Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – April 30

Thursday, April 30, 2020

God blesses,

Humans mess’s

Grace alone saves us.

Psalms 73:1

Truly God is good to the upright, to those who are pure in heart.

1 John 3:21-22

Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

Words of Grace For Today

Covid 19 puts many things into perspective.

When our boys were young they came asking if they could have coffee. They were intelligent and persistent. Being occupied and having uttered a few no’s! already I said to them that if they drank coffee they would die. Sort of true and it bought me some peace.

Not for long. They came back a few days later insisting that they be given coffee, it smelled so good! I said no, and repeated the half truth from before. If you drink coffee you will die. … Well, OK back then, a recent study had said that coffee was real bad for you, and worse for children; or so I rationalized it. But the boys did not fall away from but rather into some intelligence beyond their parents’.

They responded, yes, if we drink coffee we will die, but if we don’t drink coffee we will die, also.

So we want coffee.

God is truly good to the upright and pure in heart. And God is even better to the worst sinners, for whom God sent God’s own son, Jesus, to teach, heal and forgive … and then give his own life to redeem.

If we have boldness before God and obey his commands and do what pleases God, God will give us whatever we ask. And God gives whatever they ask for to even those who displease God, sinners that all humans are!

Not really. God answers everyone who calls on God. Most often God gives us what we need, not what we ask for. Most often the answer is simply NO, or wait, or maybe. Rarely God answers with a resounding YES! giving exactly what we ask for.

The temptation is to think that IF we behave rightly (and/or fill in whatever correct description you choose) THEN God will bless us with good things (and/or fill in whatever correct description of benefit from God you choose). This is the Devil’s way of getting us to think that we are little gods unto ourselves, that our behaviour controls God’s response to us.

When we start down that path, the Devil has us for life! Again. Until Jesus saves us again!

God’s reality is that BECAUSE God chooses (fill in whatever God chooses) THEREFORE we are blessed (and can think, say, or do whatever, or receive or fill in whatever blessing you want to include.

God’s reality is only God can choose to bless us. And we can only choose to refuse it. As we embrace God’s blessings it is only because the Holy Spirit moves us to do so.

The kind of religion that says we have to earn our way to God is as meaningless as counting backwards from ten. The best result is we end up unconscious. Anything else is painful to watch or experience.

God’s Grace though changes the whole world, from church being a social club with great language, coffee and tax deductions, to church being a calling to be more than we ever thought we could be, bringing abundant life to others in need.

After God acts, and we respond, then life lets loose, and our tasks vary according to our gifts and jobs and time. For now that will be a photo to share, occasionally. I get to create, you get to enjoy the result (or not.) Regardless whether we survive Covid 19 or not, we will all eventually die … for now the challenge is to be better than the best we imagined we could be. Pure of heart and obedient are just starters.

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.

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 18

Saturday, April 18, 2020

The Laws of Physics. An Empty Glove Grows Cold Even in the Light

The Law, Greater than an Empty Hand

Jeremiah 8:7

Even the stork in the heavens knows its times; and the turtle-dove, swallow, and crane observe the time of their coming; but my people do not know the ordinance of the Lord.

Romans 2:14

When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves.

Words of Grace For Today

Today all to often sinful people (like us) rationalize anything and everything, as if truth, goodness, purity, and obedience were all relative or in the eye of the beholder or fully dependent on one’s perspective.

Quatsch!

Absolute reality does exist, and those who pretend that they can change reality so that they get to take control and rule over others, are only working out the Devil’s own way.

The ordinances, the Law of God, given in the Old Testament, were not equivocal. Generations spent countless hours interpreting, applying and writing guides to them, but that never changed the Law given by God. Reality is reality. God is God. Law is Law.

Do not murder. Do no commit adultery. Do not steal. Do bear false witness. Do not covet.

These are not complicated, yet a life long challenge to obey.

Jesus’ command is simpler: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength! Love your neighbour as yourself, and your enemy.

Jesus’ command is a greater challenge to obey, for instead of proscribing destructive behaviour, Jesus prescribes life-giving behaviour. Jesus’ command impacts everything we think, say and do!

Of course one does not need to hear Jesus’ commands to be able to love God and all people.

On the other hand just because we are baptized hardly means that we will love God and all people. So we need to hear the command again and again, so that we remember what the Holy Spirit equips us to be able and ready to do, each and every day of our lives.

None of us are above God’s law, or above Jesus’ command to love God and all people.

Following the law perfectly is impossible. We remain sinners who break it constantly, but that does not mean that we can pretend the Law does not exist, that we will not break it, and that we are not condemned for those breaches. We are only saved by Grace. That we are saved by Grace alone inspires us to forgive others as we are forgiven.

What a beautiful world that makes, for we are in it, together.

Covid 19: Music Heals the Soul and Body

Covid 19 Advice?

In devotions and sermons plenty of advice is dispensed, as proclamation of the Gospel: that we are equipped to be God-made saints (though simultaneously remaining sinners), so why not do what is good and right, and healthy; and if not now, When!

Today I offer a simple observation about Covid 19 that certainly is advice:

Get good music, and listen to it often.

…

There are of course hammers and blows, rage and chaos, yelling and ranting, or all sorts of dystopia expressions that are viewed as music.

If that is what turns your crank, don’t let me separate you from what keeps you going.

This is not the time, though, to sink obliviously into dystopia. This is time to find a connection to the music of the spheres.

