Sunset – Page 46

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – May 2

Saturday, May 2, 2020

Out of Darkness

Jesus saves us

so that we can contribute to the Kingdom

sacrificing ourselves that others may live abundantly.

Psalms 51:13

Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

Colossians 1:3.13

In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ … He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son

Words of Grace For Today

Rescued from the darkness

It was cold and dark. Dangerously dark, though not even winter cold, yet. Spending the night in the woods miles from anywhere was not the plan.

It was just a hike on a trail being developed, this portion already well planned, if not clearly marked. We arrived climbing up the side of the huge rock to our right, on to the second level of that rock as it overlooked a small lake below. The trail seemed to peter out across the gentle downward slope of the rock face toward the lake and further to the right around that side of the lake.

But then there was just a sheer drop of a few metres into the lake, or the effectively solid wall of trees to the right barring any progress on that side of the lake. There were no signs of a trail around the left side of the lake either and other large rocks jutted out over the lake around that side.

The danger from the dark was not that it was pitch black. It was already dusk and we had miles to go. I was experienced outdoors, but the three with me were not and two were young children. Dark, the real dark that was coming, meant stumbling lost all night, or bedding down in the wet and cold. It had just started to rain as I searched for the trail forward from that rock we ended up on.

Finally I came up with a plan. I’d walk back two miles to where the trail took a turn and was well marked. With flashlight in hand I would retrace our steps.

Huffing, tired, and being spit on from above, cold, I trudged back step by step through the miles, and then returned. Nothing. The obvious trail had no other possible turns as it joined a creek that ran into the lake we had stopped at. As the hard face of that huge rock came up to shoulder height I saw to the left the creek water through the underbrush. It was maybe, yes, it was sort of a path, and then there on the tree on the left side of the trail was a trail-marker arrow. A turn back to the left and quickly down, with a quick switchback to the right and one arrived at a bridge of two logs over the creek.

I lifted my feet as my spirits were lifted. We were not lost. I found the others on the rock overlooking the lake, huddled together for warmth under a rain poncho to keep themselves dry.

We worked our way, sometimes with flashlights down over the creek and up high on the huge rocks along the lake and back down near the wet outflow on the far side of that lake, and onward over roots, and around huge 5 foot diameter trees, through the rain forest, back to the vehicle we’d parked near northwest edge of the small town we called home.

A hot shower, prayers of thanks.

We were rescued, once again, from the darkness by the Grace of God.

It is as easy to lose ourselves in the forest of challenges presented to us, now also because of Covid 19. It is easy to miss an obvious turn because we’ve lost ourselves in the darkness of despair or exhaustion or laziness or disorientation.

Always, God sends us others, or sometimes a clear plan, to help us find our way forward, so that we are there for others as well tomorrow.

Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Apr 26

Sunday, April 26, 2020

Buried Beneath the Ice
Not Nice.

Jonah 2:3

You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me.

Mark 5:22-24

Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.

Words of Grace For Today

God rarely delivers us from our trials. Most often God delivers us in our trials.

Jonah tried to hide from God, to no avail. Neither can we hide from God. Jonah was tested severely, as we are, too. In the deep, the heart of the seas, the flood over our heads, God’s waves pass over us.

When we face our own demise we see life more clearly for what it is. When we face the demise of our children, we ought to see life more clearly for what it is. Sometimes though anxiety makes us act as if we were just plain stupid. Anxiety explains a lot of inexplicable behaviour, even during normal times.

Jairus, a leader at the synagogue, faces the death of his daughter. He comes and pleads for Jesus to have mercy and come and heal his daughter, so that she may live.

That should be an account that tears at every parent’s heart. My child is being ripped from life here with me … and what can I do? Jairus has heard of Jesus and goes to beg, to humble himself before Jesus, to beg for his daughter’s life from a man he knows can save her.

That’s faith.

That’s faith that can only be given by God!

That’s faith that brings life to those who have it and those near them.

Jairus’ faith brings Jesus to save his daughter’s life, and she does live.

Beneath the waves of Covid isolation, loneliness, shortages, fear of illness and death (our own and our loved ones’ … and even our enemies’) we gasp for breath,

We gasp … and humbly pray that God will deliver us and our loved ones, heal us all, and bring us all, even our enemies, back to live full lives, filled with gratitude and complete joy!

Still we gasp for air. Where are we caught so dark and deep, that we find little air?

Anxiety.

So we pray, free us from all fear, and make us into the people that can heal others with a word.

Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Apr 25

God’s Great Creation Teaches Us to Prosper and Know
Complete Joy

Deuteronomy 30:9

The Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all your undertakings, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your soil. For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors.

