puts the people at odds with God. Specifically, when they say: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.”
It’s not that they don’t actually have any food. They just don’t like what they’ve got. And their failure of gratitude has them daydreaming about going back to being slaves, where at least they got their daily rations. How often do we spend our time wishing for something other than what we have, more than what we’ve been given, even to the point that we would be willing to sacrifice our freedom to get it? Does our desire for something in the past, or an imagined future, keep us from paying attention to—even delighting in—God’s freedom here and now?
Lord, help us to lean into Your freedom, instead of yearning for a past that enslaves, or a future that eludes. Let us walk more and more in Your love, trusting that You are with us and for us in the wilderness, every bit as much as in the Promised Land. Amen.
Aaron Miller
May We Perceive You
God’s ways and wisdom are beyond human understanding. Apostle Paul quotes from the Old Testament (Isaiah 29:14) to emphasize that God’s ways transcend our understanding and the message of the cross challenges conventional notions of power and wisdom. The passage suggests that intelligence can run an interference in comprehending the message of the Gospel and indeed trusting God’s plan for the world.
God seems to confound human sensibility with something foolish or overly simple. This serves to humble the intellectual pride of humanity and point to the divine knowing and nature of God’s plan, embodied in the act of Jesus’ sacrifice.
God of Mystery, may we perceive You with open hearts before discerning minds. May we accept the wonder and wisdom of your heavenly plan here on earth, and answer the call to be faithful to You. Amen
Kirsten Bowles
To be Seen
Only lately have I become more comfortable with being “seen”, as it were, by others, and myself. Odd, I know, given my four plus decades on earth. This comfort with scrutiny and self awareness, or “light”, is one John calls us to. His gospel tells us that evil doers “hate the light” (3:20) and won’t come into it, because they don’t want their sinful deeds revealed. They “love” the comfort of their “darkness” and sin.
I take John’s metaphorical “light” to mean being seen by God, and to see ourselves as God does. Something that takes place in self-awareness and reflection. What’s tricky though, is that we often mistake God’s view for our own, and if that view is colored by a critical inner voice (shoulds, shame, and guilt), we are trapped in the dark, all the while thinking we are in the light.
And goodness, it’s easy to stay in the dark. It’s comfortable and familiar. Numbing even. If we think the light is a painful awareness of our persistent faults, why would we want to step into it?
But while we might blink a little painfully in adjusting to God’s promised light, that discomfort is temporary—or should be. God promises us love, life, and forgiveness, and release from sin, shame, and guilt.
This grace can be hard to accept, especially as the rain of “shoulds” falls around us, from ourselves and others: we should pray more, be more loving, do more charitable works, give more—the weight of expectations can feel heavy. Overwhelming even. Defeating.
But we don’t have to earn God’s grace. How easy it is to think we do.
So remember God’s promise: believe in the son of God, who was sent not to judge, but to save, even—and especially—from the darkness we inflict upon ourselves.
God, may we trust in your mercy every day and let it work in us, to absolve us of shame and guilt, that we might fully respond to your call to follow you into the light and seek the life you promise us. Amen.
Erin Tarbuck
Love that Gives Us Ourselves
Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings.
Not all things are blest, but the
seeds of all things are blest.
The blessing is in the seed.
This moment, this seed, this wave of the sea, this look, this instant of love.
Years over wars and an imagining of peace. Or the expiation journey
toward peace which is many wishes flaming together,
fierce pure life, the many-living home.
Love that gives us ourselves, in the world known to all
new techniques for the healing of the wound,
and the unknown world. One life, or the faring stars.
- Elegy in Joy [excerpt], Muriel Rukeyser
God plants seeds in the garden of life and from the moment we spring from our seed, we are blessed.
From there, the choice lies with us.
With our one life, we make countless choices: some lead towards love and healing, and some towards sickness and death. Wars are fought in our daily lives, in our communities, and in faraway countries. We decide how we proceed and how we imagine peace.
But no matter what choices we make or have made, the Lord is with us. His steadfast love endures forever. He redeems us when we cry out to Him in our trouble. His love heals us and makes us known to ourselves and the world.
May we make Him known to the world for His wondrous works.
May we praise and give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.
