Atheism and Evangelism

So I was checking the Twitter this evening when I ran across an article about a 1-800 number for religious doubts. Naturally this is going to create a lot of consternation among us religious types. My reaction was pretty visceral right off the bat.

"This is a threat" I said to myself.

"We should fight this" came the natural response.

"This is the natural progression of what the church has sown over the most recent period in its history"

Wait, what was that last one again?

I was musing with a ministry mentor of mine over a meal on Monday (an alliterative anecdote!). We shifted over to the decline of mainline churches, and how the primary shift has been that young adults, who traditionally step away from the church once they graduate high school and then return they begin having kids, have stopped coming back. When we ask them why, they tend to answer that the church is irrelevant and they're not sure how necessary God is either. Then they sometimes say that they learned it from us.

Yikes! In our affirmation of doubt as a natural part of faith, we've stepped out of the polarizing spectrum between Fundamentalism, which abhors doubts and questions, and Atheism, which says that doubts are stepping away from blindness and into enlightenment based on empirical observation.

Mainline Christians are in the middle, and therefore get painted with the same brush as each side uses to paint the other.

So here we are looking at a 1-800 number for people facing doubts that will be staffed by those who have a vested interest in confirming those doubts. Of course we're startled by it, it seems that Atheists are better at evangelism than Mainline Protestants are!

This is troubling stuff. Out of respect for others' views, we are trying not to step on their views, acknowledging that we don't know everything and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide people to whatever slice of truth fits them the best, be that Presbyterianism, or Methodism, or Atheism, or Buddhism, or Jedi, or what have you.

Are we surprised that when we say "we don't have the only truth" and others say "We have the Facts" that those who seek the truth are confused as to which is which, especially when we so often muddle the difference between facts and truth?

Well, my Mainline Protestant friends, here's my thought. There is an objective truth out there, and it isn't mathematics: It's God. All other truths derive from God, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Where we get into trouble is in thinking that we have control over, or unfiltered access to, that Truth. The only access we have is in God's own self-revelation of the Truth.

The truth is revealed most fully in Christ Jesus, who is, in the words of Hans Frei, most himself in the crucifixion and resurrection event. We've got to know that truth all the way down to our core, and use the gifts God has given us to testify to that truth.

I still affirm that doubts and questions are a healthy and necessary part of faith development, and should never stop. Though there is much that is unknown, and some that is perhaps unknowable, I can testify to this slice truth: Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so.

An Introduction to Crowd-Sourced Exegesis.

Linguistics and Commentaries

One of the perks of being a Seminary-type person is that you get to know a lot of really good preachers. Some of them even have blogs! Like my friends Bethany and Stephen, both of whom are excellent writers and preachers.

I'm also a preacher (defined here as "one who preaches" even though I'm not ordained). And over the last couple of years I've done a series called "Crowd-Sourced Exegesis." Where I ask the internet with help writing my sermons. I've had moderate success with it, but have found that the people who do contribute to the discussion are wonderful and have brilliant insights.

Although I no longer have a regular preaching gig, I still think that the discussions we have are beneficial to me, and to those who participate. So internet, you and I are going to do a video-commentary series together.

Each Tuesday, I'm going to post a video of myself reading a scripture passage, following the Revised Common Lectionary. It will usually be the Gospel Passage, but may change from time to time. I'll read it out loud, give a few thoughts to start the discussion, and then turn y'all loose in the comment section.

In order to give time for good discussion to happen, I'm going to stay a week ahead of the lectionary. That way preachers who are fervently searching for ideas in the days before they preach will get to see a fully-fleshed out discussion.

It'll be like a homiletical Idea Channel!

