Category: Sunset

Sentinels On The Walls … of Our Hearts

Monday 28 November 2022

No matter the storms that press down on our hearts,

we know from Jesus’ Word that the light will come again,

just as the morning star will shine

even before the bright sun rises.

Even more, we know Jesus’ Light shines always,

even in our deepest darkest storms.

Isaiah 62:6

Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have posted sentinels; all day and all night they shall never be silent.

2 Peter 1:19

So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Words of Grace For Today

until …

until the day dawns …

until the day dawns and the morning star rises …

until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts.

…

Be attentive until …

Be attentive until … the morning star rises in our hearts.

…

Advent is already under way and

while many will rush about to parties, baking and shopping and wrapping all in preparation for …

for a Christmas celebration that for most has little to do with Christ’s birth, God come to earth, for the poor, the outcasts, the downtrodden, and more to do with our own traditions and attempts to bring blessings upon ourselves.

What will we do?

How is our being attentive until the morning star rises in our hearts a guide for our days?

What is it that we are attentive to … until …?

The prophetic Word of God! And what is that Word?

What is that Word other than the whole, holy story of Jesus, beginning in creation and continuing through this day until the end of all life and light and energy and existence in this universe?

And how are we then to do well to be attentive to this Word?

Many will hope … hope that one day God will be with them.

Even in our worship we often say: God be with you, as in May God be with you! As a wish, a desire, for that blessing.

Then yesterday the priest (https://www.zdf.de/gesellschaft/gottesdienste/katholischer-gottesdienst-474.html) changed that small word to be so much more:

God is with you!

Our attentiveness brings us each day, not down some specific path or type of thinking, words, or acts. Rather this attentiveness, itself a gift from God (not our own doing), brings us to encounter each moment of each day with open eyes and open hearts, as if our being alive brings Christ’s reflected light to each moment so that we see, hear, and encounter God in every bit of creation, every slice of time.

That morning star resides, as a gift from God, already in our hearts, yet still not completely, so we remain attentive as the days of Advent come to us,

for God is with us.

God’s Word, Our Adventure?

What’s Stopping Us?

Friday 18 November 2022

What keeps us from venturing to the far horizons of God’s Call to us?

Genesis 12:1

Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’

Hebrews 6:12

so that you may not become sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Words of Grace For Today

God tells Abram to up and go. We know the rest of the story.

How would we describe it?

An adventure.

A holiday.

A change.

A shake-up.

A challenge.

An effort for a better future.

A decision for the kids.

A mid-life crisis.

Getting free from the old man.

Getting out from underneath mom’s thumb, as kind as it may be.

The unexpected word.

A rationalization for one’s own desire to break free and move to the horizons of the unknown.

Listening to God and following God’s commands.

Heading to the moon or Mars.

A one-way ticket.

A long trek.

Finding peace.

Hoping for peace and conning everyone along the way to becoming rich.

Finding the foreign land inhabited by others and claiming it for oneself.

Colonialism gets it’s start.

Striking fear into all in your way.

Getting everything one could dream of, except a child, and heir to one’s massive fortune. And then, after trying in all sorts of destructive ways to fulfill God’s promises, seeing God deliver a child, an heir, a future.

Descendants as many as the stars, as many as the sand on the shores of the oceans.

Off-spring who will believe differently and kill each other for millennia as if that were the Word of God for them.

And again: Humans fail miserably. God wins by Grace.

And then …

Hebrews and so many others still write, think, pray, speak, and act as if we humans could earn God’s Grace, or as in chapter 6 (see below for verses 1-12), we could possibly ‘hold on to God’s Grace’ by our own thoughts, words, and deeds.

But there you go … humans trying to go it alone, even when we have known God’s Grace to save us, as if that were a one time event, instead of a constant on-going never-ending work on God’s part for us.

So today:

Let us listen and follow God’s Word,

and pray

that the Holy Spirit will make us able to do so

… and then remember to give God humble thanks.

Finding Peace?

Thursday 17 November 2022

Another Day Ends,

With The Sun Leaving It’s Last Light

In The Western Clouds,

As Fog Settles Over The Ice.

Is This Peace?

Psalms 116:7

Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

2 Thessalonians 3:16

Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways. The Lord be with all of you.