Courtney Reynolds
A Perpetual Invitation
Every time I reread this passage, it’s the commandment on idol worship that plagues my brain. Maybe it’s because some of the other commands seem easier to follow and this one seems impossibly difficult. Maybe it’s because I memorized a ten commandment song as a kid (this one if you’re interested) in church and the phrase “graven image” seemed especially sinful to me. Maybe it’s because idol worship is a big hurdle in this Jesus way of living.
I’m so easily wooed by new, shiny things that distract me from God, things that fill my time, things that change me and mould me—things that are perhaps not a big deal on their own but eventually, when added up, I notice they’ve blocked me from following Jesus with my whole heart, mind, soul, and body. Each idol requiring me to bow down to someone or something other than the Redeemer of the universe. And these idols are big and small, ranging from a goofy video game called Airlines Manager Tycoon (that has consumed my free time) to a gargantuan one, achievement (which perhaps is part of an early mid-life crisis).
Saying my idols out loud is almost embarrassing, because I can picture Jesus’ face responding to this confession with a look of deep love but also, “really Daniel, that’s what has your attention?”
Perhaps at this point, I should know better, but then he gets up and motions for me to follow him, which requires me to leave those idols behind—a perpetual invitation rooted in unfathomable grace.
Admitting what has our attention, what John Wesley describes as “any thing or priority to which one's heart is given rather than to God” is crucial in our Christian formation.
So what has your attention? Confess that to Jesus and invite him to respond.
Almighty and eternal God,
so draw my heart to you,
so guide my mind,
so fill my imagination,
so control my will,
that I maty be wholly yours,
utterly devoted to you.
Then use me, I pray,
as you will,
always to your glory
and for the welfare of your people,
though our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ,
Amen.
(A Liturgy for the Increase of Devotion from Every Moment Holy, Volume III)
Daniel Martin
Beauty and Stillness
Interpreting Psalm 19 from the perspective of the world today, I reflect on two concepts: one, the role of nature in an era centred around technology, distraction and noise; and; two, the shifting values of moral and ethical standards.
The psalm’s description of heaven points to the glory of God and is a reminder of the perfection of the natural world around us. Today, we are in a constant state of information overload. This scripture reminds us that we can find pleasure in the beauty and stillness of God’s natural world, even amongst this chaos. We can search – and find – peace and harmony reflected perfectly by nature.
O Lord, thank you for the beauty of your creation, let it guide us in wisdom and righteousness, that we may appreciate and find joy in all that is around us and to see with wide eyes your handiwork in every sunset, flower and marvellous creature. Amen.
Gordie Bowles
Bright Sadness
Part of the fun work of putting together the Salt of the Earth: A Christian Seasons Calendar is sifting through the submissions of artwork and picking our favourites to defend when we come together as a group to make our final decision. Sometimes this process is easy, when an artist will capture and illustrate a season evocatively and we can all agree on the selection, but usually there are too many good images, too many talented artists, and we have to persuade each other of our choices with a good argument. And the image we ultimately chose for the Lent page this year, Conviction of the Spirit by Maryann Leake, was in need of a good argument!
Usually, when artists image-ine Lent for us, we receive submissions of depictions of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, bleak landscapes, illustrations in dull or dark colours with penitent moods, many purple abstractions. We expect Lent to look like we’re lingering on Ash Wednesday as a sombre, 40-day memento mori, or like the first part of Psalm 22 which Jesus references on the cross, a slow wasting away to dust. Leake’s worshipper, cast in vibrant yellow with hands raised in praise and eyes closed in prayer, is not what we expect Lent to look like.
The psalmist’s worship runs through Psalm 22 but it gets overshadowed by the psalmist’s groaning when we read it on Good Friday, when we’re present to the details of Jesus fulfilling the scripture; the umbra of the suffering of Christ. We must somehow hold together the solemnity of the cross, the psalmist’s crying out to the LORD in agony and desperation, with the joy of the glory of salvation, the psalmist’s praise and proclamation of hope.
