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?
Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel; for the Lord has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or loyalty, and no knowledge of God in the land.
Matthew 3:2
‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’
Words of Grace For Today
Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.
Repent is to turn around, to proceed in the other direction, in the other manner, to proceed with the Grace of God instead of pounding one’s head against the wall of the Devil’s empty promises in vain trying to make something of life, something that cannot be made … it can only be received …
And God offers it freely.
Beethoven would be 250 years old this year. Overcoming all temptations to decay into decomposition humour, he still connects people with their own powerful and profound emotions and with through these emotions to other people. His 5th and 9th symphonies pound down in all the force of life in bar after bar of melody circling to a full climactic ending, that is both a relief to reach and leaves one wanting more. His pastorale melodies encircle the fog of the early morning’s kiss on the lake and bespeak the yearning that connects us all in the hope of being loved and being able to love purely, simply, profoundly. ZDF provides a tour of the world to places and people touched to the core by Beethoven’s music; Bonn, Osaka, Medellín, Ruhrgebiet, Brisbane, Rsumeb (Namibia), Queensland, Chennai (India.)
Music like Beethoven’s reaches deep into us, moves us, heals us, connects us to other people, creates empathy in us for others, and miraculously sets the world right … if for only a short moment.
This is one way in which the Kingdom of God has come near. It is one way in which God reaches into our hearts and calls us to repent, and moves us to proceed in a manner more fitting the wonders that God created us to be and to know in this tragic and beautiful existence we all know.
Where there is no faithfulness or loyalty, and no knowledge of God in the land (which is everywhere in every generation) let music probe deep into our hearts, minds, and lives so that we may repent and proceed in a new (ancient) direction of walking humbly with our God, sharing the Good News (the old, old story of Jesus and God’s love), and always working for justice for all people.
For this Christ came. This we prepare to celebrate, quietly, at our core, with the midnight darkness of our lives sparkling as our candles of remembering, thanks, celebration, and hope, held by people of all sizes, colours, creeds, and experiences pierce through the darkness.
Light one, two, three, [four] candles to wait for Messiah, let the light banish darkness ….
My soul yearns for you in the night, my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
2 Corinthians 9:10
He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
Words of Grace For Today
As the vaccine is promised ...
Like in every generation before we yearn and hope, sometimes beyond hope. Yet sometimes in despair we give up that last strand of hope …
In the dark of the night, when monsters rear their ugly head occupying all the challenges of our days which we thought we could deal with well enough and those monsters eat at the foundation of the order of our lives amid the chaos …
There is always the darkness, the evil that threatens us.
Whether or not we see or listen or know, God promises to judge all with real justice and grace, out of which will come righteousness for all … whether we experience this righteousness or not God’s promises are the only promises that are sure!
God promises to walk with us, giving seeds that we can sow and harvests abundant that we can gather in, increasing in and around us God’s righteousness – for Christ is come.
God’s Son came, and will come again, to make clear God’s will towards us, namely that God loves us and judges us with mercy and truth. Jesus will judge all for everything they have done.
How can righteousness come out of the evil of all humans, which is so destructive, pervasive and enduring? Jesus offers us his record, pure and sinless, and on that record we are judged. Our records, our sins, the evil we have done to others, and the destruction we have wrought on creation … all this is erased as if it never occurred in all of time at all. So we emerge, all of us, righteous.
We do not get to wait for Christ’s judgment until after we die. Christ judges every day, every hour. Christ renews us as righteous every moment. We still remain sinners, yet always are we fully God-made saints.
So we yearn …
We yearn for judgment …
We yearn deep in our bones for judgment, so that we are made righteous, and those that do us evil will be rescued from their sins and we with them.
Advent is the time we relearn to trust God’s promises, and we live this abundant life waiting, alert, holding to the Promise that draws us onward, and draws from us righteousness we did not know we were capable of.
We are the harvest. We are the labourers in the harvest. The harvest is ready, each day. The harvest is so abundant it cannot be stored in all the earth or even the universe. Such is God’s promise to walk with us and bring us to live life abundantly!
No Covid 19 pandemic can rob us of this abundant life. Not even when our usual Christmas habits are not possible this year while we remain safe for ourselves, for our loved ones, and for all our neighbours.
Life is still abundant. Perhaps just because we must rethink what is essentially Christmas, our celebrations in the future will regain a significance we have not previously known.
Whether or not we see or listen or know, God promises and delivers life over abundant for all!
Let us make it so for all people, also this Christmas!
My enemies wonder in malice when I will die, and [when] my name [will] perish.
James 5:15
The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.
Words of Grace For Today
If one has led an honourable life, then enemies are in no short supply, for there is no shortage of humans who hate goodness in others and who seek its destruction, hoping for a good person to die.
Perhaps it is that in comparison they come up so short, or perhaps it is that goodness and honesty get in the way of their evil schemes to secure more and more for themselves on the backs of other people.
Whatever the reason, many enemies gather about, fearful for the truth I sustain, and can disclose; they wonder when I will die, how long can I possibly last, bombarded with Gaslighting and false convictions and evil rulings and financial ruin.