John 15:10-11

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

Words of Grace For Today

To prosper. That is what is not happening for so many people the world over. The economies of most nations is at a near standstill, as essentials only are made, distributed, for sale and purchased.

So much that the world thrived on was not necessities, but the benefits of a very advanced global economy. Yet I have not met nor heard of a person who has truly prospered, who did so without doing on the backs of many other people who could not prosper.

To prosper seems to be equivalent to being able to get away with terrible crimes and sins against other humans, all in order to get ahead.

This is not at all what God would have us do or be in this marvellous creation.

Jesus comes to show us an exactly mutually exclusive way of being in creation; self sacrifice so that others may live well. Prospering at others expense is out of the question. The only kind of prospering is when one moves forward through ones days choosing goals and actions so that others may live and live well.

This is a quite foreign concept for many caught in the ‘logic’ of global capitalism, built as it is solidly on greed and making gains at others expense, accumulating power in wealth and using it to continually succeed in getting more money from others getting less money, endlessly.

Jesus had not yet seen global capitalism, but the previous generations had certainly seen themselves either among the conquering Romans or those the Romans conquered and ruled, to the Romans’ advantage. In spite of many wishes that Jesus conquer the Roman occupiers, Jesus instead offers to us that our joy be as his joy is in doing God’s will, and that our joy be complete.

To prosper, and to have our joy complete, all coming to us as we abide in Jesus’ love, so that God’s love will abide in us.

All this is gift; God chooses and acts. We receive and benefit. We live in God’s love. God is in love with us. And we in turn are in love with all creation and all God’s creatures.

Since time immemorial, God has called faithful people to retreat from the demands of normal life, and ask why and how one lives as one does.

This is now the time for us all.

Cancel that world tour vacation. Cancel that entertainment holiday. Cancel that weekend of expensive travel, motor sports, or casual sports. (OK, we’ve been required to do so anyway.)

God calls us to take this time and ask: how does God want us to abide in God’s love and have our joy complete? How does God want us to prosper … now during Covid 19, and after isolation is not needed for everyone’s health.

This is how we prosper: we love and give sacrificially of ourselves to others, as Christ did for us … on his cross.

Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Apr 23

Thursday, April 23, 2020

Knowing All Will Be Well …

Isaiah 44:21

Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you, you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.

Hebrews 10:35

Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward.

Words of Grace For Today

Confidence!

Wikipedia defines it as: Confidence is a state of being certain either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective. Confidence comes from a latin word fidere’ which means “to trust”; therefore, having a self-confidence is having trust in one’s self.

Oh, to be able to have a confidence that is not bound by one’s own self, or about one’s self. Trust in one’s self is as fleeting as the beauty of the butterfly, the wisp of smoke rising into a clear sky, or of the moment of forgetting one’s own sins.

God provides this basis for confidence. God formed us! We are God’s servants! God will not forget us!

God. Now there is a Rock from which confidence can rise to hold us no matter what assails us!

No matter what we face, life or death, riches or poverty (and riches are so much more a threat to us than poverty every could be!), and kindness of truth or the cruelty of lies … no matter what we face God is our Rock. God made us who we are, claimed us, redeemed us, and equipped us as saints in this broken world.

This is confidence that cannot be broken. It is con– (with) fidere (trust) that prevails, even in the face of death, even death on the cross of Good Friday which is defeated in Christ rising in the early light of Easter morning.

Let us remember, and pray that God will hold us mindful of, the price paid for our holiness, the miracle that frees us from sin, and the reward that God gives us every day. We live in God’s blessings, no matter what.

We can say out of the confidence of faith along with Julian of Norwich who wrote and said (as the devastation of the Black Plague raged on the other side of her hermit-cell’s window – 30% to 60% of Europe died within 4 years):

All will be well.

All manner of things will be well!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Apr 21

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Our lives are to mirror God’s, in our thought, words, and actions.

Daniel 6:24

The king gave a command, and those who had accused Daniel were brought and thrown into the den of lions—they, their children, and their wives. Before they reached the bottom of the den the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones in pieces.

1 Corinthians 16:13

Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong.

Words of Grace For Today

The king gives a command, which decimates Daniel’s enemies who were bent on killing him. They and all their families face the death they had set Daniel to suffer.

I saw this sign in a furniture store, among the kitsch hanging about:

Karma, I have a list of people you seem to have missed.

No matter our enemies, our faith given to us inspires us to love even our enemies. Revenge or Karma’s actions, or what goes around comes around are not what we wish for those who would destroy us, even when they do their best from or through seats of the highest powers, the richest businesses, the most influential families, and not even from or through the force of armed police. We forgive, except when these actions go unrestrained, unnamed, unnoticed (except by their innocent victims). Then, ordained as a select few of us are, we must name those sins as bound, and leave them to God’s judgment. We trust that the Light of Christ will shine on their evil deeds. We treat them as those outside God’s people, with empathy and care, even when they deserve none of it.

