I am yours; save me, for I have sought your precepts.
John 15:7
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
Words of Grace For Today
Ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you!
At first glance it looks like we get carte blanch requests; our every wish will be fulfilled!
That result flows from an equation that starts from life only as we might presume to know it, that everything about us is chosen and determined by ourselves or others working against us. In this setting God (supposedly) promises that our every wish can bring us fulfillment and life abundant.
That is not the start of the equation for God’s promise that all our wishes will be fulfilled.
The promise flows from blessed life as God created us to be alive: the ‘equation starts’ with a life of seeking to understand God’s Word, God’s precepts.
The ‘equation starts’ start with us abiding in Jesus, God’s Word of life.
That of course sounds like we need to earn our way into God’s favour and blessings.
Yet, we know very well that we cannot earn God’s favour and blessings, God promises us them first, as free gift.
Given God’s favour and blessings, we then can choose to respond with gratitude, and that is us abiding in God’s Word.
Full of gratitude, abiding in God’s Word, our wishes are not the same as when life is lived as if we or others determined everything about our lives.
Instead our wishes flow in line with God’s good will for us …
and then of course, all our wishes, being God’s wishes for us, will be done for us!
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.
John 10:10
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
Words of Grace For Today
On this the last day of Christmas for this season, the Christmas Tree comes to mind again, as many prepare to (or already have) remove(d) it from the home. The decorations, reminders perhaps of friends who have given them as gifts in years past, are packed away, the star or angel on top brought down, and the lights carefully removed and coiled up for storage. Again: what is the meaning of all this in relation to what Christmas really is about?
Again from Wikipedia:The Christmas tree is considered by some as Christianisation of pagan tradition and ritual surrounding the Winter Solstice, which included the use of evergreen boughs, and an adaptation of pagan tree worship; according to eighth-century biographer Æddi Stephanus, Saint Boniface (634–709), who was a missionary in Germany, took an axe to an oak tree dedicated to Thor and pointed out a fir tree, which he stated was a more fitting object of reverence because it pointed to heaven and it had a triangular shape, which he said was symbolic of the Trinity.
While the challenges, losses, and joys of the coming days, weeks, months and years await us, we know (if we’ve been awake and alert at all) that we will many times need to be pointed back to Christ as the source of life for us, abundant life. When we remember from whom our very breath comes, and from whom all blessings flow over us, then we can live filled with gratitude. Filled with gratitude we can amend our lives to serve Christ more: we can ensure all people receive the requirements for life, abundant life.
Whatever and however we’ve kept Christmas this year, carrying on past traditions, adapting old traditions, creating new traditions: few if any of our traditions contain in themselves the essence of Christmas. It is in knowing how our traditions express, inform and strengthen our faith that we encounter the Christ, again and again, anew.
For that we may well adopt a tradition, if not this year, then next, where we gather together and, pointing to each item and pointing out each event of our traditions, we provide a short comment on that tradition’s history passed on to us, and how we have adopted it for ourselves to reflect the Light of the World.
Therein we can also proclaim again: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives, and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord our whole lives long.
So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.
Acts 28:30-31
He lived there for two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.
Words of Grace For Today
Teaching.
Teaching with all boldness and without hindrance.
God’s Word does not spread all on its own. God can, but very seldom does, intrude in the order of things, to make faith be in us against our will, with signs so dazzling and powerful as to overpower our own thinking minds and hearts. It does happen occasionally. God seldom interferes with our freewill.
Yet when we believe, no matter how it comes to us, it is not a choice of our own. God works in many and various ways to bring each person to faith. Without God’s work there is no faith in any person. Left on our own, we would have no faith.
This faith is something else. Faith is what carries us even when we think we can carry on no more, when the weight of Evil and Sin is heavier than the darkness that holds us down, or when the power of hell blows straight in our faces, minds and hearts robing us of any possibility of hope. Faith is what keeps us alive when so many enemies would wish us dead, and so many corrupt officials, liars and unawares simpletons would make their contributions to our slipping off this fragile mortal coil, or when tradition is evil and it is used against us to take life away from our very souls.
To teach.
To teach with all boldness and without hindrance.
To teach traditions, old and renewed, that give life to all.
This is God’s work carried on through us … as the Holy Spirit empowers us to be … to be saints reflecting Christ’s Light to all people.
People will understand … as the Holy Spirit gives them the ability to understand.
People will believe … as the Holy Spirit gives them the ability to believe.
