Marked by the blood of THE Lamb

I was reading my treasury of Daily prayer...as I do in the mornings...and I read a text this morning that I think we have all read several times and glazed over. Within the Exodus we hear many times of God “testing” his people. We even hear of it in Genesis where God “tests” Abraham.  Sometimes we even talk about it in our lives and in our little circles saying things like; “God is / was just testing me” or “the silence of God is just a test to see if I’m trusting Him or not” or even when we talk of others, “Job was tested.” For whatever reason this has always rubbed me the wrong way. The Hebrew verb can also be translated using the English words; try, prove, or tempt. I would venture to say that most of us think of this verb in connection to the Devil, and we confess in the sixth petition of the Lord’s prayer; “God, indeed tempts no one?” In addition, we at times tempt, try, and test God often in our own lives, as did the children of Israel, provoking God to action, most times in anger. Perhaps the notion of God doing to us what we do to him and the devil does to us is difficult to swallow because it is difficult to imagine a loving God doing what we sinners do in malice. 

Perhaps ‘God testing” rubs because I used to cheat on tests, (I started and stopped that in the second grade) or perhaps it is because I hate tests, or maybe it is because I always think that whoever is giving the test is secretly out to get me. I have never had a very positive perspective on tests. I get nervous, I choke, I forget everything I should know or that I once had committed to memory. Tests in my mind have been a “make or break” deals. The worst of all the subjects for me was spelling. I can only hear out of one ear, so when covering homophones I just grabbed a shovel and a plot of land and started digging because I knew I was going to die, and I didn't want to be "that student" who raised her hand after each word and said; "Could you repeat that in another sentence?" So, going back to God then; as one who “tests.” I think the problem in my perspective and perhaps for others, is we think there is a mark with all tests. You study, you take the test, you pass or you fail, done. God however, doesn’t work like that. He continually tests and not for a mark or grade. He continually places us in situations where we can look to Him and trust, or look to ourselves and see what happens. It isn’t to prove anything to Him, it is only to show us. Just like with the children of Israel wandering through the desert. He continually tested them not to prove their worthiness of entering into the promised land. No, he already selected them to enter the promised land. God is faithful, and committed. The teacher knows his subject better than the students. He gives them these little tests to show them just how faithful He truly is. So they can know for their future wanderings that He does as He says He will. He tests, so that we know Him better and so that we do not have to test Him. He examines us and our hearts so that He Himself can know how to teach us better of Himself. He shows us our sin, to show us our Savior, and He tests our very being so we know what we might become, but only in and through Him.

I find it interesting that there really isn’t a “pass” or “fail” in God’s testing. Sure the Israelites and many of the Patriarchal fathers turned their back on God when they needed to be trusting Him, but the beauty is that it isn’t a fail because God is still faithful and uses those moments to teach us. Our greatest fail was in not listening and trusting His words that He breathed on us in creation. But our greatest gain is learning that our failures are blotted out by the very Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The very One who took the test in our place, and completed it in all faithfulness as only God could do. Every test is gain as we look to the one who washed us clean and made us white. In Christ we have one who goes before us, and completes what we otherwise would fail. He makes our bitter waters sweet, He promises us healing and cleansing from our sins, and He feeds us with His very body and blood. To quote my supervising pastor at the end of every one of His sermons; “Thanks be to God, for this Jesus Christ! Amen!” 

Exodus 15:25-26 So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There He made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there He tested them, and said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.”

Fighting Against Death

Today was difficult. I cried my make up off and it didn’t take many tears to do that, but even still...it was the first time I cried this much in and among my friends and deaconess students. One of our deaconesses sent me a message to let me know that a woman we had been visiting quite regularly had gone severely ill. This morning I received the call that she had passed away early in the morning and they were trying to find enough money to get the body from the hospital to the home. I have written on funerals before and how they have to burry the body immediately so I have explained that things go quite quickly. 

While the deaconess students and I are all still learning together how these things work and how we communicate the Gospel in the midst of pain and suffering, we know in one another the unity of Christ that carries us through these difficult events. The woman who died left four children behind, and their pain was made known. They suffered for not being able to stop the effects of sin and death upon their mother. My friends; the deaconesses, suffered for not being able to stop the pain of what that death would bring. I suffered to see the tears that rolled down both the children’s faces, and my friends faces. I suffered because it rendered me helpless. My heart has held many people up in prayer as sin has played it’s nasty final card of death, and every time I feel so powerless. Yet every time my arms are held in those of one who is carrying a cross much larger than mine, I am reminded; here God has given us, one to the other so that He can be made known, and I am humbled and honored. 