This is no easy task.

It is also no easy task to forgive those who blatantly breach the health orders. Their foolishness puts themselves and so many of us, at terrible risk of coming down with Covid 19, which will lead to the death of those most vulnerable. The fools will likely live on to continue to threaten others again.

Still we pray: God helps us Keep alert, stand firm in our faith, be courageous, and be strong.

Help us to forgive the unforgivable.

This, too, shall pass.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Apr 20

Monday, April 20, 2020

God’s Eternal Word has Broken into This That We Know.

Genesis 18:19

For I have chosen him [Abraham], that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice; so that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what the Lord has promised him.

Romans 6:22

Now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life.

Words of Grace For Today

Wikipedia provides that ‘Sanctification is the act or process of acquiring sanctity, of being made or becoming holy.’

We believe firmly that only God can make us holy. We cannot act to become, or enter a process of becoming holy. Sanctification is a gift given at Baptism. Thereafter one chooses in each minute/choice to act out of being holy, or not; and truth is we all act out of both all the time, simultaneously.

As generations rise and pass, we may well charge the successive generations to ‘keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.’ This is Abraham acting then, but it is ever since God acting in the lives of the successive generations, one generation, one person at a time, to inspire them to act out righteousness and justice. God and any human who lives, eyes even a bit open, knows there are plenty of people with lots of power, influence and money who, in each generation (also ours), have no inkling for righteousness and true justice. It is all self interest, the rest of humanity be damned. Which really is the condemnation of themselves in eternity.

Given the gift of sanctification we are holy! We have the ability to be holy in every moment. In these choices, compromised as they may be by our still being sinners, we not only have an end in eternal life, we have the blessings of eternal life already today, every day!

As Covid 19 health concerns and orders foist so many new limits on our lives, new challenges, and new frustrations. Humour provides a view to this. My 88 year old Mother, living alone 10 miles from town provided these:

Who would have thought that when the time changed we would go from standard time to twilight zone time, where:
I need to practice social distancing from the refrigerator.
I am so excited! I am so excited. It’s time to take out the garbage. What should I wear?
This month’s biggest decision was where to go for Easter!
the living room or the bed room.

Simple Daylight Savings Time does not look that terrible anymore.

God’s holy people know God’s time is eternal and already it breaks in every day into our mundane lives, making each minute remarkable!

Take that Covid 19!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Apr 19

Sunday, April 19, 2020

Do Not Be Afraid …

Deuteronomy 32:10

He sustained him in a desert land, in a howling wilderness waste; he shielded him, cared for him, guarded him as the apple of his eye.

Luke 12:32

‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Words of Grace For Today

Isolated as we are, not completely cut off from the living, though keeping our distance, not able to see our loved ones as before, we experience the real effects of living in a desert land, in a howling wilderness waste land.

Even isolated though, we are not alone, for God is with us. God gives us the Kingdom, and in that Kingdom all live, and live well!

Fear cuts us off from our wonderful abilities to reason and place ourselves in reality, and then to choose how to respond … to choose to respond with Grace and Love.

Fear is the enemy greater than all others.

Repeatedly angels and messengers of God’s Word repeat what Jesus said often: Do Not Be Afraid!

It is too easy to let ourselves take in the new reality of being isolated because of Covid 19, of being likely to contract this highly contagious and for some painful and even deadly disease and forget all God’s blessings.

It is too easy to let ourselves despair.

It is too easy to let ourselves spiral into fear

that becomes frantic,

that becomes panic,

that becomes rash and foolish thoughts, words and actions

that put us at great risk, not only from this virus, but at great risk to lose our sanity, our God-given calm and the gifts of the Holy Spirit that equip us to be God’s Grace to others.

God treasures each of us.

So we can treasure one another.

Reach out to others as we still safely can:

especially

if you feel the walls closing in on you,

if fear grows on you,

if you feel despair circling.

Allow God to use each of us to sustain one another through this desert wasteland where fear grows too easily. Connect yourself and each other each day to the Grace that gives us breath, to the Courage that gives us life, and to God’s promises that give us hope, no matter what assails us.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Apr 17

Friday, April 17, 2020

When They Attack …

Psalms 71:3

Be to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress, to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.

2 Timothy 4:18

The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Words of Grace For Today

You, O Lord, are our rock and salvation!

Whatever enemy attacks us, a minute virus, a devilish temptation beyond our resisting, or a deceitful person bent on destroying us by whatever means, God is our refuge. God is a fortress that protects us.

