He said, ‘If now I have found favour in your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.’
John 8:31-32
Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’
Words of Grace For Today
Finding favour in God’s sight, and continuing in Jesus’ word; there is nothing better in life, for though we are a stiff necked people, God has pardoned our sins, and given us the promise that we are God’s children, inheritors of all that God has to give.
While the world goes nuts with fake news, deception, and gaslighting of whoever can be had, Jesus gives us the truth and makes us free, free from the all our sins, and free from the losses from others’ sins, and most of all free from all the sheer craziness of life formed from lies, from the foundation on up to the latest addition of the day.
For that we can rest at night and dream of things unreal at night, because during the day all is tied clearly to reality.
So we ask:
Can
A
Canoe
Sit in the dark
And stand against the wind
Alone?
Or does it need company,
Security cameras,
Or chains
To hold it down.
‘Fly baby fly’
Might not
Be the mantra?
Rather the words
that give one heart
are ‘Come, let us see the loons,’
by which we mean the birds on the lake
not the two legged nutters
that waste life from sunrise to sunset.
‘Rest, baby rest,’
in Jesus’ hands
all is well, all is well, all manner of things are well.
As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children.
Romans 5:2
Our Lord Jesus Christ is through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
Words of Grace For Today
We always like to think we are more than we are.
It’s almost built into our DNA.
We strive to achieve more, to become our own godlets, to no avail.
We are but like grass, here one day for a short season, and blown down, mowed to nothing, overtaken by weeds, eaten up by even vegetarians, and the gone, just gone with only a few people who perhaps remember us to live on after us.
Short and brutish … that’s how life is described by poets and philosophers and even wise theologians and priests … though the last along with other wise people do not stop there.
They also go on to give God thanks for the greatness of creation we are privileged to participate in, and especially God’s Grace which gives us more than meets the eye, or rather just as can meet the eye of a faithful mystic, one who looks and sees God at work in the most common things of every day life.
Jesus brings us the story that tells us this Grace is ours to live in, to enjoy, to trust … and to share.
It is this steadfast love of God that gives us breath even when we should not be still alive at all. It is God’s steadfast love that promises that everyday common and usual events and things are much, much more … and we can see them as works of God’s steadfast love.
As we fear and love God, God is able to show us that we live in, work from, and can prodigiously share God’s steadfast love with all people.
Hot long daylight days, short ferocious loud and destructive storms, and cool calm after the heat of the day … all are blessings from God.
I’m not sure about the mosquitoes that just devoured me while I was outside for a few minutes … okay even they are blessings from God. I was driven back in to write and give God thanks.
This is God’s blessing – that we know how, can, and do give God thanks for all things … so much so that we pray for our enemies unceasing, that they may be a part of a double victory for Christ.
Let the storms come, let the heat come … even let the mosquitoes come in droves. There is calm after the storm, there is cool after the heat … and there is ammonia based glass cleaner to dry out the itchy poison the mosquitoes inject to get blood to flow to their bite. Itch, itch, itch. Itch to distraction, endless itch .. until the ammonia works it wonder and the bites settle finally to a comparatively marvellous calm. Thankfully there is no malaria here!
And the night settles in, the day is done. The only thing to do is give thanks, wash up, and sleep deeply in God’s embrace. Tomorrow promises to be another marvellous day, all in all.
Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, ‘O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, “It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth”? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.
1 John 2:1
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
Words of Grace For Today
There is not one person who will not sin, turning from God even after God has made clear that by Grace (forgiveness and renewed life freely given by God) alone we live well.
Our human response to such great generosity given at such a great price, but taken and then squandered would be to wipe such a person from the face of the earth. We would so judge others, and hope that we would not also be judged. Or, for far too many people, we fear and ‘know’ that we will not be met with Grace again by God, so we go about blasting our way through life, destroying people left, right and centre, taking all we can from others and from life, sure that there is no God for us.
So Moses fears God will do to them, killing them in the mountains, and consuming them from the face of the earth. Answering God’s call Moses has led this rag tag band out of Egypt, but they have many times revolted in small ways against God and Moses demanding more and more. Then this hubristic band turns to worship their own smelted golden calf; it’s a full out revolt against God.
It is our story. It is the story that each of us can find in our own behaviour. We wish we would not sin, yet we still do. Too often in our hubris we turn in full revolt against God and worship our own gold-smelted-whatevers.
God could just as well kill us and consume us from the face of the earth. Yet God does not. God sends Jesus to save us yet again, and we live abundant lives by Grace alone, again … and again … and again. Jesus advocates for us. We learn how not to sin. We return to sin gravely. And Jesus saves us.
