And is it true

 

From a poem by John Betjeman (1906-1984): 

And is it true,

This most tremendous tale of all,

Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,

A Baby in an ox's stall ?

The Maker of the stars and sea

Become a Child on earth for me ?

 

And is it true ? For if it is,

No loving fingers tying strings

Around those tissued fripperies,

The sweet and silly Christmas things,

Bath salts and inexpensive scent

And hideous tie so kindly meant,

 

No love that in a family dwells,

No carolling in frosty air,

Nor all the steeple-shaking bells

Can with this single Truth compare —

That God was man in Palestine

And lives today in Bread and Wine.

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The photo is from our friend Vanea Vrabie, who was Ethan and Andrew's teacher when we lived in Moldova, and now lives in Colorado, where he gets to hike in the Rockies (photo was taken near Buffalo Bill's burial site). 

And can it be?

 

Charles Wesley was born today (December 18) in 1707. He reportedly wrote about 6,500 hymns! According to Wikipedia he began writing hymns when he was about 30 and he died at age 80. That is an average of 130 hymns per year, or one very 3 days.

"And Can It Be" is one of these hymns that is special to me:

And can it be that I should gain

An int’rest in the Savior’s blood?

Died He for me, who caused His pain—

For me, who Him to death pursued?

Amazing love! How can it be,

That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

Refrain:

Amazing love! How can it be,

That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

’Tis myst’ry all: th’ Immortal dies:

Who can explore His strange design?

In vain the firstborn seraph tries

To sound the depths of love divine.

’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,

Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father’s throne above—

So free, so infinite His grace—

Emptied Himself of all but love,

And bled for Adam’s helpless race:

’Tis mercy all, immense and free,

For, O my God, it found out me!

No condemnation now I dread;

Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;

Alive in Him, my living Head,

And clothed in righteousness divine,

Bold I approach th’ eternal throne,

And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

It was him. He called me by my name.

For some time, we have wanted to watch season one of "The Chosen".  So we're grateful to our sons Ethan and Matthew for helping us get started!

It began with Ethan, when we watched the first episode with him and Mindy a couple of weeks ago. Then last night Matthew, who is visiting from Colorado, invited us to watch more episodes with him.

The series begins with Mary of Magdala,, as a child, being comforted by her father. Then years later we see her as an adult in Capernaum, known by another name, in the horrors of her demonic oppression. A leading Pharisee who is visiting from Jerusalem tries unsuccessfully to help her. After this encounter she has another meeting with a stranger who calls to her, "Mary". Hearing her real name gets her attention, and without anything spectacular happening, she leaves the encounter not knowing who it is who has called her by her name, but knowing she is free from the demons who had been destroying her.

Sometime after this, the Pharisee learns that she has changed and seeks her out to try to verify that there has indeed been a miracle. It is awkward when this sophisticated religious leader finds her, an apparently insignificant village woman, and starts to ask her questions in his attempt to understand what has happened. For Mary, everything about her past is fuzzy, like a blur, and she doesn't remember the Pharisee. As the Pharisee keeps pressing for clarity, she finally looks at him and calmly says:

"It wasn't you. It was him. He called me by my name."

The Pharisee asks Mary for the man's name., Mary says she doesn't know his name, and she  doesn't know what happened. All she knows is she met "him" and now her life has changed.

The Pharisee was a leader, a practitioner of a very good religion, the commandments given by God to Moses more than a thousand years earlier. But this good religion was powerless when confronted with Mary's need for a life change.

We 21st century Christians may also be practicing a very good religion, better than the Pharisee's because it is based on God's "completed" Word and centered on the need for the sacrificial death of Jesus. Yet when there is no ongoing reality of a personal encounter with Jesus, we are as powerless to experience or be a means of a changed life as the Pharisee who tried to help Mary.

May I remember Mary's words: "It was him. He called me by my name."

God's gifts

 It is unfortunate that for someone like me--whose earliest memories include reading, hearing, memorizing Scripture--it is too easy for familiarity with the Bible to mean that the words lose their impact. Eugene Peterson's idiomatic translation The Message has helped me recover the impact that God intended and that I desperately need.

One good example is the "fruit of the Spirit" verses (Galatians 5:22-23), below with the English Standard Version (ESV) for comparison: 

Help with coming to Jesus

 

"Come to me...and I will give you rest"

When Jesus said these words he was physically with the people he was inviting. It would have been simple for one of them to come to him in the same way we might come up to a speaker after his talk and initiate a conversation.

But it has been 2,ooo years since anyone could physically come to Jesus. What is a practical way for someone like me--especially when I am tired, worn out, even perhaps "burned out on religion"--to come to Jesus?

The words Eugene Peterson uses in Matthew 11:28-30 have been a great help to me, and using them as the basis for prayer has been a very practical way for me to come to Jesus:

I do want to keep company with you and learn to live freely and lightly.

May I continually come to you, get away with you and recover my life.

May you show me

   how to take a real rest,

   walk with you and work with you;   

   may I watch how you do it.

Help me learn the unforced rhythms of grace, trusting that you won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on me.

Amen.

Praying like this, and contemplating what Jesus offers does make a difference!

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Wondering about the photo above? 

It is a group of Moldovan university students who are about to get on a train to attend an IFES conference in Ukraine in 1997. They represent the first steps towards a dream...what is now CSC, the IFES fellowship of Christian students in Moldova. Click here to learn more about CSC.

