On the Way to Wonder

⁵ I am the vine, you are the branches.

Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit,

because apart from me you can do nothing.

John 15:5

         The image of Jesus as the vine and us as the branches is one of the last images Jesus left with us on his way to the Garden of Gethsemene.  You have probably heard sermons about it.  We must stay attached.  The vine is the source of nourishment.  We can be grafted in from a wild vine and become part of a healthy vine.  A fruitful life is promised.  We need that relationship with the vine to be healthy.

         In Psalm 5, King David talks about that relationship.

¹ Give ear to my words, O Lord;
    give heed to my sighing.
² Listen to the sound of my cry,
    my King and my God,
    for to you I pray.
³ O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;
    in the morning I plead my case to you, and watch.

⁴ For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
    evil will not sojourn with you.
⁵ The boastful will not stand before your eyes;
    you hate all evildoers.
⁶ You destroy those who speak lies;
    the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful.

⁷ But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love,
    will enter your house,
I will bow down towards your holy temple
    in awe of you.

Psalm 5:1-7

         As you think of Jesus as the vine and the vineyard owner, what do you think about?  Spend some time today writing down key words that remind you of the gift of being a part of God’s vineyard.  Blessings.

²⁷ The kingship and dominion
    and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven
    shall be given to the people of the holy ones of the Most High;
their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom,
    and all dominions shall serve and obey them.’

Daniel 7:27

         Daniel 7 tells of a dream or vision Daniel, one of the wise men of Israel carried off in the Babylonian captivity, had and its interpretation.  We remember Daniel because of being thrown into the lion’s den because of the jealousy of the other wisemen.  The lion’s did not eat Daniel.  Angels protected him.  But Daniel was also famous for his ability to interpret dreams and visions for the various kings of the Babylonian empire.  In this case, though, Daniel is sharing his own dream and the interpretation given him.  He envisioned four kingdoms of the future arising and then falling.  Ultimately though, “the Most High” is given ultimate authority and becomes the ultimate judge. 

         The language of Daniel is symbolic and much has been written as to what it means and just when this will take place and what the sequence of events will entail.  The interesting picture we are left with today is God as the final and ultimate judge of reality.  Perhaps we get a bit squimish at the picture of the courtroom but I find this symbol speaking to the injustice we perceive in our world around us.  When I hear the reports of the many innocents slaughtered in the path of war or when I get the adds about medical research for the many suffering with disease, my heart aches.  Our world struggles under the curse of sin.  That does not even include our own sense of injustice with the problems of our personal lives. 

         I find it a comfort that God is not asleep or blind and that one day there will be justice.   Many things we just do not have enough perspective to understand the event and so the insults of the moment hurt.  But other happenings are just wrong.  Wrongs challenge our faith that God is all powerful.  When I think of God as the ultimate judge, I think of a being who sees the whole picture of life and who knows just exactly how to repay evil and the right timing.  Yup, it takes time and patience.  “¹⁹ Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ (Romans 12:19)”

         Let us pray for the many suffering today in unfair circumstances and that leaders in power will rule justly!

³ The Lord is a warrior;
    the Lord is his name.

⁴ ‘Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he cast into the sea;
    his picked officers were sunk in the Red Sea.

Exodus 15:3-4

         Moses, a refugee from Egypt, wanted for murder, was told by God to return to Egypt and lead the people of Israel to a promised land.  Hollywood has made multiple movies that have caught the imagination of generations.  In the confrontation that follows, Pharaoh finally relents and “lets my people go!”  They start marching out but run into a huge roadblock, the Red Sea.  The people dispair in there new found freedom and Moses’ leadership ability.  Modern cynics doubt the depth of the water or the color of the sea.  It is so easy to be armchair critics from our modern setting of freedom and democracy.  But for the people of Israel, it was a huge challenge, perhaps equivalent to Covid or one of our modern wars.

         God led the people through this crisis by parting the water so the people could pass and then bringing the water back together over the chariots of Pharaoh chasing them.  Moses led the people in singing the above verse.  He describes God as a warrior.  Most of us have never walked through the Red Sea but we have faced challenges that seemed impossible.  Perhaps it was a test we felt doomed to fail.  Perhaps it was a bill we were sure we could not pay.  Hopefully it was not a medical diagnosis with little chance of recovery.  Standing by the bedside of a loved one fighting for life is like facing the Red Sea.  Life looks impossible.  For me it has been facing the Red Sea of the death of my husband and overwhelmed at what life might look like.  You know your challenge.