Now, given that God sends Jesus to save us, not once or twice or 77 times 7, but as many times we turn from God to sin, how are we going to respond to others who sin, again and again?
We can judge them, ‘killing’ them, and working to consume them from the face of the earth
OR
We can exercise God’s Grace for them … as Jesus calls us to. As God called Moses to lead the people out of slavery.
It’s a no-brainer …
because it’s not rational or reasoned or effective or productive or pious or righteous.
With joy they celebrated the festival of unleavened bread for seven days; for the Lord had made them joyful, and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel.
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
There is great reason to be joyful when those who rule over you turn their hearts to you and aid you in your nearly impossible, but necessary work, whether that work is to provide a house for the Lord where people can gather (after Covid 19) or to provide a home for a new family (like a refugee family or a new couple) without a home or to provide a home for a homeless person.
The disciples nearly impossible work is to cast out demons, to renew the ill people’s spirits, to give life. As they work the ‘spirits submit to them’ and they are able to give life to many people. We are to follow suit today, bringing renewed life, full life, abundant life to as many people as we can.
So the people of Israel celebrated the festival of unleavened bread (the Passover?) for seven days.
We have great reasons to celebrate our festivals as well. Usually we merely take a break, a pause, and focus on our own enjoyment, or gathering our families – or we used to before Covid 19.
All this, Jesus reminds the disciples and us, is barely cause to celebrate.
At first glance we do have to shake our heads, trying to clear them of some unknown cobwebs as we try to make sense of Jesus’ words. Certainly bringing life to others is THE reason to celebrate. Or is it that the disciples and we celebrate not bringing life to others, but rather the power they and we are able to exercise in order to accomplish our tasks?
That power is not ours. We have no right to claim it, nor to celebrate as if it were ours. That power remains God’s and God’s alone. We exercise it for others, doch it is God would exercises it for us for them.
God exercises that power, like many other life-giving powers at work in the world around us, along with our efforts, because God has written our names in heaven as God’s holy workers.
Therefore our celebrations are most life-giving for us, when we celebrate not that we ‘have’ power or can ‘exercise’ power. Our celebrations are most life-giving for us and all people when we celebrate what God has done for us miserable beggars and sinners: God has written our names in heaven, claiming us a God’s holy people.
This city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them; they shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it.
Luke 2:29-32
‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.’
Words of Grace For Today
God’s blessings …
God’s blessings are named by us humans in many and various ways.
God’s blessings often are equated with prosperity and power, independence and might, progress and children.
Except for the children, all this seems to be a complete misapprehension of God’s way of providing for God’s people.
God, rather (as so often made clear in Jesus’ story and people’s reaction to him and his story) blesses us with salvation, which God prepares in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to God’s people.
This salvation rarely looks like worldly prosperity.
It is a life coloured first with gratitude, humility, service, and grace … oh, and the wisdom to recognize God’s blessings as salvation, i.e. forgiveness (freedom from the bondage to sin) and sanctification (making us holy, set apart, to be the presence of God for all people … as the people of light who exercise God’s Grace and love for all people.)
God’s creation has a greatness in it, and we as part of creation share in that grand wonder: that God provides this as a way, place, time for us to exist and be awestruck.
God provides.
We get to receive and share …
and hope that also tomorrow will bring opportunities to be bedazzled by God’s love.
Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength is spent.
2 Corinthians 4:16
So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.
Words of Grace For Today
What used to take little effort and next to no time or thought, now takes great effort and forging onward through pain, dealing with lack of clear sight, and being exhausted way too soon each day.
Fear makes it worse.
There is almost no resolution.
‘If you have your health that is everything.’
It’s a nice sentiment, though the truth is more clearly ‘if you do not have your health, then nothing else can compensate for that. Life is a finite experience, and without health (as old age takes if from us piece by piece) that finite experience becomes smaller and shorter and smaller and shorter and then will soon end.
Our real comfort is that God does not ‘unbless’ us as we get old and ill.
Even as our bodies and minds seem to waste away, God renews our faith and trust, and thus we are able to continue on, blessing others with all we have left in life, of life itself.
Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Luke 6:28
Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
Words of Grace For Today
If life is a zero-sum ‘game’, then the goal is to get ahead by whatever means, destroying as many enemies and people who get in your way.
With the earth overburdened with nearly 9 billion people, we are pressing the limits of what the earth can sustain, with our ‘great’ life style, comforts, and luxuries. It is the generations old solution to compete for the ‘limited resources’, and to ‘take no prisoners’ along the way.
