'Praise with Me the God of Grace'

The moon was streaming in like a bright light through the bay window by our dining room table as I rose this morning. Many times, inspired by sunrises and sunsets, I have tried with my camera to capture them. But this morning, who knows why, it just didn't work, flash or no flash.

I was reminded of something my brother once said to me after trying in a slide show to capture the glory of the Grand Canyon. The show was pitiful but my brother was gracious and his comment memorable. "Jim," he said, smiling, "there are some things you just have to hold in your heart."

Nice as records are of the things that inspire us in life--even photographic records--they are never more than approximations of the things they are meant to capture. Why is it, then, that moved so often by God's glory we spend more time trying to capture it than just waiting before it, allowing the glory to capture us?

As in nature, so in music, that glory comes often to invade my being. Life is full of sacred reminders, meant to be absorbed, like the symmetry of text and music in an marvelous anthem by Richard Farrant, performed last Sunday afternoon by The National Lutheran Choir in a nearby Lutheran Church. with the moon shining through huge walled windows on either side of the sanctuary.

Lord, for thy tender mercy's sake, lay not our sin to our charge, but forgive that is past, and give us grace to amend our sinful lives. To decline from sin, and incline to virtue, that we may walk with a perfect heart before thee now and ever more. Amen.

I can no more capture for you with words the glory that streamed in on me in those moments than I could the Grand Canyon for my brother with that pitiful slide show. But it remains a living thing in my heart, and like the moon streaming through my window this morning that so refreshed my soul it continues to express my longing.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and .forget not all his benefits (Psalm 103:1).

When All Is Not Well

When seasons and times
weigh heavy on mind;
When all is not well
and things are not fine;
to whom shall we go,
and where to recline?

A river there is,
the psalmist has said,
that flowing through time
can gladden the heart
by sweeping one up
and sett’ling the mind.

Recline in that now
all you in distress,
healed in those waters
one still can be blest.
Shadows are fright’ning
But light manifest.

Be calm, then, my soul,
when all else seems lean,
be carried for now
and stay in the stream,
let him guide you on
who wills to redeem.

What Am I Waiting For?

My son, Paul, sent me a very moving video yesterday of a sermon by a Covenant brother I have not met and do not know. His name is Harvey Fitzgerald Carey and he pastors the Citadel of Faith Covenant Church in Detroit, Michigan.

Participating in a Leadership Conference recently, sponsored I believe by Willow Creek Church north of Chicago, this African American brother deserves 20 minutes of your time as he describes God's call on his life to live out the Gospel, ministering in what he describes as the poorest zip code in the poorest city in America today.

This is a rousing call to respond in faith to God's claim on our lives--not first by measuring our resources but by believing again in the enormous power of his Spirit, by risking urselves, moving out from the comfort zones that seal us off from others into the maelstrom of convoluted life all around us.

Brother Carey's challenge came to me while reading and pondering N.T. Wright's amazing new book, Surprised by Hope, in which the British New Testament scholar seeks to reawaken in us the spirit and faith that stirred those first named Christian, who either experienced or had passed on to them the good news of Jesus's resurrection from the dead.

Listen to the video you can access from the link below (give it time to load), and while you are listening ask yourself, "What am I waiting for? Where can I go and what can I do this very day to share what the the Lord has done for me in the power of his Spirit?" And after you have listened, open The Covenant Hymnal: A Worshipbook to No. 685 and hear again the Lord calling you.

Our need, after all, is not finally for more programs and resources. It is really, as it has always been among God's people, for more faith in his will, and hope in his power, and love for the whole world of people he came among us to save.

http://msoa.awsclab.com/dump/Harvey_Carey_Against_All_Odds.wmv

Reformation Perspective

Two realities grabbed my attention yesterday.
One long-term, much too long and lingering,
came at the bedside of an a Hospice patient
In a Catholic Elder Care Center nearby,
Beside a woman now in the process of dying.
The other, on leaving, was of outside windows
At the same Center, from which before he died
The lonesome husband of the Hospice patient
Used to wave at me on leaving from a visit.

The outside windows seem somehow permanent
While on the inside of the Care Center,
Whether offering Hospice now to the woman
Or Elder Care earlier for her grieving husband,
The focus seems more on meeting temporary needs.
What a parable on life! Brick, mortar, and glass
And the commerce and industry they support
Impress us with their strength and permanence,
While in our humanity we are all only temporary.

I was stunned momentarily by the contrast,
Until realizing in Reformation perspective
That what often seems permanent is not
And what seems only fleeting will endure.
After all, how can fifty or a hundred years,
Even of massive brick, mortar, and glass,
Compare with the gift of eternal life
Both offered by God and already received by
A man now gone and a woman in Hospice?

Oh for wisdom and grace, as in this case,
To use the brick and mortar and glass
To offer faith’s vision to the lonely and dying.
And oh for perspective on driving off
to retain in soul and spirit that same vision.
What we too often see as permanent
is in reality only passing with its use,
while what seems more passing and fragile
carries within it the seeds of eternal life.

JRH
Reformation Sunday
10/25/09