Behind Closed Doors (John 20:19-31)

Behind Closed Doors from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.
John 20:19-31
19It was still the first day of the week. That evening, while the disciples were behind closed doors because they were afraid of the Jewish Authorities, Jesus came and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. When the disciples saw the Lord, they were filled with joy. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.” 22Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you don’t forgive them, they aren’t forgiven.”
24Thomas, the one called Didymus, one of the Twelve, wasn’t with the disciples when Jesus came. 25The other disciples told him, “We’ve seen the Lord!”
But he replied, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, put my finger in the wounds left by the nails, and put my hand into his side, I won’t believe.”
26After eight days his disciples were again in a house and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus entered and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here. Look at my hands. Put your hand into my side, no more disbelief. Believe!
28Thomas responded to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!!
29Jesus replied, “Do you believe because you see me? Happy are those who don’t see and yet believe.”
30Then Jesus did many other miraculous signs in his disciples’ presence, signs that aren’t recorded in this scroll. 31But these things are written so you will believe that Jesus is the Christ, God’s Son, and that believing, you will have life in his name.

This is the Word of the Lord,
Thanks be to God

We have seen the Lord.

Last Sunday we proclaimed proudly “The LORD is Risen!” He is Risen indeed! We read it, we said it, we sang it, we put our faith into the testimony of the women who went to the Tomb.

And yet, here we are, on the evening of that same day. These unnamed and unnumbered followers of Jesus are gathered together, and either word hasn’t gotten around to this particular group of disciples, or they’re still stuck on the idle talk version of the story.

We have seen the Lord, and yet we gather behind closed doors.

The disciples, we are told, have closed the doors around themselves because they are afraid of the Jewish authorities, afraid that perhaps, unsatisfied with the leader of their little movement, they will come next for his followers. They are behind closed doors because perhaps they are still anonymous enough that if they keep their heads down they won’t be recognized on the streets of their holy city as being one of those people, one of his people. This group of Jesus’s followers have closed themselves in because even if it’s too late for those who are known as the Twelve, whom Jesus called friends, perhaps the outer circles of Jesus’s followers can still escape the persecution that sent their Lord to the cross and to his grave. Perhaps, behind these closed doors, the authorities whom they fear might not find them.

We have seen the Lord, and yet we gather behind closed doors, because what lies outside those doors scares us.

Behind closed doors, we may not be safe, but we are at least a little hidden from the festivals in which we dare not partake. These festivals remember when we were slaves in Egypt, when God passed over the homes that were marked by the blood of a lamb, when God struck down the firstborn of every Egyptian household. These festivals cannot enter through these doors. We have closed them out because the one we have called Firstborn of all Creation has also been struck down, and we know we are still in bondage. We gather behind closed doors because outside is a world where our God has been executed.

We have seen the Lord, and yet we gather behind closed doors, because what lies outside those doors scares us. But Jesus stands among us.

The Lamb of God, whose life blood ran out along a spear-forged path only a few days ago, stands among us, and speaks to our disbelieving fear, “Peace be with you.”

Lest we believe that the darkness of what we call Good Friday has been erased, Jesus shows us his hands. Lest we believe that the light that shows forth on our Easter evening is some sort of trick, Jesus shows us his side. Lest we believe that our whole world is lost to chaos and fear, Jesus says to us, “Peace be with you.”

We have seen the Lord, and yet we gather behind closed doors, because what lies outside those doors scares us. But Jesus stands among us, resurrecting faith in the one he calls Father.

Jesus said to the disciples again, “Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you don’t forgive them, they aren’t forgiven.”

Behind these closed doors Jesus stands among us, speaks to us, breathes on us, and empowers us to enter into the world from which we have tried to hide. The same breath that filled the dust of Adam with life, the same Spirit that hovered over the waters at creation, the same Son who died on the cross, the same voice that on Easter Morning called Mary by name charges us to step out from behind our closed doors and release people from their bondage to sin.

When we think of sin, it’s easy to picture a long list of what we have done wrong, but the writer of John’s gospel has a different understanding of sin. For John, sin isn’t an action, it’s a reality that holds us captive from the God who would stand among us. Immersed in John’s understanding, “Forgiveness of sins is not about the act of penance in relation to individual deeds. Rather, forgiveness of sins is the community’s Spirit-empowered mission to continue Jesus’ work of making God known in the world.1” Jesus breathes on them, charges them to receive the Holy Sprit, and make God’s intervention known throughout the whole world. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, the disciples are filled with joy, and can take their testimony out from behind the closed doors.

