We have heard with our ears, O God, our ancestors have told us, what deeds you performed in their days, in the days of old.
Luke 10:39
She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.
Words of Grace For Today
We have received great gifts from God … many through other faithful people.
We have received the ability:
To listen …
To learn …
To listen to Jesus …
To listen to our ancestors …
What would happen if we could listen to the generations yet to come?
God has performed many great deeds, that we remember, that we can listen to as others tell the stories handed down for generations.
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, … God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good….”
“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there …. When the Egyptians treated us harshly … we cried to the Lord…. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey….”
“In the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took bread and gave thanks …”
God has preformed many great deeds even in our time that we can share with each other and give time to listen to and learn from.
An elderly woman’s car would not start in the grocery store parking lot. Covid 19 limited the interactions others could have with her … still a man noticed her distress, walked over and offered to help. Diagnosing it as a battery too drained to start her car, he offered and then insisted that he would run home, grab some jumper cables and set it right. She suggested instead that she could call AMA. He said it was not necessary. Within minutes her car started and he advised her to take a drive to recharge the battery. It worked.
A long term care facility was, like all others, cut off from everyone except the workers coming and going. A staff person volunteered her iPhone to allow video calls to family and the staff started collecting contact numbers for each resident. Even though many suffer dementia they are afraid and lonely. Now they are connected again regularly with family.
With the increased danger of wild fires, a resident of a spread out rural community started noticing almost no one had ‘fire safe’ areas around their properties or homes. He organized a list of the elderly who needed the help first, a list of the properties that needed and wanted help fire-safe-ing, and a list of equipment available. Coordinating it all, with safe physical distances maintained, he organized equipment, people and locations to do the minimum fire-safe work. Almost done, he’s starting a list of more thorough fire-safe-ing and wide fire break paths to stop a wildfire from spreading over more than a quarter section. Of course that is getting organized as well. Everyone contributes. Everyone is safer. There is less risk that a wildfire will necessitate an evacuation, or if it does that any property will be damaged by anything other than smoke.
What stories of God’s great deeds can you share? What stories of God’s great deeds have you listened to and learned from?
What if we could also listen to those from future generations, looking back at our time, so that we could listen, learn, and live more responsibly.
Surely the Lord your God has blessed you in all your undertakings; he knows your going through this great wilderness.
1 Corinthians 4:2
Moreover, it is required of stewards that they should be found trustworthy.
Words of Grace For Today
God has blessed us greatly. This wilderness that we are all going through called Covid 19 pandemic affects us all differently, but we humans are ALL in this together, like it or not!
God is with us!
And
We are stewards of so much. Will we be found trustworthy as stewards who share what is given into our charge as our Creator intended we would?
Like at no other time, the whole world needs us to be faithful, active and proactive!
CBC news reported yesterday that lawsuits and hate speech abound in response to Covid 19.
Lawsuits are explained that we humans lash out at others to blame them when we are hurt, to make someone else accountable.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the COVID-19 pandemic keeps unleashing “a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scaremongering” …. [It] is fast becoming a human rights crisis.”
Who are the targets of the hate speech?
Jews, Muslims, migrants, refugees, older persons, journalists, whistleblowers, health professional, aid workers and human rights defenders!
Guterres called on political leaders to show solidarity with all people and on educational institutions to focus on “digital literacy” at a time when “extremists are seeking to prey on captive and potentially despairing audiences.” He called on the media, especially social media, to “remove racist, misogynist and other harmful content,” on civil society to strengthen outreach to vulnerable people and on religious figures to serve as “models of mutual respect.”
“And I ask everyone, everywhere, to stand up against hate, treat each other with dignity and take every opportunity to spread kindness,” Guterres said.
There is not one person in Canada who cannot do something each day to stand up against hate, treat each other with dignity and take every opportunity to spread kindness!
I’m not one to give orders, but here is the one that counts the most:
Get to it!
Every morning remind ourselves, this is what the world needs most. God has given us abundantly, now use everything we are and have to end hate, treat everyone with dignity, and spread kindness.
God Created Wondrously and Created us in God’s own Image
Job 9:8 – 9
God alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the Sea; God made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south.
Colossians 1:15-16
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.
Words of Grace For Today
There are endless wonders visible to us in creation.
Covid 19 has throttled back our use of fossil fuels. Out of country flights are cancelled across the planet. In country travel is limited to essential movement only.