         Moses says that God can be described as a warrior.  God fights for us against the forces of evil.  Moses does not deny the existence of evil nor does he deny the horrible challenge of the battle with the devasting results, death of soldiers.  But the verse reminds us that we are not alone and the power of God is fighting with us.  God does not remove the evil, not yet anyway, and journies with us, maing us stronger.  He knows our fears and he knows how the enemy will be defeated.  Let’s praise his name today and pray for the many “war zones” in our world as the Spirit lays it on our heart.

⁴ ‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
    Tell me, if you have understanding.

Job 38:4

         Suffering and Job are almost synonymous.  Why do we suffer and where is God when we know he has the power and wisdom to eliminate the plight we find ourselves in?  The book of Job tackles this question.  Job, a man righteous by all human standards, meets trials and loss that would defeat most of us.  His children die in a catastrophe.  His wealth is wiped out.  Then to add insult to injury, illness depletes his reserves and his friends gather to comfort him.  They are speechless at the extent of the suffering they encounter.  We know that feeling of having friends encounter catastrophes beyond our ability to find words of comfort.  We stand speechless beside them.  I think of medical people accompanying people in their hour of helplessness.

         Job contents that he is faultless and his agony is undeserved.  He cries out for an audience with God to plead his innocence.  His friends give the traditional human reasoning.  For sure there is a cause and effect link in the series of events.  Or perhaps there is unconfessed sin.  Certainly God cannot be accused of doing wrong.  Job, they contend, is just not facing and admitting to reality.  Job maintains his innocence.  After about 38 chapters of give and take, God appears in a cloud and questions Job.

         God does not answer Job but asks questions that bring Job to his knees, as he understands that God is a master craftsman, a builder, creating a reality that we just do not understand.  If we understood all that goes on in our lives then we would not need God.  We were not there at the beginning and we do not understand. We see through a glass dimly as we look at our lives.  I do not understand God’s plan in my husband dying before I did.   I do not understand the purpose of the disease that ate away his body.  I just can’t see the big picture.  But I can be thankful for the years of blessing I had.  I can lean on the friends who came to the funeral and reminded me of the good days that had been clouded over by the diminishing days.  The sun is still shining.  And God is still building a future I will live into.  Only he knows what will unfold but I know he walks with all of us not just me, and God understands our dynamics and has a master plan he is building.  Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!  Blessings as you face your mystifying challenges.

“Something Beautiful”

         The dreaded day has come.  For me it is the funeral of my husband.  For you it may be an operation, a sending a child to college, or some other difficult life task.  Times like this bring us to reflect on our life path.  For my husband and me, we loved to sing this song.  We had dreams and ashes and we both crashed and burned in our early 20s but God put the pieces together, brought us together, and faithfully led us to today.  And he will lead us through today to his tomorrow.  Thank you, Lord.

18 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ² ‘Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.’ ³ So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. ⁴ The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.

Jeremiah 18:1-4

         Let’s look at the metaphor of God being like a potter again.  Jeremiah uses the metaphor to speak into how God is trying to shape and reshape Israel who is resisting him, into the dream he has for them.  It is obvious that the potter, whom we understand to be God, has a plan for the pot he is trying to throw.  And he doesn’t give up.  But it seems like the clay also has a mind of its own and resists or bubbles out or somehow is not just what the potter had in mind and so the potter tries again.

         As I face the funeral of my husband, I find this verse very comforting.  The shape of our lives is malleable.  Our mistakes need not define us forever for God has the power to rebuild that which is broken by life or misshapen when we are T-boned by others.

           Right now as I anticipate placing the cremains of a person I love into a crematorium, these verses speak to the resurrection and giving of an eternal body that does not respond to the laws of reality, as I now know them.  God can take the ashes and create something new and beautiful, even as a seed is put in the ground and grows into the beautiful bouquets that sit on my table.  God is able to take our misshaped lives and even that which appears dead and useless and make something beautiful.  To him be the glory.