Words of Grace For Today

We humans seek many things in life. Our striving and competing creates no end of conflict and anguish for us and many others caught in our wake. We may think we, ourselves, do not create this conflict, especially if we’ve been privileged by birth or happenstance, yet it is part and parcel of each person. While we may deny the evidence of our own creation of chaos most of us live in the wake of others who create great conflict, violence, chaos, destruction, and suffering, some of it on our behalf and for us, some of it against us and for the benefit of others at our loss.

In the conflict and chaos we often seek peace, with others, with creation, with our Creator, and most often with ourselves.

Real peace is not something we can achieve. It is a gift.

Rev. Roger H. Black at Bethel Lutheran Church, Madison, WI provided this illustration for Luther Seminary’s God Pause for 13 November 2022 beginning with the words of the hymn When Peace Like a River and it’s refrain“It is well with my soul”:

An art contest asked painters to depict a perfect picture of peace. All kinds of entries with images of peace were painted, including such as that of the quiet of a lake on a windless summer day. The winner was surprising. The artist painted a tumultuous waterfall cascading down a rocky precipice. Stormy grey clouds threatened to explode with lightning, wind, and rain.

Amid it all a spindly tree clung to the rocks at the edge of the falls. And in that tree a little bird had built [its] nest. Content and undisturbed in [its] stormy surroundings, [it] rested on [its] eggs. [He/she] manifested peace that transcends all earthly turmoil.

(Note that in 90% of bird species the male sticks around for the nest building, incubation, feeding, and care of the young.)

While we may strive for this kind of peace amid the inescapable turmoil that is our lives, we cannot achieve it.

Not any more than that bird created the peace of that nest amid the turmoil of its surroundings. Birds nest. It seems to us a sign of peace, though it is instinctual life. Somewhere in that chaotic environment the two birds were going to establish a nest. Likewise, somewhere in our chaotic worlds we try to create a home for us and ours. Whether peace permeates our lives, in and out of that home is something we can and should strive for, but it is not something we can achieve. Not really.

That said the image of the nest amid the storm and tumult is a poignant reminder of what peace really is.

That kind of peace is given to us as a free gift.

Roger continues:

By God’s mercy we have this kind of peace in the midst of turmoil. “Our sin…is nailed to Christ’s cross.” We are made right with God through “his own blood shed for us.”

[The gift given to us is that]

No matter what happens to us, we are not dismayed. [Well, we need not be dismayed.] For we know [or more truthfully we can know] that “it is well with our soul.”

The truth is even when the peace that surpasses all understanding is given to us, sometimes we ignore it and proceed as if we did not have the greatest gift ever given to us.

So we do well to pray each day:

Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

And we do well to offer to ourselves and to others a reminder of God’s blessings:

May the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways. The Lord be with all of you.

What To Do With That?

Monday, October 24, 2022

The Root of It All …Is God’s Faithfulness To Us.

Nehemiah 9:33

You have been just in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly.

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Words of Grace For Today

The simply terrible reality of our lives is that we always have acted wickedly, even if we do not admit it, especially when we do not admit it.

Some of us do things that we all recognize as wicked, like murder (sometimes quick, sometimes slow over years of culture-denial & assimilation, neglect, false accusations, exile, displacement, lack of health care, destructive ‘health care’, abuse, and the list goes on), or theft, or giving false witness, or adultery, or attacks on our bodies with drugs and alcohol, or disregard for the environment (which is most of us alive in the ‘developed’ countries), or lying, or -well we all seem to know what makes us the really obviously wicked things that humans all too commonly do.

It’s the myriad of other things that we do that are wicked, that we think go unnoticed by others and God, which are for our benefit, supposedly, at a cost to others’ lives. These are most wicked, and almost every human that has lived or ever will live does these wicked things. They are the ones the really ‘get’ use in shtako, with ourselves, others, creation and with God.

The simply reality of our lives is also that God deals with us faithfully, and even spectacularly gracious.

God forgives us.

Not that we deserve it, or sometimes even know that we need it.

It is that we get a clean slate to begin again, each day, each hour, each minute.

Now what will we do with that?!

God means for us to be faithful and to give that same kind of undeserved grace to others so that they may live abundantly.

Now what will we do with that?!!

If Only … ?

Sunday, October 23, 2022

All Greatness

In, Around, and From Us,

Is Always a Mere Reflection of God’s Greatness,

As Water Reflects Sunlight

to Be Gloriously

Gold and Precious.