An argument for choosing Leake’s image is an idea from the Eastern Orthodox tradition of Lent as a “bright sadness,” a paradox that captures the fact of the cross. The worshipper is standing in light, lit from all angles: a halo surrounds the figure and the person’s face is directed at the source of the light. And though the face is not downcast, the expression isn’t happy either; there is a seriousness that makes a bit of shadow show up in the person’s closed eyes. Are the raised and open hands in awe or surrender? Does the ashy sign of the cross on the forehead say more about the fleetingness of mortal life, or the eternal hope of our faith? Standing in awe of God, remembering and turning to God, telling about God, we, along with the psalmist, proclaim God’s deliverance in this season, acknowledge its bright sadness, and say with the whole great congregation that God has indeed done it.
Eternal God, we both bow down in humility and stand up in awe of Your glory in this heart-breaking and heart-filling season. Count us among those who seek You, praise You, serve You, and live for You by the grace and mercy of Jesus, in whose holy name we pray. Amen.
Kate Miller
God in Everyday Life
According to no less authority than Wikipedia, Christ’s Transfiguration is counted among the five most significant milestones in His life after birth: the other four are Baptism, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension. Yet, along with His baptism, its significance seems less intuitively understandable than the other three. I can understand Christ’s suffering an especially painful execution for what He and His ministry meant as a challenge to worldly values and power structures, and His resurrection and return to Heaven were necessary to fulfillment of His role as God’s Son. The importance of His baptism has been questioned—He was sinless, after all—but it set an example of what follows from repentance, redemption, and obedience to God’s will. Also, it set an example which Christians have followed ever since and which has become perhaps the most prominent among what we could call Christians’ shared experience, including Christ’s.
We can all identify with those four events as central to our faith, but the necessity of transfiguration is less clear. It occurred in the midst of Christ’s ministry and seems like a kind of “authentication” of that ministry by God for this is the point where God closes a rare direct utterance with: “Listen to Him!”
Among others, White notes that Matthew and Mark describe the Transfiguration with the Koine Greek root for the word “metamorphosis” which suggests a change in Christ that is described dramatically but only briefly. Perhaps authentication is enough of a rationale, though one wonders if Jesus would have been “unqualified” without it since God had already confirmed Christ as his Son at His baptism, and Jesus was well along in His ministry. Perhaps the Transfiguration was critical for the final embodiment of Christ’s ultimate authority to highlight the world-changing tragedy of His impending crucifixion—an interpretation that helps explain why we celebrate Transfiguration Sunday immediately before Lent.
Scripture is full of examples of events that puzzle me or that I do not understand—yet. Also, my reflections are culturally influenced by my North American Protestant background. Wikipedia notes the special importance of the Transfiguration in the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and similar churches.
I wonder if Frederick Buechner—a theologian whose understandings and explanations I tend to respect—might share some of my curiosity about the Transfiguration. In his Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith (Harper Collins, 2004), he includes it as one of his 366 “beyond-words” that “point to the realm of mystery and depth that lies beyond our ordinary experience and thus could be called beyond-words.” (p. viii) Two of his three paragraphs on the subject summarize today’s scripture from Mark 9, but his last paragraph claims that we also experience “something like [the three disciples’ awe]…once in a while” in the face of someone we might see on any day: “Every once and so often, something so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it’s almost beyond bearing.” (p. 393) It is so rare, but I can relate to that; and I shall understand better if and when it happens next.
Buechner also discusses the beyond-word “revelation”—the concept, not the book in the Bible—and the difference between “found out” knowledge from reasoning and “occurred to you” knowledge which is given, not earned through reasoning: “Revelation means knowledge as grace…Classic Christianity…is not primarily reasonable. [It] was born when it occurred to some…that [Christ’s] kind of life was the only kind of life worth living…a revealed religion.” (pp. 344-5; emphasis his) Let us acknowledge the limits of our reasoning and this gift of grace.
It is noteworthy that the disciples’ reaction as they witnessed the Transfiguration was “awe”. Awe occurs infrequently in the Bible only under very special conditions, and arguably the Transfiguration defines the kind of rare circumstances that warrant awe. The close connection of awe to scripture has been recognized: “The current sense of "dread mixed with admiration or veneration" is due to biblical use with reference to the Supreme Being.” (https://www.etymonline.com/word/awe ) Following no less a faith leader than U2’s Bono (PBS interview, 1 November 2022), I am disappointed that awe seems clichéd in current usage. So little of what is described every day—at least in the US—as “awesome” seems to qualify for that. On the other hand, perhaps its popularity is a veiled and haphazard but massive acknowledgement of God in everyday life.