As I watched both the children and my beloved friends, I saw them fight against death while holding the promise of eternal life within their hands. Here a mother had left her children, yet God has not. God remains present in His word, and in the Body of Christ.  Here in the final days of lent, just before Palm Sunday, a mother no longer walks the lenten path of repentance and reflection on her saviors death, but she lives in the light of the resurrection. She lives to sing the Easter hymns now while we remain to sing the lenten ones. She lives to praise her Savior face to face. Tears may flow and doubts, worries, and sadness linger over our heads and block the light of the blistering sun but not the heat itself. Yet; we hold the light of the world and all His promises, and we support and love one another in these promises. Because He lives we too shall live. Because He lives, we cling to those promises in our veil of tears.

Christ Is Risen, Christ Is Living:

1.)Christ is risen, Christ is living, Dry your tears, be unafraid!

Death and darkness could not hold Him, Nor the tomb in which He lay.

Do not look among the dead for One who lives forever more;

Tell the world that Christ is risen, Make it known He goes before.

2.)If the Lord had never risen, We’d have nothing to believe.

But His promise can be trusted: “You will live, because I live.”

As we share the death of Adam, So in Christ we live again;

Death has lost its sting and terror, Christ the Lord has come to reign.

3.) Death has lost its old dominion, Let the world rejoice and shout!

Christ the firstborn of the living, Gives us life and leads us out.

Let us thank our God, who causes Hope to spring up from the ground;

Christ is risen, Christ is giving Life eternal, life profound. 

1.) ¡Cristo vive, fuera el llanto, los lamentos, y el pesar!

Ni la muerte ni el sepulcro lo han podido sujetar.

No busquéis entre los muertos al que siempre ha de vivir, 

¡Cristo vive! Estas nuevas por doquier dejad oír.

2.) Que si Cristo no viviera vana fuera nuestra fe:

mas se cumple su promesa: ¨Porque vivo, viviréis.¨

Si en Adán entró la muerte, por Jesús la vida entró:

no temáis, el triunfo es vuestro: ¡El Señor resucitó!

3.) Si es verdad que de la muerte el pecado es aguijón, 

no temáis pues Jesucristo nos da vida y salvación

Gracias demos al Dios Padre que nos da seguridad,

que quien cree en Jesucristo vive por la eternidad.   (LSB #479)

For he was drawn out of the water....

He said my name! He smiled at me! She ran to me! She yells my name and stands up for a hug. All these things may be seemingly ordinary, but they carry much weight for me. In our group home are six children with varying disabilities. Some can’t walk well if at all, others can’t talk, and one can’t hear. In all this I find it amazing that at times they are mindful of me! I can’t tell you how my heart and face light up to see Ramona running to come give me a hug. A girl who is particular about having “motherly” figures around chose me! Then there is Estephanie, who is a beautiful young woman in a wheel chair until she sees me, then she lifts herself out of it and gives me a hug. She wants nothing more than to share her life with me and to have me walk alongside of her...me! Moises is a favorite. He wasn’t always. In fact, it took me a long time to notice him and to understand why he was always hitting me. I thought he didn’t like me. But today, when he saw me, he gave me this beautiful smile, just absolutely gorgeous, then he hit me. It is his way of playing. One day I could have sworn he said my name. 

All of these things overwhelm me with honor. That they would rise above their disabilities to acknowledge me! Many times we think our work is to acknowledge the least of these and to serve them, but there is a great reversal here. I can’t fully explain it, but that these beautiful people would show something to me, and share something that is in them that most people don’t get to see; that is precious. Some people can’t get past the spit and drool, some people can’t get past the timidity of each child. Some people don’t wait long enough to see the little boy in the corner merging to play around. Some people can’t handle the broken because they see something they can’t fix, or something that society has told them is wrong. If I ever thought I was condescending to get past these difficult barriers, I was sadly mistaken. The children have condescended to me, and not in a haughty, arrogant demeanor. They respected me and loved me not for having deserved it, but because they are free to do so. They acknowledge me, not because I stoop to their level, but because they have risen to mine. I am humbled by these children, and amazed at the beauty and power God has displayed in them. I am also honored that I can be a voice for the wisdom that they have to give and to share! God is truly using the weak things of this world to make known his mighty deeds.

Luke 1:51-52

He has shown strength with His arm;
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
And exalted the lowly.

To my Katie....