We may be infected, become ill, every ill, suffer and even die.

We may not be able to resist a temptation that rebounds on us, ruining everything about our lives, leaving us with nothing, living on the street, bereft of family, friends and hope.

We may be attacked by a person we trusted with our life, who betrays us, who spreads rumours about us in the church and our community, who lies before the Courts, who stops at nothing to run us out of this life. And the church, the community, and the Courts may not only receive the lies as if truth, but create more lies of their own in order to condemn us and bring us within a thin thread of disappearing into a grave. And the accumulated gaslighting and it’s profound costs may indeed bring us to an early grave.

Still God is our refuge, our rock and salvation. God saves us for God’s own kingdom. Timothy wrote ‘heavenly’ kingdom, but the heavenly and earthly kingdom of God is not two separate things. It is all the same.

Even today, God is with us, and the Kingdom of God is at hand!

For this Kingdom, God saves us, even if our devilish enemies steal everything from us, even the breath that we use to sing God’s praise.

For even in death, God’s glory is made known in the lives of all us God-made saints still sinners.

While we still have breath, let us not waste any opportunity we have to live as ‘little Christs’ for each other, for those in need, for the strangers we meet, and especially for our enemies.

We can live courageously, for God is our rock, our refuge, and our salvation! Nothing can separate us from the love of God that gives us life in Christ.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Apr 14

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Born, we have a clean slate. Reborn it is forever cleaned.

Isaiah 51:5

I will bring near my deliverance swiftly, my salvation has gone out and my arms will rule the peoples; the coastlands wait for me, and for my arm they hope.

1 Peter 1:3

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Words of Grace For Today

At our births our mothers bring us into the world. Each year our family and friends can celebrate with us that we exist! How special it is to have balloons all about, Happy Birthday posters on the walls, candles and figures of thanks and hope ring our breakfast table setting, family singing for us, and at a party of friends we eat cake (ice cream of course!) and blow out the candles with wishes for the future. In these times birthday parties include friends only virtually, and the wishes likely include that we could once again gather with friends in person, to share life together.

Birthdays are important. They help us communicate to each other that we are precious to one another.

More important is the celebration of our second births, our baptisms into Christ’s death and resurrection. Given the gifts of the Holy Spirit we become (while yet always remaining sinners) God-made saints, the people the Light of Christ shines for all the world to see and experience.

As God-made saints we become the arm of Christ: the voice, hands, and feet of Christ that God uses to reach out to bring with real deeds the Grace of God, which saved us, and through us, can save all people.

We are not equipped with the weapons of the Devil: lies, force, deceit, greed, and avarice. The Holy Spirit equips us with the same sacrificial love that Jesus exercised for us in order to save us; courage, healing compassion, patience, creative wisdom, persistent faith, endurance, and undying hope.

With these, we reach out by all means left available to us, to transform other’s lives from Good Friday mourning or Black Saturday despair, to Easter morning astounding and confusing amazement and celebration: Jesus, the Christ, is Risen.

God is victorious. Christ offers opportunities to live fully, giving to others, and the Holy Spirit guides us to surprising, courageous, sacrificial and loving deeds that bring vibrant hope to all … even in these times, especially in these times.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Apr 13

Monday, April 13, 2020

God’s Camp, Our Home

Genesis 32:2

When Jacob saw them he said, ‘This is God’s camp!’ So he called that place Mahanaim

Matthew 28:5.7

But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” This is my message for you.’

Words of Grace For Today

Jacob saw the angels (on his way to meet his brother Esau, whom he had cheated out of both his birthright and his blessing). He calls it Mahanaim, meaning two camps, or two hosts. One host is the earthly gathering of a few, the other is the accompanying host of great multitudes of heavenly beings.

Most people today live quite well without meeting any angels. Yet again and again they play a key role in the biblical stories. On Easter the angel is the one who shares with Mary what we treasure as God’s victory over death and all evil: Jesus no longer lays dead in the tomb. He is alive and will meet them back home.

Whether we believe in angels or not, we seem to tell our stories as if …

… as if we could get away from God, and be separate from our creator.

… as if we need despair when we are alone, as if God had deserted us.

… as if God was not always accompanying us.

Everywhere is God’s camp. Everywhere is where Jesus meets us, not just at home. Though now with the Covid 19 restrictions and advice in place we stay home as much as possible, so it is a good thing Jesus is there, too!

When we feel like climbing the walls, remember there are multitudes upon multitudes of angels just on the other side of … well everything.

And even if you doubt angels exist, trust that God is with you always, holding you up when you have no more to give, or patience to take being couped up for all our safeties’ sake.

Where we each live is Mahanaim, God’s camp, God’s home, our home.