Our parent in Heaven, thank you for the gift of your Son whose model of life we hope is our model of life and whose teachings are an anchor for our faith. Be with us and guide us as we seek to understand the scriptural foundations of our faith and grant us peace but persistence as we continue. Thank you for those who seek with us and who share what they find, and thank you for those glimpses of your presence when we spot transfiguration in others. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.
Denton Marks
The Greater Picture
Before I reflect on this bible verse, we have to imagine this scene. Although the exact setting is uncertain, we know that Jesus was with his disciples and foreshadows what will happen to him. In short, he tells them that he will be killed and rise again.
Imagine how the disciples are feeling at this time. After years of being their mentor and shaping them, being some that they can always rely on, the Messiah tells them that he is going to die. Even though the details of what he said are unclear, it is shown that He doesn’t say He wants to die, He doesn’t say how, and He doesn’t say why. And what exactly is meant by ‘rise again’? I’m sure it would be hard for you to imagine someone so close to you telling you that they are going to die with no further explanation.
We can infer that this feeling of disbelief is what causes Peter to ‘rebuke’ Jesus. Or we could just imagine that Peter feels the world would be a worse place without him. It is true, Jesus had changed the lives of many through His preaching and healing throughout Israel. He had healed the blind, deaf, sick, fed 5000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish, and raised a saint from the dead. He was the Son of God! Why would He need to die now?
But here is what Jesus is saying: these endless questions and concerns that Peter has are ‘human things’; they are things that are of no value in the Kingdom of Heaven. In these next few days, Jesus was about to complete the mission that He was sent on. He would defy death and prove to everyone for the final time that He was the Messiah. He would start a movement that would change the world to this day, making his name known to everyone, and bringing glory to God.
Dear God, please allow us to see the greater picture of work that you are doing in our lives as we fail to notice. What may seem to be vain and misfortunate is sometimes your work disguise. Amen.
Kirsten Bowles
Abraham’s Gift to Us
I was looking in my computer files for these Lenten Devotionals and saw that I have been undertaking this privilege for many years. This passage, however, is one of the most challenging, yet encouraging passages that I have ever pondered. The simple message is that our faith in God through Jesus Christ is a wonderful gift, not something we need to do anything to receive.
Let’s unpack that gift. The promise to Abraham and followers is not through the law, that is rules and regulations for living, but through what the writer names as “the righteousness of faith”. It doesn’t mean that there are no rules for living, because “where there is no law, neither is there transgression.” I think he’s saying that we need both law/rules for behaviour AND faith. This makes sense to me. As an on-call classroom teacher, it is clearly evident when the classroom has clear expectations and rules, but it is also clear when students are trusted and cared for – treated with faith in good behaviour, and the rules are then adhered to by the students with a greater sense of joy.
The key phrase in the whole passage is “The righteousness of faith”, the concept of which was confusing to me, despite a life-long connection to the faith community, so I checked out some references. Looking up the word “righteousness”, I found the following definitions,
Oxford dictionary: “The quality of being morally right or justifiable.”
Merriam-Webster: “Acting in accord with divine or moral law: free from guilt or sin”
Cambridge: “Morally correct behaviour, or a feeling that you are behaving in a morally correct way.”
Wikipedia: “Righteousness or Rectitude is the quality or state of being morally correct and justifiable.”
OK, but this was not elucidating this concept for the passage fully for me, so I explored a little more and found a summary, by Kevin Watson from Candler School of Theology at Emory University, of a sermon by John Wesley, one of the founders of the Methodist tradition, which is one of the founding denominations of the United Church of Canada. It was a comprehensive summary, but the lines that caught my attention were,
6. The righteousness of faith is the new covenant which God has established with sinful people through Christ.
7. By righteousness of faith is meant the condition of justification which was given by God to fallen people through the merits and mediation of his only begotten Son.