To my Kaite, On the occasion of her departure for the Dominican Republic. I love you. You use this book well. Dad

My dad gave me his Minister’s Prayer Book the day I left for the Dominican. Both law and gospel in that sweet little message. I hate to say it, but, the jacket sleeve explains why I perhaps have not been able to “use this book well.”  It says; “The aim of this book is to deepen and discipline the minister’s life of private devotion.”  Perhaps I have not been able to use the book as a deaconess intern but I have used it as a daughter. On the jacket cover where I found the purpose of the book I found a piece of tape to preserve and hold down the jacket flap. On the following page where my father wrote his note I also find his library seal. Throughout the book are his markings, notes, highlights, and impressions of where paper clips once were. It even still has a mixed smell of his cologne and office. All of these are little reminders for me.

To “use this book well” I suppose I should find value in it and use for it. As I just stated, perhaps as a deaconess intern it isn’t as valuable, but as a daughter it is a treasure. I was a daughter before I was a deaconess intern and so for that it influences the type of deaconess I am to be. As I thumb through the pages I find myself gravitating towards those parts which my father has highlighted. I read them and know at some point for one reason or another my father clung to them. He was once where I am now, his hands once pressed these pages. That he would give this book to me as a comfort says that it offered much consolation for his personal devotional life and for the sharing of the word with others. I cherish every mark, every note, every folded page not for the author but for the previous owner. Even if the book itself has nothing to offer me, every bit of it that reminds me of my father reminds me how much I am loved by him. For that alone I feel I can say I have used it well. 

My heavenly father is much the same. He gives me all his comfort, all his promises, all of his word and claims me for His own though baptism. He also gives me the law in order to give me the gospel. In His word He says; “You use this book well” so that he can tell me “I love you.” We hear His word, we know the law upon our hearts, but do we understand His communication of love? Do we see how precious His seal upon us is in times of difficulty? Do we treasure the trials He gives us to draw us closer to Him? We may not always see a treasure disguised as something normal and irrelevant. In our baptism we have been blessed beyond reason and comprehension. We hold something so normal as water and word, and receive something so grand that we can turn to every day in trials, griefs and difficulties. Then in our final moments, we can know without a doubt that it is ours. We hold all the riches of heaven as real as we hold a thin wafer and drink some wine. He gives it to us, and he gives us the means by which we may know it without a doubt. He has equipped us for the journey, and promises to be forever with us. 

Luke 7:22

Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.

“There are greater honors and higher ranks, but there is no other office that refreshes the weariness of the heart and brings comfort to the poor and speaks peace to the dying and shows a lost world the way home.” -Hermann Bezzel 

DA ME!!!!!!!

DA ME!

Ellos dicen a mi: 

“Da me” cuando tengo nada

“Da me” cuando estoy cansado

“Da me” cuando estoy vacio

Tu me dices:

“Tomalo” cuando estas solo

“Tomalo” cuando no hay nada

“Tomalo” Cuando estas cansada

“Tomalo” cuando estas vacio y descansas en me

Dios es mi luz y mi salvacion a quien temere

This is my attempt at poetry in another language. I have been writing poetry for several years and have 108 pages of writings. Little of my writing; in my opinion, is good. Most of my poetry is just embarrassing. Few people know of my practice because I refuse to share it. The above poem I share because it is easy to do for the fact that it is in another language. I have found there are many things that are easier to do in another language. For example; looking like an idiot and saying stupid stuff. I do it every day. Another thing that I can do is pull the "but....I didn't know because I didn't understand." Probably one of the greatest things about speaking in a foreign language is that you can adopt a new personality. Here, people love abundantly always greeting with a hug, asking about family and saying “Te quiro Mucho!” I am rarely an affectionate person. I depend upon my warm smile, and my bubbly personality to allow people to feel as though they have received a warm hug so that I don’t have to awkwardly draw close to them. I have ways of keeping a safe distance. I also depended upon that same smile to say “I love you” so that I wouldn’t have to choke on the words as I awkwardly say them. All this is to avoid “awkwardness.” 

What is awkward in allowing someone to know your sincere sentiments towards them? Since when did it become weird to give a hug? What made me ever think that I should withhold the words of “I love you” from someone I do love? While it is beautiful that another culture and language makes it easer for me to express my emotions and wear them for all to see, it makes me sad that the most beautiful sentiments that I have to share would remain hidden in word and deed. Don’t worry, I’m not about to share 108 pages of poetry, but I do wish to share my double Latin American personality with you. 