Gasoline sells for on average between 71.6 and 94.9 per litre. I bought gas for $.43 last week! The price I used to pay was as high as $1.20, and usually around $.95. Oil sold last week under $13 a barrel. It was as high as $113 in 2011 and from 2010 to 2019 averaged $72.5.
This virus has given us a reason to give creation a reprieve from our onslaught of carbon emissions. Areas that have had impossible air pollution over the past decades are showing air qualities the likes of which 40 year-olds have never seen there! That certainly is not the intent, but it’s likely a better reason for the global economic lock-down!
See https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/covid-19-air-pollution-1.5501810 for some astounding images of air pollution clearing.
The real connection is interesting. Air pollution taxes our immune systems, making us more vulnerable, also to viruses like the corona virus of Covid 19.
The wonders of creation in Canada are all around us, especially if you live outside the cities, near a real lake or near the mountains. Others cannot travel to enjoy this, but even in the cities there are parks where one can (still) walk by yourself or with your family, as long as one keeps physical distance from others.
The greatest marvel is that of all the wonders God created, God created us humans in God’s own image. We are not to try to be gods as if we were creators or controllers or destroyers of all creation. The later we’ve come close enough to accomplishing in this last century. This is the evil in us destroying all things around us, as we rationalize that we are doing what is necessary and good.
Humans are again and again capable of extra-ordinarily reflecting God’s Grace for each other, and for creation.
We notice these. Celebrate these. Share these. And we overflow with thanks and gratitude for the wonders of all creation, from sky to sea, to mountains, to the sinner/saints we see each day.
God guides us to both, as gift and blessing unearned.
2 Samuel 2:26
Then Abner called to Joab, ‘Is the sword to keep devouring for ever? Do you not know that the end will be bitter? How long will it be before you order your people to turn from the pursuit of their kinsmen?’
1 Corinthians 7:15
But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. It is to peace that God has called you.
Words of Grace For Today
God calls us to peace.
Peace between nations, between people, between spouses, and peace within ourselves.
Peace is much more than the absence of conflict.
Given merely the absence of conflict we humans always find our way into open conflict quite easily. It is because everyone is wrong about something, and they still think they are right. [Except of course me. I’m always right. Right?]
Girard provides that it is more complex than that, involving mimetic desires that lead to competition, which is ‘resolved’ through scapegoating. We compete with each other for what we see as limited resources/things. Aware we cannot afford open conflict with our closest friends we project our conflict on to some innocent, vulnerable bystander. Seeing that innocent as the source of our problem we destroy that person. Our urge to compete and destroy is ‘satisfied’, the thing we competed for becomes insignificant, and we are able to return to a ‘peaceful’ co-existence.
Except for the innocent person we’ve gaslit, attacked, destroyed and most often exiled or killed.
And except that, since we are not entirely oblivious to reality, we know we are now guilty of ruining an innocent person, of not working out our conflict with each other, and the root cause of that conflict is not addressed. It just goes underground in both of us, in our relationship, only to re-emerge at a later date. Then it will be an even less comprehensible conflict, which we will ‘resolve’ by destroying yet another innocent bystander.
Peace must be diligently sought anew each hour of each day, or it is lost. And it is lost long before anyone notices any conflict arising.
Peace is lost when we no longer see the souls of other people, for whom Jesus died, as the most important part of our own lives, when we no longer give everything we are to provide care for those in our daily lives, or when we no longer work to meet the needs and satisfy the yearnings of those with whom our lives are intertwined.
Peace is a marvellous way of being. It is fragile and can disappear in an instant with a [wrong] word or deed. It is threatened most by an errant thought.
God gives us peace. We can treasure it, with our hearts, minds, and strength.
You probably should be able to tell the difference!
Golden Grass
If there is all white almost everywhere, the exceptions, like a bundle of golden grass, will stand out, in the light, as beautiful.
If it’s just white,
It just snowed really heavily.
If it’s all just grass, this bundle is not that interesting, most likely.
If one has just gold, well that’s another problem I’ve never had,
money problems.
It’s just like a cold. I don’t see what all the fuss is about.
Right, for some people Covid 19 is just like a cold and does no more damage than a cold.
It’s just like the flu. I’m not worried.