8. The covenant does not say to sinful people, perform unsinning obedience and live.
9. The covenant says: Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
Moving on, the passage says, “For this reason the promise depends on faith, in order that it may rest on grace, so that it may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham.” This section makes me wonder how we can have had the Holocaust and the terrible anti-Semitic actions we hear about on the news these days - slaughtering those who share our inheritance. Next, the writer carries on with the ideas of “Hoping against hope”. We all ‘hope against hope’ when things are tough in our lives, such as when we get the frightening health diagnosis, the natural or human-caused natural disaster, the accident, etc. Yet Abraham believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” even when he was childless and had an aging body “which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), and the barrenness of (his wife) Sarah’s womb.” Like Abraham, we are being asked to bring our weaknesses, not just our strengths, to our faith journey.
What is the final message? I believe that the writer is encouraging us to use the example of Abraham’s astounding faith to receive the wonderful grace that is given to us in Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God through Jesus!
Help us, O God, to have the solid faith of Abraham as we receive the grace you share with us through the life and sacrifice of Jesus, our Saviour. Amen
Barbara Fraser Tilley
In this beautiful Psalm we find the confluence of three metaphors or images that capture that heart of the faithful life: Learning, Walking, Remembering.
Learning
This Psalm reminds us that faith is learned. Unlike the philosopher Plato who said that knowing is a matter of remembering what we have always known but have forgotten, as Christians we must learn a new way of life.
Jesus called his followers disciples – mathētai, “learners” -- from which our English word “mathematics” is derived. (This always makes me think of the line from the old hymn, “Lowly and humble, a learner of Thee.”)
Even though we are created in the image of God, living according to that image is not something we know how to do instinctively or naturally. It needs to be learned. And learning almost always involves “unlearning” – learning to break those habits and relinquish patterns that alienate us from God, others and our truest selves.
Walking
Biblical faith is not a theory we formulate or a vision we acquire, but a road we travel. And learning, discipleship, has the sense of being shown the way. The great Hasidic theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel said that the best English translation of the Hebrew word “Torah” (usually rendered “law” or “instruction”) is “Way.” “Stand at the crossroads and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it,” the prophet Jeremiah said (Jer 6:16) Jesus called his disciples, not to contemplate, but to follow. The Book of Acts calls the Christian life “The Way.”
So, our Psalm invites us to walk the “paths of the Lord” which “are steadfast love and faithfulness.” (Psalm 25:10)
Remembering
Without memory we could not learn. We lose our way when we forget where we have come from or where we are meant to be going.
Psalm 25 is an acrostic poem. Each of its twenty-two verses begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This is a memory device. It is a Psalm that is meant to be memorized, to be taken in and carried with us.
The memory of who God is, how God has commanded us to live, and how we have failed to do so, are vital components of our faith. Even more important is the memory that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. This is also a prayer to God, not only that we may remember, but that we may be remembered. “Do not remember the sins of my youth [but] according to your steadfast love remember me.” (Psalm 25:7)
Paul Miller
That Kind of Trust
This passage always puts me in mind of my father-in-law, Ridley Miller. He was an only child, and still single into his thirties, not a great prospect for being an “Abraham”, father of many. But God blessed Ridley and Jean with four children, seventeen grandchildren, and now, ten great grandchildren, including one named “Abram”.
The God who is revealed in scripture makes a bit of a specialization of this, lifting up those without great prospects to move forward the salvation plan. To bring all of the world back into right relation, to undo the terrible effects of the fall from paradise, the unlikeliest people and peoples are chosen for covenant bond and the tasks of the kingdom. Moses was plucked from obscurity to lead Israel from slavery to the promised land. A peasant girl, Mary, risked everything to bear the saviour of the world into the world. Saul, committed persecutor of Christians becomes Paul, the proclaimer of the hope in Christ to those not yet in the covenant.
God gives Abram (‘exalted father’) a promise: he will be Abraham (‘father of many’). This is the everlasting covenant now extended to us. The covenant is our primary metaphor for understanding our life in God: “I will be your God, and you will be my people”. The covenant brings us hope, it defines our identity and tells us who we really are, it creates a place of true belonging and provides us with our vocation, our calling.
You are called into the covenant through the waters of baptism, into secure hope, sustaining community and life abundant. For Abram and Sarai, the new life was marked by a new name. As a child of the covenant, what is the name you are given? A Puritan custom was to give children names to live up to: Fortitude, Patience, Endeavor, Honor, Joy, Hope, Prudence, Increase.