We have seen the Lord, and yet we gather behind closed doors, because what lies outside those doors scares us. But Jesus stands among us, resurrecting faith in the one he calls Father. Our God will not be shut out.

Our God will not even be shut out by Thomas, the one called Didymus, one of the Twelve. He too has seen the Lord, crucified, dead, and buried. Thomas, whose memory is still wet from his master kneeling down and washing his feet, still hears the disciples’ testimony as idle talk. He wasn’t with them, gathered behind those closed doors, when Jesus came.

The other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But Thomas replied, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, put my finger in the wounds left by the nails, and put my hands in his side, I won’t believe.”

Doubting Thomas we call him. We call him. Scripture gives us a list of his aliases: Thomas, the one called Didymus, one of the Twelve. But never called the one who doubted, because Thomas only demands what the other disciples have already received: a physical encounter with the risen Christ.

Eight days after their encounter with the risen Christ, his disciples were again in a house, and Thomas was with them.

We have seen the Lord, and yet we gather behind closed doors, because what lies outside those doors scares us. But Jesus stands among us, resurrecting faith in the one he calls Father. Our God will not be shut out, not even by us.

Even though the doors were locked, Jesus entered and stood among them. Even though we have seen the Lord, we still gather behind closed doors. This time, we go even farther, they are locked behind us so that maybe the darkness can be kept outside.

But this is the Gospel according to John, and in the Gospel according to John, a light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light.

Even though the doors are locked, in a futile attempt to hold back the darkness, the light of the world enters and stands among us. The light which shines in the darkness will not be shut out. Even though we have retreated further into our fear, even though we have settled back into the bondage of our sin, even though we hide from the filling joy of Easter for fear that we will just be emptied again at another crucifixion, Jesus enters and stands among us, breaking through the barriers we have set up because we think they protect us, when all they do is separate us from God. But Jesus enters and stands among us, because our God will not even be shut out by us.

He said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here. Look at my hands. Put your hand into my side. No more disbelief. Believe!”

Lest Thomas believe the darkness of Good Friday has been erased, Jesus says “Put your finger here. Look at my hands.” Lest Thomas believe that the light that shines forth throughout our Easter season is some sort of trick, Jesus says, “Put your hand into my side.” Lest we believe our whole world is lost to chaos and fear, Jesus says, “No more disbelief. Believe!”

We have seen the Lord, and yet we gather behind closed doors, because what lies outside those doors scares us. But Jesus stands among us, resurrecting faith in the one he calls Father. Our God will not be shut out, not even by us. God is with us always.

Without even waiting to touch the wounds, Thomas responds to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” His experience of Christ is undeniable, and his belief is immediate. Thomas, who still believed himself captive to sin, is set free by the God who enters through a locked door and presents himself with his wounds still open, so that Thomas is presented with the reality of God’s refusal to abandon him. Thomas, the one called Didymus, one of the Twelve, takes his testimony beyond the disciples’ assertion of having seen the Lord, and intensifies it into a confession of belief in a God who is with him always. Thomas, whom we called Doubter, responds to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus replies, with a knowing smile I imagine, “Do you believe because you see me? Happy are those who don’t see and yet believe.” It is easy to believe when we see God standing before us, shining in the glory of Easter’s resurrection. It is easy to believe when the blessings of God are so evident in our lives. It is easy to believe when all seems right with the world.

But that is not always the season in which our narratives find us

We gather behind closed doors when we are in a season of overwrought obligations, or a season of legal troubles, or a season of addiction, or of families that we are trying to hold together with both hands. When we are in seasons of locks which separate us, whether they are locks forged in despair, or anger, or fear, then it is hard to believe. When we are in seasons that have caused us to close ourselves off, whether it’s anxiety over not having enough money, or feeling lost and directionless, or even being constantly overwhelmed by the pressures of the grades you’ve been told will shape the rest of your life, then it is hard to believe. Even when it is hard to believe, and irrespective of the anxiety that we think locks us away from God, Jesus enters and stands among us.