Psalms 50:16-17

But to the wicked God says: ‘What right have you to recite my statutes, or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you.’

James 1:25

But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.

Words of Grace For Today

If only it were so simple that we could be lookers into the perfect law, the law of liberty, who persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act!

Oh, life would be so simple. And damnedable for us all.

So James and a host of other biblical writers and writers since, reminding us that humans are so fallible, even and especially when it comes to describing God’s attitude towards humans.

We just want it to be that we are in control and we can choose and those who do not so choose as we have are damned and we are blessed forever. That’s a simple if demanding perspective on God’s attitude towards us, and it’s a simple way to deny the reality of one’s own ongoing sins, and a handy way to make demands of others, trying to control them, since we cannot control ourselves in the least, as it seems.

God certainly does hate our sins.

Thank God that is not the end of God’s story with us. God’s story actually begins with our sins and ends with God blessing us with such an abundance we cannot imagine it, and in between God forgives, renews, and sends us out to provide that same Grace to others, which brings hope to an otherwise seemingly lost world.

Once we confess the reality of our sins and God’s Grace that sustains us, then we certainly can and should do our best to look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act.

But God blesses us long before we even make that attempt. Our reward is already given to us undeserved. Our actions may bring God’s blessings to others, though.

And that’s worth the effort each day.

The Cloud

Saturday, October 22, 2022

The Great Cloud of Saints,

Coloured by Their Blood,

Surrounding Us

with

Indefatigable Hope.

Second Chronicles 20:12

O our God, will you not execute judgement upon them? For we are powerless against this great multitude that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

Hebrews 12:1-2

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Words of Grace For Today

It is one thing to be overwhelmed by a mass of people coming against you. It is another thing to have the state, in the form of the Police and the Courts, come against you.

What can one do against such odds: the whole power of the state fuelled by lies created at every level, against one who speaks the truth, which no one wants to hear?

There are enough words from prophets and disciples who lived and died under the same circumstances.

It is in that great cloud of witnesses to the truth that one can take refuge, for these are God-made, and God-sent saints, who have ‘fought the good fight’ and run the race set before them, the race of putting God’s Grace, Love, and Hope before all else, giving witness to God’s great powers, powers so much greater than all the powers of all the states ever to have stood for a time on earth.

Come what may, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, we can lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and live each day to it’s fullest, celebrating God’s great goodness for us and those who come up against us.

Another day on planet earth when millions will unnecessarily die, and millions will be born into a hope that does not disappoint.

Bribes of Glory?

Sunday, October 16, 2022

Which Path Will We Choose

Deuteronomy 16:19

You must not distort justice; you must not show partiality; and you must not accept bribes, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.

John 5:44

How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God?

Words of Grace For Today

There is no end to wise sayings on how to live, many formulated as commands that in the not keeping will cost us our … our what? Our lives? Sometimes that is the threat. Our faith? That is sometimes the threat.

The truth is most of the time not following the wisdom will not cost us our lives, our faith or anything less than our ability to participate in creation as God created us to.

So if we give or take bribes, we subvert honest, just processes … and by that someone else always loses out. So we are actually paying not for preferential handling for us, but deferential handling for someone else!

And if we seek glory from other than our own Creator and God, what then? We distort our lives in God’s good creation and given witness to that being possible and accepted to all who see and know what we do.

Saints are equipped to give witness to the goodness of God and God’s creation. So glory sought elsewhere undermines our life’s work.

What are we equipped to do this day?

Volumes of goodness, so today is another opportunity to live as God intends and equips us to live: abundantly, filled with gratitude.

Whaddaya See?

Friday, October 14, 2022

Evening Firestorm?

Or

Earth

Moving At Warp

Through Space-Time-Light

Pushing Fiery Light

Into It’s Wake?

Isaiah 37:16

O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, you are God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.

Ephesians 3:14-16

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit.

Words of Grace For Today

At 3:00 I was up.

It was dark.

I walked outside for air.

And

Looked

Up.

Aurora Borealis painted the sky,

Dancing as it does,

From the western horizon, across the lake and trees –

over the meadow in a circle,

pointing to this blessed place,

and back down and around out to the East

and to the North

in wisps, feathery light

and unseen by most people

safely asleep through the northern night.