⁸ Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;
    we are the clay, and you are our potter;
    we are all the work of your hand.

Isaiah 64:8

                  I have a son who is a potter.  He is not a professional as he does not have his own kiln but he loves to create pottery.  Lately he posted  a picture of a bowl he had thrown and titled it something like – any fruit looks better when displayed in a pottery bowl.  I reflected, how true.  Fruit in a plastic bag from the grocers cannot be compared to a beautifully arranged bowl of fruit on the table in an artistic clay bowl.

         I have always thought of references to God as the potter in terms of the shape of my life.  Why must I be a dandoline and not a rose?  I had not thought that he might be shaping me to display the wonderfulness of another.  Right now my children are gathering for the funeral of their father.  They are the holding vessel for his life’s story as they put together a service with pictures, a beautiful poem, and his favorite hymns.  They hold his story with love and respect to honor him.   We are the vessels that hold, support, and show off another.  What an honor.  Let’s pray we do it respectfully and gently, showing off God’s handiwork.  Blessings as you hold other’s stories.

“Let’s be real, fruits and veggies look better at home in handmade bowls.

@dncpottery #dncpottery #dncbowls”

⁴  I, Nebuchadnezzar, was living at ease in my home and prospering in my palace. ⁵ I saw a dream that frightened me; my fantasies in bed and the visions of my head terrified me. ⁶ So I made a decree that all the wise men of Babylon should be brought before me, in order that they might tell me the interpretation of the dream. (Daniel 4:4-6)

         Nebuchadnezzar the Great was historically regarded as the Assyrian empire’s greatest king.  Israel had been taken into slavery by him and taken from their land.  But the king had chosen a select group of survivors to train for leadership, one being Daniel.  We know Daniel because he refused to eat the rich food of the palace for dietary reasons.  He stood up for his beliefs.  We also know Daniel because he refused to stop praying and was thrown into the lion’s den.  Less known is the story of this great king Nebuchadnezzar having a dream and calling all his wise men together to interpret it. The wise men were defeated to interpret the dream.  Daniel prayed and was able to interpret the dream.  The point I want us to see is that God who is the awesome king we talked about yesterday, not only has authority and power like earthly kings but he can also tell the future.  God is outside or above time. King Nebuchadnezzar concludes,

³⁷ Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honour the King of heaven,

for all his works are truth,
    and his ways are justice;
and he is able to bring low
    those who walk in pride.

         As ponder the many things we don’t understand at any given point, it is comforting to know that our God sees a larger picture not only in scope like some drone but he also sees into the future and can chart our course into our future.

         Let us pray today for the war raging in the Middle East and all the anger and hate it embodies.  Lord, have mercy.

 ^“2 For the Lord, the Most High, is awesome,
    a great king over all the earth.”

Psalm 47:2

         When you hear the word “king” what do you think of?  Christians might think of King David in the Old Testament, leaping and praising God as he led the Arc of the Covenant back into Jerusalem.  Of course there was King Solomon, his son, praying for wisdom on the night of his inauguration.  Camelot and King Arthur captured the imagination of my generation and his struggle with forming a democracy and how to deal with Queen Genève’s affair. When my mother-in-law died, my Indian doctor gave me the picture from the end of “First Knight” when Arthur’s body is on a raft floating out on water and a burning arrow is shot to release his remains to the universe.

         Whether you think of Mulan and the Chinese emperor or Genghis Khan or some other historical person, we can all agree that kings faced challenges and needed wisdom and eventually died.  Psalm 47 compares God to a king not of an empire but of the whole earth.  He is the king of all people and all nations.  He is “most high,” “king of kings,” and “Lord of Lords.”   Government is his responsibility but he has a long-range plan of building the kingdom of heaven and we have a say as to whether we will be his subjects.  Authority is in his hands but he uses it with our best interest in mind.  He has all wisdom so we can trust his guidance.  And he will not die.  As Christians we believe that to be absent from our earthly body is to be present with him in our heavenly bodies.  That is a comfort when dealing with death.

         Think of a king you admire and then thank God that God himself is so much more “awesome”, “a great king over all the whole earth.”  Blessings.