This Lent, spend a moment thinking on a name God might be calling you to live up to: Grace? Perseverance? Surely Abram must have been granted these in great measure to trust in God’s salvation plan when he was almost a hundred and his wife not much younger. Yet trust they did in God’s promise of fruitfulness and legacy, a promise secured by the covenant.
Can you live in that kind of trust?
Lord, help us to live with that kind of trust. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Diane Walker
All Are Called
I am struck by how different an approach Mark takes to “presenting” Jesus compared to Matthew and Luke. It’s only been a couple months since we revisited Christ’s birth at Advent and Christmas. In Matthew and Luke we have a cinematic origin story. Jesus was divine from birth (immaculate conception, a star, herald angels), but the reader must wait for Jesus’ adulthood for the teachings and the miracles that fulfill the prophesy. In contrast, the first chapter of Mark reads like a job application proving Jesus’ credentials: letters of recommendation from Isaiah, from John the Baptist, and even from God; successful completion of 40 days in the wilderness, including resisting all its satanic temptations. These fourteen concise verses in Mark confirm that Jesus is qualified, indeed God-sent, and from there Jesus begins his ministry in Galilee.
But maybe these two different approaches reflect the fact there are many different ways people come to know Jesus. Jesus’ calls on us to “believe in the good news”, but does not say there is only one way to come to believe. The quick, the slow, the open or the skeptical, are all called.
Help us rejoice in the Word that is heard and heard again by many different ears. Amen.
Michael Moll
God has Other Plans
Remarkable: God makes a covenant not only with a particular nation, or with humans, but with “all flesh that is on the earth.”
I know that detractors of the Christian faith claim that “God” is only used by Christians to claim special status, “God is on our side”, and, in truth, there is much they can point to in our history to support their complaint. The temptation to claim God as our ally and cheerleader is powerful; always has been.
But here, as the story of Noah and the Ark draws to a close, we are reminded that God’s covenant relationship is not only with us, not only with our allies, not even only with all humankind, but with “all flesh.” Noah might be the one who hears that good news and passes it on, but God’s promise is for all, including all those mammals and reptiles and birds and all other manner of beasts that emerged from the ark, and all the fish and sea creatures and water life that swam under it. God’s covenant is with all of God’s creation.
As a sign of that covenant God hangs up that weapon of war, the bow, up in the sky so all can see it just hanging there and remember. God is not holding the bow; that formidable weapon is retired. God’s enmity with the sin of the world will no longer result in warfare; no longer will it be destruction. The retired bow in the sky means God will not act with violence and destruction. If it happened in the mythical past, it will never never happen again.
In fact, Christians know that instead of the bow God acted through the cross. Instead of destruction God chose self-giving. Instead of killing God chose to be killed. Instead of exterminating all flesh God chose to become flesh and give life to all flesh.
The bow in the sky is the assurance that even when life seems poised for destruction, when it feels like the flood gates have been opened and we will surely drown, God has other plans. The cross reminds us that even in those dark days when death seems so obvious and assured, the God of covenant and promise actually joins us… and when God joins us, the surprise of resurrected new life just might be around the corner.
God of life: your rain-bow is a brilliant sign that not only will you never destroy the earth but you have entered into a saving promise and covenant with all that lives. In Jesus Christ you have joined us as one of us, flesh of our flesh. You would rather die on a cross than see your beloved creation destroyed. Enlarge our imaginations, hearts and minds to embrace your promise so we might live rainbow-hued lives of hope and resurrection. We pray in the name of the incarnate One, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Doug Goodwin
A Daily Gift
Many things come to my mind when I read this passage from Peter. During many years I had the opportunity and grace to be part of a team in the Diocese of Lund in the Church of Sweden. Our task was to help the parishes to focus on baptism and to find ways (old and new) to speak of baptism among the parishioners. One goal was to “increase what the consciousness of our baptism means to our faith”. We found that we often tend to think of baptism as something that happened to us once (often when we were babies) and that we seldom think of being baptized as a daily gift.