We have seen the Lord, and yet we gather behind closed doors, because what lies outside those doors scares us. But Jesus stands among us, resurrecting faith in the one he calls Father. Our God will not be shut out, not even by us. God is with us always, revealed in Christ our Lord.

If you want to know what lengths God will traverse in order to stand among us, look at the life of Jesus: Through all the wonders, all the people he heals, his life leads him not to the foot of the cross, but to be executed upon it, crying out of the depths of despair that too often our brothers and sisters, or perhaps we ourselves, also have known, “My God, my God! Why have you abandoned me?” When that death could not contain him, he rose again from the dead, and when we gather behind closed doors, even though they may be locked, they will not stand in the way of the God who descended into hell so that we might never experience total separation from God. These locks will not shut out the God who broke the power of sin and death so that we might walk in newness of life. God does not and will not leave our side, even though darkness may close in all around us. Even if we feel cut off from Easter’s joy, God comes in to where we have locked ourselves away and says “Peace be with you.”

We have seen the Lord, and yet we gather behind closed doors, because what lies outside those doors scares us. But Jesus stands among us, resurrecting faith in the one he calls Father. Our God will not be shut out, not even by us. God is with us always, revealed in Christ our Lord, made known through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And that unfailing love which refuses to leave our side, sends us out into the world, empowered by the Holy Spirit, so that we participate in the process of loving God’s people, and so that we may tell all of the people of God that we no longer need to gather behind closed doors, that through Jesus the Christ, who is God’s Son, our refrain has been transformed:

We have seen the Lord, and so we gather around a table, because the community gathered here is founded on love. And Jesus stands among us, resurrecting faith in the one he calls Father. Our God will not let us go, even though we are broken. God loves us always, made known in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

#Witness

#Witness from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Isaiah 43:8-13

⁸Bring out the blind people

who have eyes,

the deaf ones who have ears. 

⁹All the nations are gathered together,

the peoples are assembled.

Which of them announced this?

Who predicted to us the past events?

Let them bring their witnesses 

as a defense;

let them hear and say, “It’s true!”

¹⁰You are my witnesses, say the LORD,

my servant whom I chose,

so that you would

know and believe me

and understand that I am the one.

Before me no god was formed;

after me there has been no other.

¹¹I, I am the LORD,

and there is no savior besides me.

¹²I announced, I saved, I proclaimed,

not some stranger among you.

You are my witnesses, says the LORD,

and I am God.

¹³From the dawn of time, I am the one.

No one can escape my power.

I act, and who can undo it?

This is the Word of the Lord,

Thanks be to God

John 9:1-7, 24-38

¹As Jesus walked along, he saw a man who was blind from birth. ²Jesus’ disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned so that he was born blind, this man or his parents?”

³Jesus answered, “Neither him nor his parents. This happened so that God’s mighty works might be displayed in him. ⁴While it’s daytime, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work. ⁵While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

⁶After he said this, he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and smeared the mud on the man’s eyes. ⁷Jesus said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (this word means sent). So the man went away and washed. When he returned, he could see.

²⁴Therefore, [The Jewish Leaders] called a second time for the man who had been born blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know this man[Jesus] is a sinner.”

²⁵The man answered, “I don’t know whether he’s a sinner. Here’s what I do know: I was blind, and now I see.”

²⁶They questioned him, “What did he do to you? How did he heal your eyes?”

²⁷He replied, “I already told you, and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciple too?”

²⁸They insulted him: “You are his disciple, but we are Moses’ disciples. 29We know that God spoke to Moses, but we don’t know where this man is from.”

³⁰The man answered, “This is incredible! You don’t know where he is from, yet he healed my eyes! ³¹We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners. God listens to anyone who is devout and does God’s will. ³²No one has ever heard of a healing of the eyes of someone born blind. ³³If this man wasn’t from God, he couldn’t do this.”

³⁴They responded, “You were born completely in sin! How is it that you dare to teach us?” Then they expelled him.

³⁵Jesus heard they had expelled the man born blind. Finding him, Jesus said, “Do you believe in the [Son of Man]?”

³⁶He answered, “Who is he, sir? I want to believe in him.”