We humans thus reduce life to a zero-sum ‘game’, a project of limited resources which each person or family or nation needs to seek to gain for themselves before others do, or to take them from others if they have the resource you want.
It is hard to imagine in this zero sum ‘game’ that anyone will stop to bear the sins of the many and make intercession for the transgressors, or bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse you.
Since God did not create life to be a zero sum ‘game’, rather that life is abundant for all if all share what is available, it is obvious that we will bless those who curse us, and pray for our abusers and the transgressors.
Life is a project of being grateful.
God has provided plenty … for everyone,
including blessings.
Life is not sustained by things, consumables, resources, comforts, or possessing more than others, or enjoying luxuries.
Life is sustained in being God’s blessings for others.
That changes the colour of life from a zero sum ‘game’ to a ‘game’ of giving to others what they need in order to have an abundant life (which is not the same as a life of comfort or luxury).
We get to celebrate all God’s blessings for all people, even those who curse us for not playing their ‘game’.
He is the Lord our God; his judgments are in all the earth.
1 Peter 3:18
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.
Words of Grace For Today
God’s judgments are in all the earth and the judgments God makes is –
that God will sacrifice himself, even to death on a torturous cross, in order to give us life abundant.
Usually we think of judgments as condemning the unrighteous and commending the righteous. This is not God’s way with us.
Good thing because, if we acknowledge the truth, we are all unrighteous and worthy only of being condemned.
This day we remember that Jesus, fully God, lay dead in a tomb hewn out of a rock hillside.
God was dead.
This is what we unrighteous people deserve, yet fully righteous Jesus suffers our deserved ends.
The universe did not fully know then, and we can hardly full know now, the profound event of God being dead, of God suffering death and a torturous death at that, and of unjust humans exercising their petty power to condemn God to death.
This we remember for three days, or part thereof, and this Saturday all day long.
We remember, with grateful hearts, for without this sacrifice we would likely not know God’s intentions towards us unrighteous people. God’s intentions are …
Well the story of God communicating to us through Jesus, fully God and fully human, does not end on this day. It continues tomorrow, and each tomorrow … even during Covid 19 pandemic’s challenges.
Why do you contend against him, saying, “He will answer none of my words”? For God speaks in one way, and in two, though people do not perceive it.
John 18:20-21
Jesus answered, ‘I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said.’
Words of Grace For Today
Listen.
God created us able to love. It is what life is about. It is what God is about for us.
Listen.
God created us able to listen. Able to hear God’s Word and Grace and Love for us.
Listen.
God also created us able to refuse to listen, refuse to love, and to refuse to understand what life is all about.
Whether we listen or not, God speaks clearly, loudly, and demonstratively obviously … in many and various ways, and in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus most obviously.
Life abundant is available to those who listen. It is part of listening that we come to know the abundance of life is not in material things, nor the absence of material things, or in having more than others.
There are more ways to get through life than living an abundant life, loving God, self, others and all creation as God created us to live and love. None of the other ways is worth pursuing. The Devil collects payments all along the way until there is no life left.
Living by lies eats at you, until there is nothing left.
Living by injustice eats at you, until there is nothing left.
Living by greed eats at you, until there is nothing left.
Listen.
Living by love feeds you, until you realize life is wonderful, most wonderful when it is spent giving life abundant to others.
That’s the truth.
Listen or not, lies always remain lies, injustice always remains injustice, greed always remains greed: that is the truth.
Listen or not, God loves us unconditionally and wishes us to share that with all people.
Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always continue in the fear of the Lord.
Luke 23:34
Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’ And they cast lots to divide his clothing.
Words of Grace For Today
Those who want more, demand more, comforts in life will always take short cuts and dishonest paths to get more, tramping down others to get and get and get … for such wants are never satisfied but always want yet another and another and another. It is a hellish way to live.
Reminds me of the fisher’s wife who always wanted more.
The fisher meets a magical fish who grants his wishes, as he repeats more and more his wife’s wish to have more than their humble fishing cottage, which becomes a mansion, then a palace, then a ruler’s grand house, the pope’s cathedral …
until she wishes to be God and live in God’s house
and he returns from that last visit to the magical fish to find his wife living happily (or not) in their original humble fishing cottage by the sea.
We are to continue to fear God, know our place, live everyday filled with gratitude for all we have, and work hard to provide others what they need to enjoy an abundant life (as God provides us). We start by forgiving them their sins (as God has forgiven us – when we did not know what we were/are doing.)