Here Peter points out to us this daily gift and that our baptism is inseparable from Christ’s suffering and death and his resurrection. Peter also reminds us of the ark built by Noah that was saved through water. This is a prefiguration of our baptism! Baptism saves us from eternal death. We are through baptism, concrete or figuratively, drowned with Christ into his death. And in the same way we are lifted out of the water and incorporated in his resurrection. Every day we live in this pattern: from darkness to light, from death to life, from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. This is what Martin Luther had in mind when he, in times of doubt and trouble, repeated to himself: I am baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
As a prayer I would like to share a verse from a hymn written by the Swedish bishop Jonas Jonson (my translation, and without Jonson’s rhymes):
If your faith withers, worn down by doubt and fall from grace, words failing and your prayer is getting cold. Then your heart will remind you that you were baptized into his death, to a life abounding.
Karin Sundmark
from Sweden
Amazing Grace
I remember when I first truly encountered Psalm 51. Rabbi Martin Cohen was team teaching with me in VST’s summer school. The course was called “Reading in Each Other’s Light.” Each day in class we read scripture over one another’s shoulder. On Tuesday we each chose a Psalm central to our tradition. I selected Psalm 22 - “My God, why have you forsaken me”. Martin chose Psalm 51. Here, he taught us, lies the heart of the Hebrew scripture. Here is the Psalm read by all Jews on the holiest day of the year - Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement.
I wondered why I had rarely encountered Psalm 51. Then I noticed that following the lectionary means one hardly ever reads this central Psalm in worship. It is, however, always read on Ash Wednesday. Alas, this had not been a day regularly kept in my United Church upbringing. It turns out that the 51st Psalm holds a special place in Christian tradition as one of the seven penitential psalms. It is also the source of the haunting setting of "Miserere Mei" by Allegri that was memorized and transcribed by a teen-age Mozart in the Sistine Chapel.
Since that day with Martin I have grown to cherish this Psalm of aching repentance. It is set on David’s lips in the midst of his debilitating guilt (2 Samuel 11-12). It reminds me of the Prodigal Son burdened by shame as he returns home. This is the song in the Bible’s hymn book intended for those weighed down by wrongdoings. This is the Psalm for us to sing and to pray in light of the stories unearthed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Psalm 51 is a crucial prayer for those who find themselves struggling to break free of all manner of addiction and the damage it has led them to inflict on themselves and others.
Psalm 51 begins by naming the truth about God who is full of “steadfast love” and “abundant mercy”. Then it acknowledges that to wrong another person is to break faith with God. Sin not only breaks human relationships, it breaks relationship with God. Confessing this brokenness is crucial. Now the penitent wait before God, praying for a “clean heart”, a new beginning that can only created by the God of amazing grace. This is the starting place of Lent, the place where we are ready to meet Jesus - the One who calls us into a new life on the other side of forgiveness.
Prayer: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love ... Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.”
Ed Searcy
Public or Private
Here we have Jesus Christ, the marketing manager. Not.
For most modern Christian churches, the idea that we wouldn’t discuss money, that donations are secret, that prayer should happen behind closed doors, these are not the way of the current church. Praying on street corners? Maybe not. But not hiding away either. Clearly things had got out of hand.
And more: there are some churches around Vancouver where folks check in with the stewards table before coming in to worship. Attendance and offerings are ticked off the master list. I haven’t experienced what happens when showing up become irregular or the money doesn’t meet the target. Let your imagination wander in the direction of a visit by the minister and a couple of stewards, asking pointed questions and wondering out loud if there are problems in the household.
Obviously, Jesus had seen enough nonsense that he felt compelled to speak. Piety in public. Not having. And no trumpets, figurative or otherwise.
The obvious message here is “Stop showing off!”, which seemed to have become the standard for religious behaviour, at least in front of Jesus. But we are all post-Victorians, so we know better.
The thing is, prayer, donating, fasting, not accumulating stuff, these are properly between each of us and God. Whether our neighbours are impressed is not part of the deal. What we say to God in prayer is ours alone. And how God answers us is also ours. It’s important to be in community – see the second chapter of Acts – but the direct link to God? That’s the real business of worship and prayer and giving.
Lord, lift up our spirits and hear our voice. Know that it is from within ourselves that we praise you. Amen
John Culter
Unfathomable Love
What great, unfathomable love this is! Do we catch that when we read this piece of Paul’s appeal to the church in Corinth? It’s well worth re-reading the text with that in mind:
First, the great, unfathomable love of God with us and for us: For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. In Jesus, God has accomplished what we could not: reconciling us to God so that we can be with and for God.