Well, you should take flu more seriously. It’s fatality percentage is less than 1.0%, but it is still deadly for some people.
And it mutates every year, so it can become more deadly in a year or less.
If there is no light, than nothing is seen as it really is. Everything becomes so much the same that it’s just dull, and then who would be interested?
It’s all a bunch of nothing. It’s just a kind of flu.
Yes, it is a kind of flu, a different kind of flu. Not in it’s make up, but in it’s ability to kill it has perhaps the same or greater fatality percentage as the Spanish flu. The Spanish flu hit a small community in northern Canada and of the 80 people there 72 died within a short time.
The Spanish flu killed in a few hours.
Covid 19 is estimated to have a fatality rate similar to the Spanish Flu.
The Spanish flu killed 50 to 100 million people.
So why worry if Covid19 and it’s mutations kill that many people every year or more – since the percentages of infected and the percentage of dead are the same, the population is much larger therefore proportionately many more people will die, or if this virus is not reduced by the passing of seasons (dies off due to the heat of summer) then it may be a great number more?
It may be in a short time that way too many people will die to allow life to continue as we know it!
Because it will not take long for there to be no one to grow, distribute and sell the food you have become dependent on, or the products, or … well, anything.
Making Tracks in the Simplest Part of the Day: Beautiful Light
When the light shines, then you can see the beauty of a simple day.
And when you take time to figure out the truth, then you can act appropriately,
so you do not expose dozens of people to your infection, killing a handful of them.
That’s the big deal.
Cold Lake has supposedly 4 cases of Covid 19 as of today.
Schools are closed until at least September, Libraries are closed.
Makes sense with a military base and lots of wealthy people traveling the world, and coming home
For the last seven years I have been gaslit by so many people. First at home and then it spread through the church as the lay pastor started in, by people in the community recruited by the RCMP, the RCMP themselves, by lawyers, the prosecutors and even my own lawyers, and most recently by the judges and justices who created their own lies in order to convict me, and to deny my applications.
This
may be difficult for many to believe.
It
used to be unimaginable to me.
But
no longer.
Now
it is the truth that impacts my daily life, as my ‘ex’, the lawyers,
and the courts have completely ruined me financially driving me into
debt so far I cannot see the light or the tunnel. I have left to my
name a huge debt, a bicycle, a tent, a sleeping bag and my clothes. I
live alone in the woods. I survive on money borrowed from family and
friends, using borrowed highly modified equipment to survive the
elements on next to no money.
It
appears that the lies told about me and those who have told them, and
the judges who have ruled using them, have completely determined my
life.
This
is not so. They have determined some of the external circumstances of
my life, and they seem to persist at determining more. But they
cannot determine who I am and what I have done (or not done).
The truth reflects the beauty God created in the world, which lies do not change.
I am still the same kind, gracious, man of faith that I have always been, with a good set of skills and knowledge, and abilities, and above all the assurance that, because God loves me, I am able to love, forgive (or not as it is), breathe, and extend Grace as it is extended to me.
Those who have gaslit me, those who have repeatedly and intentionally lied about me, in order to try to create a reality about me that simply is not so; these people have not created a reality about me. They have created a huge set of lies.
Their lies do not determine who I am. They do not define me.
The fog of lies cannot conceal that lies are lies, as weeds are weeds.
Their lies determine who they are. Their lies define them.
My ex and the children I have long since forgiven. They were, at my ex’s invitation, my life, my love, and God’s gifts to me.
But all the others, those who are given authority and responsibility to investigate and rule based on the truth. those whose positions are to be respected, they are not only guilty; they make a habit of gaslighting others, and some have laughed at their maniacal fun at hurting innocent people.
As I am ordained to extend grace and forgiveness to all people whom I meet, I am also ordained to bind the sins of those who should not be forgiven. This is a rare thing. But these lies are all too common, oft repeated, and engaged in as sport, as the record of innocent men convicted by the courts belies.
The damage their lies do to the innocent men and the children is incomprehensible. They leave children in the care of people who create lies about men who healthily love their children. They leave children with sole parents who suffer psychotic breaks, who project their own faults on to others near them including the children and their spouses. They leave the children without a healthy parent, and with a most unhealthy parent, who does the unspeakable to the children, and then adds those terrible things to the list of lies about which they gaslight their spouses.