One of the forefronts of physics today is String Theory, which is, in a superbly simplistic peak into it: the universe is made up of teeny strings that vibrate, like strings on a guitar, at different frequencies etc. to make up the differences of energy-matter-time of which the universe is composed.

So, the ancient idea of the music of the spheres re-emerges. And a basic truth of the human psyche-body comes into play: music touches the soul, and if it is music that reflects the marvels of creation, it can heal mind and body.

Dystopia music, music of rage and rant, and music of chaos, on the other hand, actually works against the healing of both body and mind.

What does this mean for us during the quarantine experience of Covid 19? (Okay, I got it: only in the Quarante province of France is it quarantine, for the rest of us it’s sparkling isolation, but the name is not that important, is it? Yes, even the music of words make a small difference in our health!)

This all means that one part, and it can be a large part, of our staying healthy, is to create, or at least listen to, music that heals.

I played Euphonium in college with a professional level band at Concordia College, Moorhead MN. Thanks to Russel Pesola! and all the music classes I took I learned to appreciate the intricacies of brass music.

So these moved my heart and soul once again. They are about bringing health, to the players and to the audiences:

Precisely during Covid 19, a piece for us all:

A Hope for the Future at

and

Cancer Blows 2015 at

Which Ryan Anthony, professional soloist and former member of the beloved Canadian Brass, organized, first as a lark when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2012. Then it solidified into a series of concerts and a foundation, The Ryan Anthony Foundation.

And yes, he is the soloist that closes out A Hope for the Future from his isolation bed in hospital.

The Light of Hope for the Future is There! Play it!

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 16

Thursday, April 16, 2020

God Gives Us Great Gifts.

Isaiah 5:21

Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes, and shrewd in your own sight!

1 Corinthians 2:12

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.

Words of Grace For Today

There are so many who think they are powerful, wealthy, wise, and/or famous.

God puts them down as nothing more than mere wisps of grass that fade in the heat and the cold. God instead raises up those who appear weak, poverty stricken, foolish and/or infamous, by the power of the Spirit, to share the gifts God provides to us, and through us to the all people.

Psalm 1 teaches us clearly, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom. Self important people (even those not so remarkably daft as one president proves over and over, assume great wisdom) are as dangerous as the power they wield. Without the foundation of wisdom that is humility before God, there is no real wisdom.

Who are we, these days of Easter, as we celebrate each day the miracle of Christ risen, death defeated, God victorious through sacrificial love, instead of through force or wealth or power that controls others?

More so, what do we rely on, when push comes to shove, when ‘the rock’ squeezes us against ‘the hard place’, when the walls start to close in on us as cabin fever strikes is many and various ways?

Do we rely on the gifts of the Spirit, or the things of this world? Do we rely on God’s Word made palpable in the Body of Christ, and its various sinner-saint members? Do we allow the Spirit to guide us how to be those sinner-saints who bring real help and hope to those in need?

Let the gifts of life flow, from God, through us, to others. We will survive only as we trust God in all things.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Apr 15

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Small Normal Things are Blessings Most Obvious.

Blessings are sure!

Deuteronomy 2:7

Surely the Lord your God has blessed you in all your undertakings; he knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.’

2 Corinthians 6:410

As servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities… , yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Words of Grace For Today

The Covid 19 emergency measures in place in nearly every corner of the world, some tighter than elsewhere, wear on us. We are hardwired to connect with others.

My niece went to the beach in Costa Rica where she lives. The authorities arrived and ordered her to return home. She did. Another beach goer received the same ordered and dallied, to be arrested and placed in their ‘police wagon.’

In Canada we are emptying the jails for there is no real protection there should Covid 19 reach inside those walls. Cleaning solutions are most often water and toilet paper, or a rag from an old towel, if you are lucky. The regular issue of cleaning solution is controlled by the inmates and is little more than water in its effectiveness. Instead of jail, heavy fines are in place for breaching emergency orders.

Through this wilderness of working diligently to avoid a deadly microscopic enemy, how can we trust that God is with us? Our success in avoiding the deadly enemy depends less on what we ourselves do and more on what a whole host of others do! We are in this together, dependent on what the most reckless person among us does!

The real enemy though is not this tiny one that can kill us, nor the sloppy ignorance and apathy of others. The real enemy is our own fear. For fear will make us sloppy, reckless and contagious hosts carrying the tiny enemy about for days before we show signs of being infected.

Fear also knocks the life right out of us, so that even if we never come close to, or even if we survive being infected, and nearly drowning in our own body fluids filling our lungs fighting against this tiny enemy …. Fear reduces life now and after Covid 19 to something so much less than life as God intended and made us able to live.

Fear, panic, and especially irrational terror cut off our thought processes so that we no longer can carefully assess what is happening. Our responses are quick, but often more destructive than the focus of our fear or panic. Irrational terror does not wait for an object of fear to come along our paths. It creates imaginary objects of fear. The wilderness we jump down into is a dark hole which can consume us, or transform us into a devil’s dervish of destruction to others around us.

Paul’s words need to be ours: we have commended ourselves to Christ, no matter our circumstances: no matter the cause for real fear, we remain courageously faithful and loving for others. No matter our riches or our poverty, we remain thankful and generous. No matter the enemies we face, we remain joyous, for Christ gives us life that is not diminished by outward or inward events. Our lives as God-made saints remain intact, even if the universe collapses in on itself.

Surely, then, we have solid reason to be Christ’s voice, hands and feet in these times!

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.