There is an outpouring of love that comes with faith. There are times when words aren’t needed and love needs to be shown in action. In fact, the greatest display of love was quite possibly the most horrific, awkward and most rejected. Veiled as a foreigner in human flesh; the son of God came to us, spoke with the language of the people, and learned our ways as his own. Then when he had shown love in every way possible, he emptied himself and became obedient to death. A touch, a word, an action in love carries the most powerful affect when accepted and the most detrimental when rejected. Having been drained of all he physically had to give he took on the punishment of death so that we would not have to know such chastisement. He loved us in ways we couldn’t possibly fathom. He expressed it in ways that we fail to. He continues to love and communicate that love to all his children in the service of the word and the sacraments. What if his love had been withheld for the awkwardness that it carried? Because he loved us, we too can love with reckless abandonment and know that even when emptied of all that we have, He fills us with his abundant love, and his mercies are new every morning.  

Mark 12:29-31

New King James Version (NKJV)

29 Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’[a] This is the first commandment.[b] 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’[c] There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Joy Found in Christmas Grieving....

It was a cold rainy day off yesterday so I couldn’t do my laundry or go out like I had planned (I like to do as the Dominicans do, it gives me an excuse to be lazy). So I snuggled up in my comfy little corner next to the Christmas tree to the only chapter book I have fully revisited more than a couple times in my life; A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. I suppose I revisit it because every year brings new experiences that give new light to my understanding and reading of the book. This time I marveled at the ease I now have in reading C.S. Lewis. When I first handled the book I knew I held a treasure. I knew it would be a book I carry with me, but I also knew I didn’t fully understand the eloquent articulations of the sophisticated scholar; Clive Staples (two fingers to the nose to convey snobbery). The first time I pressed the pages I thought I knew and fully understood grief without understanding C.S.Lewis. Today however, I know and understand just how much I didn’t know. I guess you could say, I now know how stupid I was and still am.

 Today I read knowing how much more I have yet to glean from this book and from life. I find myself crying far more as I read it now than I did before and I wonder what I have yet to learn and how many more tears the book will bring with years to come. Call it empathy, sympathy or just feeling sorry for myself, call it what you like but I have found that there is a wealth of knowledge to learn in grief. Like a fine wine of balanced dryness, and sweetness, grief is a test by which we know the joys now gone and it intensifies the sorrows felt. We better understand the sweetness in the dryness and the dryness with the sweetness. 

We look at the small mundane things of the world that once held no meaning at all. In our grief we find meaning. We look at something as simple as an evergreen that we have seen a million times before but this time we see it. We attach our grief to the object in a way as to seek after and grasp what once was. We see it as something to be understood in grief. For example; every other time your eyes rested upon that evergreen it was just a prop in your world, but now you look at it and remember that the last time you saw it was with a blissful ignorance without the grief laden eyes that now look upon the same evergreen. That evergreen can then also become a symbol of hope. The hope is that sweetness once experienced will find it’s way back into those things. 

Before grief the evergreen was a prop, in grief it is a painful reminder of what once was, in moving beyond the full blow of grief we can never fully return to it being just a prop again. There is however, a beauty in the fact that once it just was, and now it takes on new meaning. We can now look at the evergreen and look to where we had once been and know that even when grief, sorrow and suffering changes our world, it gives new meaning. We can look at the evergreen and know joy where there was once nothing, all because we have walked through the dark shadow of grief. The morning comes and the light shines and the people walking in darkness have seen a great light! How darkened and meaningless all the props in our world would be if we did not know the pain and suffering once endured by our Savior. He gives new breath, new life in walking our road of tears. He comes to us in human flesh and shows us what it means to live a life of faithfulness. Now the evergreen is not just a prop, it becomes a cross, and later becomes a symbol of hope. 

This life is not just a crescendo of beautiful things only made ugly by grief but perhaps a crescendo of things made beautiful by grief. Bread and wine become a tearful reminder of a final passover meal and progress their way into a celebratory meal where forgiveness is given and God is present. Two intersecting pieces of wood break the heart and carry the remembrance of a dark Friday. From the empty cross stained with blood new life is given. A feeding box for animals was once just that, until a young woman made it into something that could make for a bit of a bed on a night when she had no other choice than to just make do. She gave birth with blood sweat and tears; no different than any other natural birth. I imagine she held her child and remembered the day she received the news that would cause ridicule, mocking, and chastisement, not just for her, but for the child she carried. I imagine she held her first born son and cried the tears of a young mother until fatigue overwhelmed her. I imagine she held the words of the angel and looked upon her son maybe a bit overwhelmed in the normality of the birth. A child brought forth in pain to carry the sins of the world as a man and redeem it from sin and death. It is in his suffering that we find the mundane things of this world to hold beautiful reminders of pain once suffered for us. It is by him that something as cold and normal as rock might communicate once of death, suffering, loss, and pain later to be shattered by His resurrection and His life. I pray that props may be appreciated in your life without experience of great grief this Christmas. I pray that if you are reminded of loved ones lost in the mundane objects of your life, that you may also remember the joy the loved one held in your life. Most of all I pray that everyone would know the exceeding beauty and pleasure of a Savior who comes to us as our Emmanuel and who gives new meaning to the mundane in the midst of grief. Merry Christmas everyone, and God Bless!!!