The damage is also to the spouse (and children) who lie to create a false and terrible story about their innocent men. Being believed when one lies, and encouraged even to lie more, disrupts any trust even the liar could possibly have in the just and fairness of the world. At any moment someone else could start lying about them and they would be ruined based on those lies.
The damage is to everyone, for at any moment anyone can start lying about anyone else, and the person lied about will be ruined, even though they are innocent. This is the destruction of trust, without which society disintegrates into a morass of nothing being true or trustworthy or healthy, for anyone.
This is who the people who gaslight others are: they are those who dismantle everyone’s ability to trust the rule of law, the word of people, the basic justness of our country. Many peoples, against whom prejudice and bias has run rampant, have known this for generations.
Now
I known it, personally.
No matter what you expect or believe, that leaf is there. The truth is there. No lie can change the truth.
Whether
you believe me or not is immaterial, but it is vitally important. You
could easily be next.
This is what those who gaslight others do to our country. This is who they are. This is how they try to determine others to be worse than themselves, but that is a futile effort. This is who they determine themselves to be: corrupters and perverters of all that is good.
Thus their sins are bound, and they are told, so that they are as aware as they can be made to be. They have time to amend their lives, through telling the complete truth about their lies, openly, publicly, and through making restitution as it can be made.
Then
they can be reconciled with their victims.
Until
the day of them telling the full truth or
God judging them, this is not something
they can leave behind. It is what they have to look forward to, to
that day when the Light of Christ will shine.
May it shine soon, now on this earth, during our lives. But if not,
then soon enough.
When the Light of Christ shines on what they have done, and the truth I have always provided, no witnesses or rules of evidence will be needed. God knows everything. There is no statute of limitations or excuses of lack of resources to judge fairly according to the truth. God knows the truth, the absolute truth. God will judge their sins.
I
am not determined by their gaslighting. I do struggle to survive the
effects, but I am blessed each day. I live thankful and even joyful
at times. I will survive until God brings me home to the New
Jerusalem, the city of light, into the room prepared for me by
Christ.
I
know who I am. I am blessed to have lived a very self-aware life.
Lies do not determine or define the person whom they are told about; they determine and define the person who tells the lies.
The truth always leaves tracks. The truth will be known. The Light of Christ will shine. It is and will be beautiful!
The reality of Gaslighting is that it is destructive for everyone, but most of all for those who tell the lies.
In the movie, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”, Fred Rogers helps Lloyd Vogel process his relationship with his father and re-connect with him after decades of cutoff on both sides…. It leaves us thinking we can’t change the past, but maybe we can give the story a different ending….** If only we could be just a bit better than we are, a lot less anxious, helping others trust God just a mite more, so that our stories could have a good ending. **adapted from Healthy Congregation Words by Rachel Tune, Pastor Wittenburg University***
Joy Sunday Contrasts with Advent Blues
Today,
the third Sunday of Advent, is the Sunday of Joy. Advent was
historically a time to prepare for Epiphany baptisms, a time to take
in Jesus’ costly journey of bringing faith to us. During the rest of
Advent we get ourselves alert, reflect on the cost of our faith,
prepare for, but wait patiently for, Christ’s coming and our
celebration that he has come, and is present.
Joy is
out of step with the Lenten-like mood of waiting. Our wreath has one
pink candle among the blue candles of hope. In this season of waiting
to celebrate, how did the Joy Sunday and the pink candle get into the
mix? Except this contrast makes our Christmas joy that much more
intense.
Today we highlight the opposite of the rest of Advent, making our preparations and joy all that more vivid. Only blue on the dark black of the long nights won’t do, neither would all pink be great. If Advent were all joy, then it’d be hard to celebrate Christmas; it’d be as if we’d nibbled at the turkey, dressing and all, and gobbled up all the Christmas cookies for weeks. The celebration would be just more of the same, if anything were left for the feast. But on the dark background of real life, pink decorates blue spectacularly, and since it denotes God’s joy then the best pink would be hot-pink on deep sea blue rising to sky blue.
God’s Hot-Pink
Winter Blues
Winter
Blues
Today, though, we also remember that Christmas, more so because it’s supposed to be such a joyous time, can actually be the most painful, sorrowful, lonely and despairing time of the year. It can be all so blue. For this reason we offer Blue Christmas Services.
