Lent 27 - Love Perseveres

Endurance by Renee Mendell
Credit: stewart-gallery.co.uk

 He remembered us in our low estate

His love endures forever. 

and freed us from our enemies.

His love endures forever. 

He gives food to every creature.

His love endures forever. 

Give thanks to the God of heaven.

His love endures forever.

Psalm 136 23-26

All I truly know is this; the words of Jesus; "I will never leave you or forsake you." 

Only hold onto these words if you know them to be true.  How do I know they are true?  Have I ever felt left and forsaken.  There I time when I have wondered, but then I was realised I was wrong.  I have been in states when there is no way I could have summonsed up this belief.  Like the children of Israel, I have a list of times to remind me when it get dark, of years of wonderful faithfulness.  

PRAYER:  Thank you for loving me.

Lent 26 - Love Hopes II

Andrea del Sarto 1528
Holy Family. St John passes the orb (or world) to Christ
The Met Art Gallery- New York

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1

When a young couple conceive their first child, they are full of hope for their child/children (twins?) They imagine what joy is ahead.  They hear tiny feet, and fun and laughter.  Baby can't do much to begin with, but the belief exists that the future will be different. We believe in a wonderful future, one of exploring the world, and connecting.

Some couples are given a message of no hope however. Destruction of the foetus may be discussed.  Sadness and worry about the future pervades their spirit.  What should they do?

The Creator must have also have felt joy when they created life, and put us into a special relationship with them.  But they must have known the full story before they started, right to the very end.  And they still went ahead.  This is a message of hope.

PRAYER:  Thank you Lord for believing in me.

Lent 25 - Love Hopes

Eaglein the Sky  by Frank Weston
Benson 1918 Cleveland Museum of Art
clevelandart.org

But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:31

A colleague of mine had her five month scan.  Her third child is growing within her.  We bring our children into the world full of wonder and hope.  We wonder what they will get up to?  What experiences they will have?  What they will achieve?  We hope that they will be well, joyful and loved.

When the Creator brought life into the planet we call home, was this full of the same yearning?  Initially the hope was that our relationship with the Creator would be enough, and life would be fulfilled.  We wanted more, and so we set off one pace from the track.  Soon we lost our way, forgetting our birth rite.  We stumbled and fell.  Battered and broken the Creator picked up us.  As with divorce, a wound had occurred.  The relationship was marred.   But the Creator was not satisfied with this half-life.  The error had to be corrected.  To know that for  life in all it's fullness, you must be 'married again'.  The union is freely offered to us again.  The marriage costs are covered.  All we must say is 'I do'.  This is a commitment for a lifetime.  It will come into it's own in the next world.

PRAYER:  I willingly rush to you, by Lord, saviour and friend.

Lent 24 - Trusts II

Credit:Freepik.com 

 ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’ Jeremiah 33:3

I am in the flow of the river, and pulled along by it's consistent motion.  This is the Spirit of the Creator.  I have chosen to swim into the centre of this river.  It's thrilling, taking me forward.  I remember meeting Cathy Corbett-Jones.  She was newly married to a young vicar in Sydney.  She described how it is the Australian dream to travel the world, and she knew they would not be able to do this because her husband's salary was not that great, and she was expecting a baby.  She told me that she trusted the Lord, and felt that she would see amazing things, even if this was to be in heaven.  She would not be missing anything.

My pastor has done amazing things on not much of a salary.  He has flown in a MAF plane just above the tree canopy in Congo, visiting Pentecostal churches deep in the interior.  He has had experiences you cannot buy.

PRAYER:  I put you first and trust that I have made the right decision. 

Lent 23 - Trusts

Blind Girl by John Everett Millais
Credit : Wikipedia and Birmingham City Art Gallery

Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.“This, then, is how you should pray:

‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name, your kingdom come,
your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’  Matthew 6

We remember the days when we used to play the trust game.  I fell backwards, and the young people I am with caught me (or didn't).   I felt a twinge of that when I stepped out of the small Cesena aeroplane in Fayetteville, Arkansas, to freefall for about 100 meters before the parachute cord was pulled.  It was supposed to have been my job to do that, but I forgot.  It was done by my instructor, and perhaps this is like the love we experience from our Creator.  We don't have to ask.  Like the instructor,  I am strapped to the one who is always with me as I freefall though life.

PRAYER: Thank you that language is not needed.  You just know.

Fourth Sunday in lent

 

Moses receiving the ten
commandments by Marc Chagall, 
Credit: masterworksfineart.com

• You shall not commit adultery.
• You shall not steal.

Lent 22 - Love Protects II

Peace in the midst of a storm, By Jack E Dawson
Credit jackdawson.com

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters". 1 John 3:16

If I am loved, will the Creator protect me?  Look at the life of Jesus.  Was he protected?  Jesus lived through the most traumatic experiences, eventually ending with his murder....so, er, no(?)  Love protects must be something different.  I think it is similar to the parent who sees their child abuse alcohol/drug or gamble having their face slammed down in the mud by this possession.  The parent plays no part in the evil and yearns for dignity for their child.  This love is enormous and laden with pain.  They do everything to protect their child, except take away their freedom and bind they up.

Ultimately Jesus was protected by being transformed through glorious resurrection on Easter Day.  This is the same for us.  Ultimately we are protected at that considerably deeper level.  

This is what Alexey Navalny said during his sentencing in a Russian court (February 2021).  

“If you want I’ll talk to you about God and salvation. I’ll turn up the volume of heartbreak to the maximum, so to speak. The fact is that I am a Christian, which usually rather sets me up as an example for constant ridicule in the Anti-Corruption Foundation, because mostly our people are atheists and I was once quite a militant atheist myself.

But now I am a believer, and that helps me a lot in my activities, because everything becomes much, much easier. I think about things less. There are fewer dilemmas in my life, because there is a book in which, in general, it is more or less clearly written what action to take in every situation. It’s not always easy to follow this book, of course, but I am actually trying. And so, as I said, it’s easier for me, probably, than for many others, to engage in politics."

Ultimately Alexey was murdered in a Siberian Gulag on 16th February 2024

PRAYER: I praise you that I am now free to live like you.

PS I heard this picture described many years ago in a sermon.  It features a small dove sheltering in the cliff face in the tumult of a storm.  I have tried to find information about it, when it was painted, and were it is to be found currently, but with no success.