Tag Archives: Redeemer

Prophesy Realized

Kingdom Building

November 20, 2019

Scripture Reading: Luke 1:68-79
‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
   for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a mighty savior for us
   in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
   that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,
   and has remembered his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,
   to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies,
might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness
   before him all our days.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
   for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
   by the forgiveness of their sins.
By the tender mercy of our God,
   the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
   to guide our feet into the way of peace.’

And so, Jeremiah’s words were realized; God’s Word was made flesh and dwelt among us*. Luke is a wonderful storyteller. We owe him much for scripting the incarnation of God in words and acts of everyday people doing extraordinary work. A young girl is called to be the mother of the Chosen One. A women barren for years conceives and bears a son, known as John the Baptist, who introduces this Chosen One to the world. John’s father, the Priest Zachariah, attempts to put into writing the amazing facts of this story in the above poem.

The one who is coming is the Redeemer, Savior described by the ancient prophets. He is the one gifted to us by the tender mercy of God to give light to those who sit in darkness and to guide our feet to peace.

I write this after seeing on the morning news citizens of Hong Kong in turmoil over human rights, hearings being conducted regarding malfeasance in our government, and random acts of violence in various parts of the USA where people are being murdered apparently as solutions to domestic problems.

It is good that we have a designated time each year to remember that we have a Redeemer, a Savior that came into the world as an innocent infant to model for us a better way. It is even more important that we renew our efforts to share this Good News to the ends of the earth.

Prayer: Lord guide our feet to higher ground so we might see the places we need to work to fulfill our call to be your conduit of love. Amen.

*See John 1:14 All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Death be not proud

Death be not proudLiving in the Spirit
September 2, 2014

 

Scripture Reading: Exodus 12:1-14

 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. — Exodus 12:12

A truck transporting a boxcar sized container hit a too-low bridge knocking the container off onto a pickup truck whose driver was killed instantly. A doctor doing his life’s work in Africa contracts the deadly Ebola virus and dies. A plague moves over Egypt killing all the first born even among the animal. John Donne perhaps said it best in his Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Good or evil, we all face the same reality of death and the same uncertainty of time and circumstance. Those of us who call ourselves Christian face it with a different perspective than those without a relationship with God. For we know that our redeemer lives even though he died on a cross. It disturbs me to think that God would kill all those Egyptians even though they had ample opportunity to free the Israelites and did not. I certainly do not believe that God wants the children of Gaza or Israel to die in onslaughts of mortars and missiles or for that matter the children of Syria or Ukraine or anyplace else. I do know that God wants us to do all that we can to introduce the entire world to his ways of love and to live those ways ourselves. When Love ultimately rules, death will die.

Prayer: Lord make us instruments of your love. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.