Insert here Niel Diamond singing Song Sung Blue YouTube – Song Sung Blueor your favourite song about the blues, our old friend the blues, or your favourite song about the blues, our old friend the blues.
The New Ending Needed
In the
name of Jesus we can’t change the past, but we know
the story needs a different ending….
Biblical Images of Life Dried Up
Images
of dried up creation abound in today’s lessons: wilderness, dry land,
desert … weak hands, feeble knees, fearful hearts … blind, deaf,
lame, speechless people … burning sand, thirsty ground, haunts of
jackals, dry grass … lions, ravenous beasts … sighing and
sorrows.
The New Ending, Possible?
That is
the past. We can’t change the past, but can
we really give this story a
different ending?
Dark, Cold Tunnel of Real Life
It’s dark. The sun rises but stays below the southern roof- or tree-tops. It’s cold. In the city it’s dipped into the minus teens. Not far away, on a little lake that’s as much home as anywhere, it’s been below -30⁰C and not over -15⁰ for days. Most everyone is affected, some a bit more as they struggle with mild to severe depression because of the lack of sunshine. Too often this season can seem like a cold, dark tunnel that we get thrust into, whether we choose it or not.
Unemployment
In Alberta now, after the oil bust of 2014 and lately Premier Kenny’s cuts, 20% of young men are unemployed. That does not count those who have given up trying to find work, or those who are back at school trying to increase their odds of finding a job (going in debt to do so), or those who have part-time jobs where they work pitifully few hours, so that it’s less a job, and more a hindrance to finding real work. Employers more cheaply employ 10 part-time workers 8 hours each week than 2 full-time employees 40 hours each.
This is
real. These young men face hunger, homelessness, losing their
vehicles. Forget about having anything for health and dental care.
Chaplains in hospitals write up verbatims: formerly well-paid men are hounded by their spouse (or not-spouse) to bring home the same money for the pricey lifestyle they’ve spent themselves into. Turning to crime or not, the stress eats away at the men’s health. For some, physical or psychological violence at home puts them in the hospital. Women know the courts will likely believe any lie they tell and the men will be convicted and jailed, even when they are the victims.
The Booby-trapped Tunnel
The dark tunnel we find ourselves in can, in this or other ways, turn out to be full of traps set by people we would trust. People point us to the light at the end of the tunnel, but it seems a long ways off through the dark and dangerous cold.
The New Ending Beyond Us.
We
know full well we can’t change the past, but even
trying to give the story a different ending seems
beyond us.
Epidemic of Senior Loneliness
The
severity of the seniors’ epidemic of loneliness increases at
Christmas. 25% percent of seniors live alone often not by choice.
Living alone or not, an unknown number of seniors are severely
lonely, cut off from meaningful engagement in life. Loneliness
affects health and precipitates death as quickly as any disease. Two
of life’s necessities are missing: a meaningful contribution to life
and an ability to love and be loved.
There
are walls to stare at, perhaps paths to walk. But one is alone even
in crowds. Few reach out with kindness and understanding, and time.
Everyone has their own busy agenda to help them ignore the emptiness
that threatens.
Worse still are the seniors that experience elder abuse. Seniors can be more vulnerable than young children and become targets because they may appear to have wealth, and the taking appears to be easy. This month we collect for “No Room In the Inn” to create a safe place to which they can escape.
The Light in the Tunnel is a Train
The light they told us was at the end of the tunnel looks more and more like a train coming right at us in this dark tunnel and we cannot see any way out. We can’t move fast enough to find any emergency exit that may be somewhere out there.
The New Ending Only Hoped For
We
can’t change the past, and we only hope
we can give the story a different ending before it’s too late.
God’s Transformations
Exactly
into this dark reality, our Advent Sunday of Joy is set as a stark
contrast to our Lenten-like Advent preparations.
This
Sunday is exactly like the Crocus named in the OT lesson. The first
flower of Spring, it pushes up and blossoms even while the snow and
morning frosts keep other plants at bay.
Similarly all the desolate images serve as the setting into which God comes and transforms creation. Cool streams flow in the wilderness, over the dry land, and on the burning sand bringing them to rejoice and blossom, with joy and singing. Weak hands are strengthened, feeble knees made firm, fear is met with encouragement, the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame leap, and the speechless sing.