Thankfully, God’s works are wondrous and powerful … so much more powerful than all sin and evil,
The practice of putting up special decorations at Christmas has a long history. In the 15th century, it was recorded that in London it was the custom at Christmas for every house and all the parish churches to be “decked with holm, ivy, bays, and whatsoever the season of the year afforded to be green“. The heart-shaped leaves of ivy were said to symbolize the coming to earth of Jesus, while holly was seen as protection against pagans and witches, its thorns and red berries held to represent the Crown of Thorns worn by Jesus at the crucifixion and the blood he shed. …
The traditional colors of Christmas decorations are red, green, and gold. Red symbolizes the blood of Jesus, which was shed in his crucifixion, while green symbolizes eternal life, and in particular the evergreen tree, which does not lose its leaves in the winter, and gold is the first color associated with Christmas, as one of the three gifts of the Magi, symbolizing royalty.
We may celebrate Christmas in various ways. Many traditions develop with meanings either originally as they are adopted or adapted. Others happen by happenstance or juxtaposition and later acquire meaning written into them quite fittingly or sometimes rather obtusely. However, it is interesting what we know and think about our traditions.
Do we see the red of Christmas, and remember the blood of Jesus at his crucifixion as he was sacrificed in order that we can receive new life? Do we see the green of our Christmas Tree and remember the eternal life that Jesus bought with his blood? Do we see the gold of our decorations and remember the gifts of the Magi, honouring the infant Jesus?
Does the ivy, the holly, the green, the red, the gold move our hearts to encounter the mystery of God become human as an infant, who grows to be the Saviour of us all?
Sometimes simple things are just simple things. Sometimes they point us to the mystery of the universe, God breaking into our mundane lives with wonders and deeds so marvellous.
These are our traditions around Christmas that are not interrupted by our maintaining the restrictions of Covid 19.
God’s great wonders and deeds are still ours to remember in many and various ways … and to be moved and inspired by … to be all God created and redeems us to be.
I am going to bring Jerusalem recovery and healing; I will heal its people and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security.
Luke 2:15
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’
Words of Grace For Today
As Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon laid his siege ramps against the walls of Jerusalem to over run it in 589 BCE, and Jeremiah had already prophesied that Jerusalem and Judah would fall to their enemies, King Zedekiah came to him and asked him why he prophesied their demise.
We all know that such proclamations in time of war are dangerous. They can be self-fulfilling by undermining the morale of the people. Jeremiah prophesied as he did, because God called him to; the people had turned from God, become perverse, and it was only a matter of time before their own corruption brought enemies to their walls to conquer them, weak as they had become from within. Few if any heeded Jeremiah’s warnings … and Jerusalem (in 587/6 BCE) and later Judah fell to their enemies … and then other enemies … and more enemies … so that they remained ruled by foreigners when Jesus was born (despite the Maccabean 167-160 BCE and other revolts seeking their independence).
Before Jesus’ birth, more than 500 years since Israel was independent, the people had many stories to remember and to be disappointed in and place their faint hopes in. One such story was of a Messiah who would be born in Bethlehem.
The Shepherds may have known this story, or not. Still, when an angel and then a chorus of angels visit them to give them the news that a saviour is born in the city, they are not fools. They up and head into the city to see the Saviour born and laid in the hay of a cow’s manger.
Why Shepherds? One might surmise that, as ones who lived very rough in the hills as they tended and guarded their sheep, they would not be put off by the poverty into which the Saviour was born.
Yesterday, the Day of Christmas, is the first of twelve days of Christmas. These twelve days give us opportunity to seek out the saviour of the universe – no longer an infant in a cow barn. On our own we will see nothing other than the mundane world, perversions of truth spread to create chaos from hysteria and fear so that evil people can rise to power, … and we will see our only own failures, fears, and dashed dreams.
Guided by the Holy Spirit though we will encounter not only the wonder of God become human, born as an infant Saviour. We will encounter the Saviour, with God’s Grace, healing all people and creation itself, redeeming and renewing them (and indeed us), so that we broken people can be the vessels that carry God’s healing Grace to all in need.
God knows, during this pandemic, there are so many people who need healing, healing from Covid 19 (acute sufferers and long-haulers) from the detrimental effects of physical distancing and isolation, but even more-so from the sickness of the soul that has eaten at the hearts of so many people – long before this pandemic started a year ago. Now the vacuum in the souls of the world is made more obvious.
Pray we encounter the Saviour anew, and that God will make us worthy saints, those who carry the Light of Life to those in need around the earth. May we be those saints who are blessed to bring the Saviour’s healing to all whom we encounter.
Twelve days, a whole hurting creation, and billions who need healing: our work is cut out for us! Thank God it’s God who works through us, healing us as we go!
Happy are the people to whom such blessings fall; happy are the people whose God is the Lord.
Luke 2:10-11
The angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord.
Words of Grace For Today
Blessed Christmas
Today is the day we celebrate Jesus’ birth, fully God, fully human.
Whether we know it or not, we are the ones whom God has made to be happy, not for any other reason other than that God has chosen us and blessed us.