Then jets roared overhead

from the east

bound to the northwest.

A sortie to defend Canada’s north from predators,

of the human being kind.

This on spaceship earth, caught last evening, probing it’s way through the sunlight

into the dark.

Where are you headed today? Have you your eyes open to see the creation and it’s Creator, at work, at play, suffering, and in joy?

From Where Do We Come?

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Even the Plants on This Planet Breathe,

as a Gift From God.

Isaiah 59:19

So those in the west shall fear the name of the Lord, and those in the east, his glory; for he will come like a pent-up stream that the wind of the Lord drives on.

Luke 13:29-30

Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.

Words of Grace For Today

In this generation there are many people who do not believe in God, as in every generation. The span the globe from east to west, north to south, and live in every corner, circumstance, and comfort/desperation.

This is a wonderful vision that one day all people will come from the East and the West and fear God and God’s glory, that people will come from the north and the south to feast in God’s Kingdom. It just is not how it is today, or that there is any evidence that it will come about any day soon.

How just it will be that some of those who are last will be first, and those who are first will be last. It is better that it be all the first will be last and all the last will be first, but we will go with Luke’s version. That’s something of an improvement over the injustice that leaves so many people struggling to survive each day, many succumbing and more wishing they could be done with the struggle, one way or another.

Many who do not believe in God are completely ignorant or apathetic to the reality that God believes in them, in the possibility that they will turn from their arrogant evil ways and not only believe in, but fear and love God. And fearing and loving God will turn to serve others, working to give them life abundant. For now they fight against that possibility totally unaware that if God did not believe in them they would cease to breathe.

As we breathe, as we are together with saints from the south, north, west, and east, as we are joined by the saints in light who no longer need to breathe, we give God thanks …

Thanks for everything that keeps us living and able to see God’s glory each day, poured out on us all and over creation.

Thanks Giving

Monday, October 10, 2022

As We Stand

Wonderfully Coloured

In God’s Glorious Light,

We Always Cast a Shadow of Sin

Behind Us.

Leviticus 22:31

Thus you shall keep my commandments and observe them: I am the Lord.

Philippians 2:14-16

Do all things without murmuring and arguing, so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world. It is by your holding fast to the word of life that I can boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labour in vain.

Words of Grace For Today

Leviticus lays out rules upon rules before coming to this passage: Thus you shall keep my commandments … Just prior to this conclusion the offering of young animals is laid out in clear detail.

Now if these few rules were all it took to keep the Lord’s commandments, then we’d have a hope of being able to keep and observe them. They are, instead, voluminous even in scripture and interpretations fill seemingly endless volumes, often with contradictory rules and admonishments, so that keeping them is impossible.

Jesus pared the commandments down to Love the Lord your God, with all you heart, mind, and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself, even your enemy. And with that concise formulation it seems possible at first glance, but …

But only by denial of one’s own reality, one’s wishes, desires, yearnings, and actions taken to make it through life – only by denial of one’s own reality is it possible to think that one can keep this one commandment.

The simple truth is we fail at keeping the commandments, every last one of us. That does not mean that we ought to go about our days intentionally murmuring and arguing, or that we should remain oblivious to how our actions hurt others. We need make great efforts to help others.

We need not do all this in hope of satisfying God’s commandments. Rather we can only do this with hearts filled with gratitude in response to all God has done for us.

Obligation does not produce goodness from and in us.

Gratitude does.

Obligation seeks approval for what is already not good enough.

Gratitude seeks nothing except that other people will benefit from one’s words and actions.

We are not going to get out of life free from blemish. Trying to do so is futile and drags us down into the pit of despair, out from which we do not emerge on our own, though we all too often create a false narrative for our lives that tries to convince ourselves we are not stuck in the pit of our own sin, of our own making.

Rather gratitude accepts that we are all blemished, ourselves as much or more than others. Gratitude accepts that God alone transforms us, while we remain wretched, dreadful sinners, into saints who bring life abundant to others.

Thus, as we enjoy meals, and family, and time to relax, reflect, and give thanks (well some of us anyway, for many have none of that even this day), we remember that:

  • The value of life and of ourselves is a gift from God.
  • The joy of life is knowing to whom we owe thanks, and being able to give it.

So today we Give Thanks, as grateful people, as sinners-made-saints.