Joy Found in Christmas Grieving....

It was a cold rainy day off yesterday so I couldn’t do my laundry or go out like I had planned (I like to do as the Dominicans do, it gives me an excuse to be lazy). So I snuggled up in my comfy little corner next to the Christmas tree to the only chapter book I have fully revisited more than a couple times in my life; A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. I suppose I revisit it because every year brings new experiences that give new light to my understanding and reading of the book. This time I marveled at the ease I now have in reading C.S. Lewis. When I first handled the book I knew I held a treasure. I knew it would be a book I carry with me, but I also knew I didn’t fully understand the eloquent articulations of the sophisticated scholar; Clive Staples (two fingers to the nose to convey snobbery). The first time I pressed the pages I thought I knew and fully understood grief without understanding C.S.Lewis. Today however, I know and understand just how much I didn’t know. I guess you could say, I now know how stupid I was and still am.

 Today I read knowing how much more I have yet to glean from this book and from life. I find myself crying far more as I read it now than I did before and I wonder what I have yet to learn and how many more tears the book will bring with years to come. Call it empathy, sympathy or just feeling sorry for myself, call it what you like but I have found that there is a wealth of knowledge to learn in grief. Like a fine wine of balanced dryness, and sweetness, grief is a test by which we know the joys now gone and it intensifies the sorrows felt. We better understand the sweetness in the dryness and the dryness with the sweetness. 

We look at the small mundane things of the world that once held no meaning at all. In our grief we find meaning. We look at something as simple as an evergreen that we have seen a million times before but this time we see it. We attach our grief to the object in a way as to seek after and grasp what once was. We see it as something to be understood in grief. For example; every other time your eyes rested upon that evergreen it was just a prop in your world, but now you look at it and remember that the last time you saw it was with a blissful ignorance without the grief laden eyes that now look upon the same evergreen. That evergreen can then also become a symbol of hope. The hope is that sweetness once experienced will find it’s way back into those things. 

Before grief the evergreen was a prop, in grief it is a painful reminder of what once was, in moving beyond the full blow of grief we can never fully return to it being just a prop again. There is however, a beauty in the fact that once it just was, and now it takes on new meaning. We can now look at the evergreen and look to where we had once been and know that even when grief, sorrow and suffering changes our world, it gives new meaning. We can look at the evergreen and know joy where there was once nothing, all because we have walked through the dark shadow of grief. The morning comes and the light shines and the people walking in darkness have seen a great light! How darkened and meaningless all the props in our world would be if we did not know the pain and suffering once endured by our Savior. He gives new breath, new life in walking our road of tears. He comes to us in human flesh and shows us what it means to live a life of faithfulness. Now the evergreen is not just a prop, it becomes a cross, and later becomes a symbol of hope. 

This life is not just a crescendo of beautiful things only made ugly by grief but perhaps a crescendo of things made beautiful by grief. Bread and wine become a tearful reminder of a final passover meal and progress their way into a celebratory meal where forgiveness is given and God is present. Two intersecting pieces of wood break the heart and carry the remembrance of a dark Friday. From the empty cross stained with blood new life is given. A feeding box for animals was once just that, until a young woman made it into something that could make for a bit of a bed on a night when she had no other choice than to just make do. She gave birth with blood sweat and tears; no different than any other natural birth. I imagine she held her child and remembered the day she received the news that would cause ridicule, mocking, and chastisement, not just for her, but for the child she carried. I imagine she held her first born son and cried the tears of a young mother until fatigue overwhelmed her. I imagine she held the words of the angel and looked upon her son maybe a bit overwhelmed in the normality of the birth. A child brought forth in pain to carry the sins of the world as a man and redeem it from sin and death. It is in his suffering that we find the mundane things of this world to hold beautiful reminders of pain once suffered for us. It is by him that something as cold and normal as rock might communicate once of death, suffering, loss, and pain later to be shattered by His resurrection and His life. I pray that props may be appreciated in your life without experience of great grief this Christmas. I pray that if you are reminded of loved ones lost in the mundane objects of your life, that you may also remember the joy the loved one held in your life. Most of all I pray that everyone would know the exceeding beauty and pleasure of a Savior who comes to us as our Emmanuel and who gives new meaning to the mundane in the midst of grief. Merry Christmas everyone, and God Bless!!!