Today we can be blessed to be blessings, blessings for all other people.
Let us celebrate, however possible, given the restrictions needed to help many of us survive this pandemic, without remorse or regret that things are not normal, for normal is not needed for us to celebrate God’s surprising blessings.
I am not afraid of tens of thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.
Mark 10:15
Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.
Words of Grace For Today
Close to Christmas, and enemies have not relented.
And if you do not have enemies who have not relented, then perhaps you have not lived well and righteously, or courageously.
Still we like to say others cannot enter the Kingdom of God, for they are not humble like children before God.
This we say with our pride swelling, for definitely we are God’s favoured and God’s chosen and at least we are assured of great place in God’s Kingdom …
just like the disciples who argued who would be first in Jesus’ rule!
First are those who have nothing left, who like children are fully dependent on their parents, and on God, for their survival,
which is not going to be much longer on this earth
for the powers that be are quite willing to kill off those who stand righteously before them with truth and grace,
testaments to God’s Grace and Truth.
Like children then, let us take these final days to prepare for God to come, as a helpless child in our midst, as a human, suffering all we do in this hard, short and brutish life,
which by God’s blessings alone (not our material wealth or comforts or privilege) is blessed with challenges and meaningful labour, eternal and overfilled with wonders, and filled with kindnesses unending.
The first day the sun can shine longer than yesterday
…
by a few seconds.
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Life is Filled with Wonderful
Mundane Things
Like Cold, Snow, Trees, Light
From Generation to Generation
All in God’s Hands
Psalm 102:28
The children of your servants shall live secure; their offspring shall be established in your presence.
Revelation 1:8
‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
Words of Grace For Today
Security is a fleeting illusion, unless one by grace places one’s full trust in God. The security one has then is not in having a comfortable or successful life. Then security is in God’s hands, God who is the Alpha and the Omega (the ‘A’ and ‘Z’ of all.)
When we practice placing our trust in God, which we usually skew into something else, then the ‘habit level’ of our lives moves to a different ‘place’. If we are fortunate (the self made skew not being too extreme) we start each day conscious that God is our all in all, and that all we have and are is God’s anyway, so we ‘give it’ all we’ve ‘got’ by ‘giving it our all’ so that all other people can have life abundant. Then through the day as we make choices each moment, they are at least somewhat informed by this awareness.
The truth is most ‘religious’ people skew the love of God into something that supports their own privilege or position in the world. Rich people interpret God’s blessings as evident in their wealth. Poor people see God’s blessings poured out on the poor. Powerful people interpret God’s blessing as evident in their having power, powerless see God’s blessings in the meek, the lowly, the outcasts, the pure of heart.
And we all desire to have a place in the history of humanity, by not dying and being forgotten, but by making our mark and being remembered for generations. While few can hope to be remembered, most all of us strive to pass on to the next generations some of who we are and what we value.
All this is rather foolish of us, though pretty standard. God keeps calling us to see the world anew, through the eyes of others, through the eyes of Jesus.
We cannot secure our own lives, we all die. We cannot secure our place in history, we all vanish like grass in winter under the snow.
We need not secure our own lives. God already secures us as God’s own children.
The children of God’s children shall live secure; their offspring shall be established in God’s presence.
More we cannot attain. Even this is given to us as a free gift. More we do not need.
So what are we doing this extraordinary Advent to prepare for an extraordinary Christmas?
Whatever we have done this Advent to prepare, whatever we do this Christmas, more than what God has done for us by being born as one of us, is all our own odd skewing of what Christmas is about.
So celebrate, and maybe remember, that what we do is at best a misty, foggy, reflection (in our own warped mirrors) of what God has done, does today, and will do for us, each and every one of us humans, each day.
God takes care of that mushroom cloud of sin and hypocrisy (ours and everyone else’s, too) and sets us re-newed into each moment of each day.
even on this shortest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere)
Psalm 40:17
As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God.
Ephesians 1:5
He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will.
Words of Grace For Today
I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me.
When one is homeless, driven deep into poverty by lies and corruption, as I am, one does not have a lot to lose, or to secure or protect one from thieves or harsh weather or more lies and destruction or ill health. Alberta Income Support turned me down because I am not paying rent. I have no money to pay rent, so I am homeless, living in the woods. AIS turned me down because they do not consider paying $300/month to the banks for loans a ‘basic necessity.’ That leaves me with $39/month to live on. Fortunately I have a bicycle to get to town and back (55 km) to get some food from the food bank. Thankfully I can peddle and walk that in 4 hours if the wind is with me both ways, or in at least 12 hours, so in a day. But my health is compromised, especially my digestive system that does not want to work, and age-related arthritis runs wild, so my diet has to have lots of dairy, which is barely ever available from the food bank. And I need medications that I cannot afford.