Second, the great love of Paul, grounded in the love of God, who will not stop at anything— including enduring hardships, embracing the fruits of the Spirit, and embodying the paradoxes of faith—to proclaim God’s good news in Christ Jesus. Reconciliation with God is available to grab ahold of and live from now: See now is the acceptable time; see now is the day of salvation!
In fact, Paul has laid out for us a step-by-step guide to faithful discipleship for the church:
1) Ground ourselves, each and every day, in the great, unfathomable love of God and what that love has, astoundingly, accomplished. God has done it! (a good, daily mantra)
2) Share this good news with others, no matter the cost.
3) Faithfully live together in the ways, small and large, that commend this good news to others, trying and trying again not to place any obstacles in their way to taking up and living God’s good news.
For the love of God and what God is up to for the sake of the beloved world, shall we use this Lenten season to (re-)commit to this discipleship guide? Besides challenges and much needed transformation, there is the promise of rest, peace, shared joy, healing along this Way—of finding life that is truly life.
The Way forward to You has been cleared by You. Help us to grab ahold of this Way, to live from it, and to share the good news of it with others. Amen
~ Janice Love
We Know Our Iniquities
This seems to be a good reading for Christian Saturday, a period of reflection and waiting. I would think that Saturday would also accommodate hope, but Isaiah doesn’t seem to offer much hope in this passage. Here, God is invisible and inactive and the reason for this appears to be the transgressions and sins of His people. This seems to me to be the state of the world today. We have drifted away from relationship with God and in return, God has become hidden from us. God is so absent, that many cry out that God must not exist. Isaiah makes the nature of our sins clear to us, and there are indeed many to recognize. The outcome of our sin is God’s inaction. We wait for justice and light, but neither is close at hand. All in all, this is a depressing story.
Lent is a period during which Christians reflect on our transgressions and ask for forgiveness, looking forward to the hope of Easter. For me, today’s reading emphasizes the many ways in which we sin and the damage that we inflict on our relationship with God. As a consequence, peace and justice elude us and we exist only in darkness and gloom. It would seem that it is up to us to make amends to God, and to each other. I guess that we could begin with the words of the New Creed whereby we promise to “celebrate God’s presence, to live with respect in Creation, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil”. Because “God is with us. We are not alone.”
Thanks be to God.
In Your mercy, help us to feel Your presence in our lives and in the world. As we wait, let us wait in hope for the blossoming of peace, justice, and light. And may we see that hope in the promise of the resurrected Christ. Amen.
Ash Wednesday, 2024
The prophet Joel kicks off our Lenten journey with a bang. Trumpets blaring, alarms sounding: God is on the move! God is determined to show up here and now, get ready! Because this is not a holy social call, not a bit of divinity to brighten our days. This is the One who comes in holiness that shakes mountains and melts even the most fearless hearts. This is the One who comes as both saviour and judge, and there is much to judge.
In this passage, God’s people have chosen just about any other way than God’s. They have not loved their Lord with everything they’ve got, they have not loved their neighbours—those who bear God’s own image. They have not sought justice, or loved kindness, or walked humbly. They have trampled the poor, and they have forgotten their commission as a people meant to be God’s light for all nations. They have not done what they are made to do. And the day of reckoning is upon them.
We don’t tend to like the idea of God’s judgment. We much prefer to talk about God’s love, and so we should. And yet, Scripture refuses to separate God’s love from God’s judgment. God will get the world God wants, and that will require a radical change, not only for the obviously wicked, but for all of us. And if we believe that, why do we imagine that our behaviours that are contrary to the love and justice and righteousness that God wants will go unchallenged?
It would be utterly bleak, hopeless, except that Joel is convinced that God is merciful and gracious. And what God ultimately wants is not us grovelling in fear, but to receive him with open hearts: hearts torn open for the hope, peace, joy, and love of God for this world.
May this be a season when we are willing to rend our hearts, that Your grace and mercy would pour into us, and through us to the world. Through Christ, our judge and our hope, Amen.
Aaron Miller