They have had power over so many, and for years it took more than I had available to see their evil effect on me as a statement not about myself, but about them. It is odd and familiar that evil focused on a good person drives that person to wonder what he or she has done wrong to deserve such abuse. Now, by Grace alone, for years I have realized the true statement made by their attacks on me.
I am still the same person I was before, the same good person, the same forgiven sinner, the same God-made saint … and more so, for all the trappings of life that I used to presume were mine to enjoy have been stolen from me. What is left are the essentials of life. I work hard to ensure I have some of them. Others are a given still, and I am grateful for them. Others I am fully dependent on the generosity of others. Hard work, God given, and people shared: these make up the contributions to the essentials for life.
Eternal life, though, is long since secured as only it can be: by Grace alone.
Covid 19 is a real threat. But hardly as great a threat as evil scheming people, dead set on bringing destruction, ruin and early death to all that is mine. Yet not Covid 19, not evil scheming people, nor anything else can separate me (or you) from God’s love and promise of eternal life given and sealed in baptism.
Advent is the time of precious blue hope, time to prepare for Christ, time to see Christmas celebrations anew: God’s Grace in action … for all people.
In the Darkness there is Christ’ never failing Light.
Light one, two, (three), (four) candles to watch for the Messiah ….
He delivers and rescues, he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth; for he has saved Daniel from the power of the lions.
Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever.
Words of Grace For Today
Lions are not common in Alberta.
Alligators and wolves and elephants of the 2 legged variety abound, but no lions. It’s more difficult to be saved from the 2 legged variety than even from lions.
God steps in to save Daniel, and God works to save us, too. God delivers and rescues, works signs and wonders. The greatest wonder is the love God demonstrates for all people in becoming one us, to save us all. Grace comes
Jesus changes not a bit, not at all. Always gracious, forgiving, healing, and renewing. For all people.
The work of God never ends, never changes, and always gives us life and breath. Against those that would do us harm, God has no end of work and signs to make clear to us, that is God’s never ending wonder.
Signs and wonders fill the days and the nights of all our lives, for us all to see, and for us to give God thanks.
Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near.
2 Peter 3:13
But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.
Words of Grace For Today
They said go west young man.
So I went …
…
north instead.
And
Decades later I’m still going, and waiting,
for a home with the righteous.
If only I could find one of them,
Everyone here is a sinner,
Then I hear the trumpet blow
and see the Lord is coming
bringing
a new heaven and earth and a new home for all these wretched sinners made saints by Grace
Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.
2 Corinthians 5:20
So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
Words of Grace For Today
The pied piper led many though they knew not why or whereto.
Lemmings like sheep follow a leader who is blind to the path taken, even when it’s over a cliff to their death.
If we are ambassadors for Christ and God makes God’s appeal through us to people to be reconciled to God, and the wise shine like the daytime brightness of the sky, and those who lead others to righteousness shine forever like the stars in the dark night, then to what are we to lead people.
We confess that we cannot do anything to make ourselves righteous before God. We confess that we cannot do anything to reconcile ourselves to God.
Can we then lead other people to make themselves righteous before God? Can we lead other people to reconcile themselves to God? No, not all all.
When we try, we are as stupid as dumb sheep and lemmings leading people over a cliff of self over-importance, self-righteousness, and arrogance before God that is an attempt to be godlets, when in fact we are no more than beggars for God’s mercy and grace.
Fortunately God supplies us with both mercy and grace, along with renewed life and the old, old story of Jesus and God’s love.
This is what we can bring to people. And through us the Holy Spirit may indeed reconcile many people to God, and God may bring us to be among the saints, the people who reflect Christ’s Light to all people.
Can we do nothing, then, in relation to being reconciled to God? Yes, though we can do plenty to resist and destroy and tear down and separate ourselves from God. We do have free choice, and we each of us exercises it plenty in trying to turn away from God, to try to take over what only God can do, to try to become godlets unto ourselves, as if we created the universe and could ever control it.
Since God reconciles us to God by Grace alone, and since God shines Christ’s Light through us to the world, and since God sends us and equips us to be God’s ambassadors to Christ’s Grace, then through us the Holy Spirit can and does make wondrous things happen, signs for all to see God’s glory in Grace and Love.
10:00 am as I write this. The sunshine finally finds the snow on the lake, though not a drop has found the snow on the meadow between the trees. We likewise find ourselves in the escalating numbers of the second wave of Covid 19, as it spreads like wildfire across Alberta, the government responding with ideological priorities, so as not to offend those who hold their individual rights and freedoms must not be infringed on. The light seems to be that a vaccine will be available in a month. The reality is it will be available to only a few at first. It will likely be a half year at the earliest that everyone who wants a vaccine will receive it. The number who will refuse is likely to be so high that there will be little ‘herd vaccine protection’ and the virus will take a few years to subside … perhaps just in time for the next mutation of a coronavirus to sweep across the too densely populated earth.
In this mess and chaotic, deadly non-response to the virus, we are sent as ambassadors of Christ’ Light and Grace. Reach out to all those in need, especially the ineffective leaders, and the masses of skewed-thinking people who think it’s all a hoax, or that their individual rights and freedoms cannot be limited so as to save everyone.
And pray, for this is just one chaotic mess made by humans that only God’s Grace can set right. Carry on each day, trusting the God’s Grace is sufficient for our days.