Thankfully God takes thought of me.
God has sent me people to loan me equipment including enough to build a shelter from 1x4s and insulated tarps with a rebuilt wood stove inside. God sends people occasionally to help me so that I can buy groceries and once in a while gasoline to run a generator for electricity. When things are working, and if I had $500/month, life would be pretty secure. As it is I am still alive, living on $39/month plus gifts and loans from various people.
Isolated in the woods now for 4 years, when Covid 19 arrived and surged in the second wave, I was already isolated from other people. Fortunately I’m an introvert so I thrive in solitude.
Even so each day that I am still alive is a small miracle which I celebrate.
.
There are billions of people around the world this day who do not have anywhere near to the security and capacity that I have.
God destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will.
We are therefore given, freely as Grace, our faith and a calling to be God’s Word, God’s Grace for all people. Consider praying for those many billions who do not or barely have the necessities of life. Go out in ever larger circles from where you live, find them in your own neighbourhood, and join the many people working to give them abundant life, starting with the basic necessities.
That is our calling as baptized, and adopted, children of God.
I am ordained so I can celebrate the Eucharist each day.
Whoever you are, celebrate daily that God has chosen you and equipped you to walk humbly before our God, to provide life abundant to all people, and to work for justice.
That fills our days with wonders and miracles to celebrate: Christ is born, and lives in us for others. This is what we celebrate again this Christmas, as Covid 19 forces us to refocus on the essential miracles and wonders of Christmas. Take these last few days of Advent to prepare. This year the celebration is most precious. Be awake. Be alert. Be ready!
Light one, two, three, four candles to watch for Messiah, let the light banish darkness.
You are that God-made saint of light for all people around you. Shine!
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.
Luke 10:20
Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.
Words of Grace For Today
Do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you
With this short sentence, the promise is made and then fulfilled that not only God controls all the universe, and Jesus, fully God and fully human, controls everything as well – the precreation chaos of the sea submit to his command, demons recognize him and cower and obey his word, but also the disciples can command the evil spirits to vacate bodies and minds, as they heal with the power of Jesus’ Word given to them!
Today we’d flock to meet and be healed by these disciples. There would be mass hysteria trying to reach them. Imagine how many Covid 19 victims could be healed, and the whole world could be no longer threatened by a small and easily transmitted virus!
The spirits cast out also free people’s minds and souls, as swiftly and effectively. There would be no Trump-itis narcissistic fantasy-land and bullying, no false convictions, and no mental illness – no campaigns of lies and distortions to ruin others, no false testimonies, no false police reports, no ill mothers bringing up their children to value money over all else, including honesty and integrity!
The world would celebrate without end, were this power available to all the children of God, to all the followers of Jesus! All would bow in wonder at God’s works to bring health to all creation!
And then we are told the disciples and we with them, should not rejoice at this power to heal and to save.
Rather we are to celebrate that before we were born our lives were written in God’s ‘book of life’ and our names appear among those saved by Jesus. Before we were anything of anything, any substance or even a dream in our parents’ or their parents’ or their parents’ minds, God fully knew us and all our days.
Even then, as God fully knows all our days, the wonderful times, the good times, the bad times, the great suffering, God chooses to walk with us in and through all that. Even when we walk ourselves right in to living hell, God walks with us! … And God keeps us walking right back out, carrying us if necessary!
There are many stories written, many more told, of lives lived, loves that guided, greeds that destroyed, hates that destroyed, and forgiveness that saved and renewed. Each and all of these stories, and each and all the untold stories of humans’ lives, God knows fully, long before a person is imagined and born, even my story, even yours.
God comes, fully human, born in a manger, so that we have God’s story of living as one of us. So that we will know in Jesus’ story the depth and breadth of God’s love for all the universe, and for each person, even me, even you.
Covid 19 cannot disrupt God’s love, nor ruin Jesus’ story, nor our celebration of it, each Christmas. Lock-downs, restrictions, physical distancing and even illness and death, can disrupt all the trappings we have laid on top of Jesus’ story, sometimes obliterating our ‘view’ of the power of God’s love to drive out the demons from each of us. Nothing can rob us of Jesus’ story nor of God’s Will to save us, each and every one of us humans. Long before Covid 19, God fully knew all about this pandemic, and our living through it, with God walking with us, carrying us when we falter … walking with us through it and back out of it.
Advent is the precious blue sombre time of hope, time to prepare, and Covid 19 is among many other things, driving us to ‘rediscover’ Jesus’ story so that our celebrations reflect God’s Word of Life for all people!
What will your Christmas look like this year? What will your Christmas celebration declare about you and your faith? How will God be seen walking with you? With me? With us each and every one of us?