Silence is praise

Since the beginning of the pandemic, our pastor has been regularly reminding us of the first words of Psalm 62:

For God alone my soul waits in silence;

    from him comes my salvation.

He alone is my rock and my salvation,

    my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

In one of his reminders a few weeks ago, he shared this story about waiting in silence:

"I was listening to an interesting podcast earlier this morning, a conversation with a man named Jerome, who has a stutter and can go 45 seconds to a minute between words. The interviewer asked him how he deals with that, and Jerome had this interesting response. He said the silence between the words he had come to consider a prayer of intercession, asking God for the next word.." 

Silence as prayer. An intriguing thought! And then, just a few days after hearing this from our pastor, I read these words at the beginning of Psalm 65*:

Silence is praise

Silence as prayer, yes, but even more, silence apparently can be praise.

As I reflected on this, I heard something like “why don’t you try being quiet?”.

The Holy Spirit? Or just my imagination? 

Honestly, I don’t know. But as I reflected on what God might be inviting me to do, I found these words from Richard Rohr:

Centering Prayer is simply sitting in silence, open to God's love and your love for God. This prayer is beyond thoughts, emotions, or sensations. Like being with a very close friend or lover, where words are not required, Centering Prayer brings your relationship with God to a level deeper than conversation, to pure communion. (https://www.lindsayboyer.com/richard-rohr)

I had heard about Centering Prayer some time ago, but nothing "clicked" that helped me take action. The combination of the words from Psalms 62 and 65 with what Rohr says "clicked".

It is powerful to think that my taking a few minutes to just sit with God in silence may be a way he desires to receive praise. So I’ve made a few feeble attempts to do this, and something in me is saying “more!”. 

*The Message

The painting is "At the dances" by Moldovan artist Rusu Ciobanu, ca 1957

God's handiwork in today's skies

Not long after I got out of bed this morning, I was treated to this view, what seemed to me a stunning work of art. This photo helps because I remember the reality, but I suspect it won't generate the delight, the joy, the wonder for you that I experienced this morning.

A little later I received an email that began with Psalm 19:

The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Sometimes these "double reminders" happen, and I'm not always sure what to think. Usually I assume that God knows I easily miss what we wants me to hear him say. This morning I don't believe I missed hearing something about God's artistry, his glory, the work of his hands being proclaimed in what I saw in the skies.

What I'm thinking that God wanted to do is emphasize the importance of how he is revealed, how he is in some mysterious way present in the beauty we see. The clouds I saw this morning are gone, carried along by the wind that is a reminder of his Spirit quietly and powerfully at work.

But the wind kept blowing, so that another of God's beautiful works of art and example of his glory was proclaimed in the skies this evening.

A Prayer for election day

With thanks to our good friend Terry Gustafson for passing along the following prayer from a few years ago, regarding our public duty.

 

Origen (185–254 AD)

from Against Celsus, Book VIII, Chap. 73

 

And as we — by our prayers —

vanquish all the demons that stir up war,

and lead to the violation of oaths,

and disturb the peace,

we in this service

are much more helpful to the kings

than those who go into the field

to fight for them.

 

And we do take our part in public affairs,

when along with righteous prayers,

we practice self-denying disciplines and meditations,

which teach us to despise pleasures,

and not to be lead astray by them.

And none fight better for the king

[and his role of preserving justice]

than we do.

We do not indeed fight under him,

although he demands it;

but we fight on his behalf,

forming a special army of piety

by offering our prayers to God.

 

From the Englewood Review of Books (May 1, 2009)

 

Quoted in Water, Faith and Wood: Stories of the Early Church’s Witness for Today, by Christopher Smith (Doulos Christou Press, 2003).

Experiencing salvation

 

Experiencing God's salvation is something I need every day. 

Some mornings, like today, I wake up feeling vaguely troubled, a bit confused and lost. I'm so grateful for words like these that bring a salvation experience in the ordinary stuff of life:

Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you. 

I’ve called your name. You’re mine.
When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you. 

When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down.
When you’re between a rock and a hard place, it won’t be a dead end
Because I am God, your personal God, The Holy of Israel, your Savior.
I paid a huge price* for you: 

    all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in!
That’s how much you mean to me! 

That’s how much I love you!.

So don’t be afraid: I’m with you.

(Isaiah 43:1-5, The Message)

*This was written for the nation of Israel; the price he paid for me was much greater.

after letting go...

 Let go

Slow down

Stop

Be quiet

Receive

Letting go

 From “Pilgrimage of a Soul” by Phileena Heuertz

(p87) prayer of St. Ignatius:

Take O Lord and receive

All my liberty, my memory,

My understanding and my entire will

All that I have and possess

You have given all to me

To you O Lord I return it

All is yours

Dispose of it all according to your will

Give me your love and grace

For this is sufficient for me.

(p90) As we let go of physical, mental and emotional attachments, we abandon ourselves to God and yield without restraint to God’s love and grace—for this is sufficient for life’s journey. Knowing and being known by God, relationship with God is supreme—the source of our identity and purpose. Expressing our truest identity is possible when we are free of false attachments that try to make claim on who we are. These accessories can become quite burdensome and impede our pilgrimage [the context for this sentence in particular, and the whole paragraph in general is the writer’s experience on the Camino de Santiago]. The spiritual journey has to be made with simplicity and a desire to be free.