A highway is made upon which no lion or beast or thief prowls, and even a fool cannot go astray. Those redeemed by Christ will obtain joy and gladness. All sorrow and sighing will flee away. In a simple word, we and all creation are baptized in the water of God’s blessings. It is a marvellously new creation. We are made saints and set to live well in it!
God’s coming is already, and not yet. Like the farmer we wait patiently for the early and the late rains of God’s blessings to tumble down on us and through us. We do not grumble against each other, for grumbling against each other is caustic to life and for it we would be justly judged by the Judge at the door. There are no evidentiary rules, precedents, or arguments required. This Judge is omnipotent and all-knowing, and the judgments are fair, clearly so to all. Jesus’ every judgment is made to make life possible for all.
Jesus
comes to set things right, to make people healthy, what is wrong is
set right. Jesus comes in poverty, born homeless in a cow barn. Jesus
comes to those least acceptable to the world of his day. Jesus comes
to the blind, the lame, the deaf, the lepers, the dead, and the poor.
The Light in the Tunnel is Christ’s Light on God’s
Train Coming at Us!
It
turns out that the light at the end of the cold, dark
tunnel is a train coming right for us. Or
rather it is the Light of Christ barrelling down on us like a train.
This train is not loaded with oil, grain, lumber, or other goods.
The
first cars of this train have the Blue Hope of Advent spilling out in
endless streams over the landscape of God’s wonderful and broken
creation.
Hope is followed by cars as numerous as the stars spewing Justice, Mercy, Forgiveness, Inspiration, Gratitude, Generosity, Faith, Love in Action, and Love Universal and Unconditional. Look at all the colours streaming across the desolate landscape of our broken lives!
See the
Light. Run to it. Dance to it. Sing for it with the deepest and
broadest joy.
Insert here the Proclaimers singing I’m On My Way [From Misery to Happiness]. You Tube- I’m On My Way
For God
intends for us, even in our sadness and loneliness, to be overwhelmed
with the Goodness of life given to us by the Holy Spirit, the engine
of that train. It may be cold and dark outside but the pink of joy
covers the dark and decorates our blues.
God’s New Ending
We can’t change the past. And we cannot give the story a different ending. This Advent we remember, we do not have to. God has already given the story the best ending possible! What Joy!
We
wait, full of anticipation for the celebration of Christmas, marking
Jesus’ birth, proclaiming
Jesus’ presence now, and hoping for Jesus the Christ’s return!
We pray, Let us be the blessed “who do not let the Messiah [we] are expecting blind [us] to the Messiah who is standing right in front of [us]” (Barbara Brown Taylor, God in Pain: Teaching Sermons on Suffering [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998]).
Our Response: We are the Pink in the Blues
Today we
reflect on joy, and its roots in the dark of misery, and its place
within the blues of Hope. The Holy Spirit makes us the streams of
cool water flowing in the deserts of life, the crocuses springing up
for those to whom Christ came. We are the patient, non-anxious,
gracious, kind, and generous ones. In us others see Christ
active for them even if the world frosts them out.
This is the ending to the story that God has for creation and all of us in it: that Christ came, that Christ comes, that Christ will come, and all of creation was, is and will be baptized with living water, transforming it and all of us. Therefore we follow Christ’s example: bringing real joy to those with SADS, the unemployed, the lonely, the blind, the lame, the deaf, the lepers, the dead, and the poor. This is the pink of our Advent Blues. It may not be more than a touch on the horizon in our preparations, nor need it be more. It is like the light at the end of the tunnel, giving us reason to Hope, even in the blues.
We are the pink of Advent
We are the pink of Adventfor those in need around us.
Amen
As we
get ready to sing: Let me highlight with pink and blue a few words of
our hymn of the day:
All earth is hopeful, the Savior comes at last! Furrows lie open for God’s creative task: this, the labour of people who struggle to see how God’s truth and justice sets [Blue:] everybody free.
We first saw Jesus a baby in a crib. This same Lord Jesus today has come to live in our world; he is present, in neighbours we see our Jesus is with us, and ever sets [Pink:] us free.
Theme and Notes
Joy, the
pink contrast to the Blues of Advent, draws us to be God’s people to
bring transformation to those most in need.
*In the Pink: to be in the best of health; by Grace alone the best spiritual health.
***Wittenberg University is a private liberal arts college in Springfield, Ohio. It has approximately 2,000 full-time students representing 37 states and 30 foreign countries.