³⁷Jesus said, “You have seen him. In fact, he is the one speaking with you.”

³⁸The man said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshipped Jesus.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

For two thousand years we’ve heard stories of the light of the world who came into the world. For two thousand years we’ve heard stories of darkness that cannot understand the light. For two thousand years we’ve heard stories of the blind and lame and sick and dying being healed.

And for two thousand years we have continued to have people grow sick, for two thousand years we have had people go blind. For two thousand years we have lived with the symptoms of our slavery to sin. For two thousand years we have wondered why it still hurts so much if our salvation has already been accomplished.

For two thousand years we have had brutal wars that spanned across the world that Jesus came to save. For two thousand years we have had diseases that spread throughout nations. For two thousand years we have had towns cry out in terror when their children were victims of violence in the very places we build to teach and protect them. For two thousand years we have witnessed loved ones descend into their own personal darknesses of fear, weakness, and despair.

And after two thousand years of hearing one story and having another thrust in front of us, it is easy to forget, to lose interest, to get distracted, and to no longer wish to see.

For two thousand years we have walked with these two stories competing to shape our reality. I don’t think that one story is more real than the other, I think it’s terribly insensitive to tell someone who is grieving, or hurting, or in pain that their suffering is not real. Because it is real. Sometimes the darkness is blindingly real. In those moments we need someone to tell us a story that we cannot believe, because we’re still blind, even though we have eyes, and we’re still deaf, even though we have ears.

The story we cannot believe comes to us from the great cloud of witnesses who hold us up, from those who have a vision of what God is doing in the world, and describe it to us, enabling us to move forward in service to a God who faithfully holds us up even when all we see is our stumbling.

Heirs to two thousand years of church missteps and faithfulness, You, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, are God’s witnesses. God’s servant, whom he chose, so that you would know and believe God, and understand that God is the one.

Grammar nerd that I am, I love that while “witnesses” is plural, “servant” is singular. How’s that for what it means to be the church. As we discern what our guiding vision for the next chapter of our life together should be, we have in this passage a description of us both as individuals and as a collective.

Each of us, individually, are God’s witnesses, because not only have we seen the work that our God has done, and is doing, we are called to testify on God’s behalf. This courtroom language is not accidental, because like the man born blind, our truth, our whole truth, is that we were blind, and now we can see. Because the light of the world came into the world, and God’s mighty works are displayed in us.

But together, the people who are St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church are God’s servant. As a body of witnesses, we are the body of Christ, not each going our own way, but coming together as a servant of our LORD, who’s mighty works are displayed throughout the history we have been given.

Verse 11 of our old testament lesson proclaims “I, I am the LORD, and there is no savior besides me.” This isn’t the word of a god who built a world and then let it spin on without intervention, the same voice that speaks into being things which do not exist, who told Pharaoh to let his people go, comes to earth as a human in Christ Jesus, bringing sight to a man born blind, not as a magic trick, but as a restoration from the darkness he had always known, into the light that he had no way to understand.

Because when you’re born blind, it’s not a return to sight, there’s no memory of what a face or a building looks like, you’re starting from scratch. Going from that kind of darkness to the light that Jesus provides him is an entirely new way of living that doesn’t play by the same rules as your old existence.

The man born blind has a stranger rub spit-mud into his eyes, then sends him to a pool to wash. When he comes out, his old world of darkness is gone, and now he doesn’t fit into his old niche, and there is not a comfortable new role for him to easily slide into.

Because he cannot deny what God has done for him, he is a witness to the one who not only restores sight, but creates it where it had never been before. The man himself testifies to that in verses 31 and 32: We know that God doesn't listen to sinners. God listens to anyone who is devout and does God's will. No one has ever heard of a healing of the eyes of someone born blind. This is what we think we know about God, that if you’re good, you’ll have your prayers answered, and if you’re bad, God won’t give you what you want.

That’s not a description of God, that’s a description of Santa Claus. And after two thousand years of hearing stories of healing the eyes of those born blind, I expect more of my God than a naughty and nice list. After two thousand years of having people want things that are destructive, I expect more of my God than to give me what I want. After two thousand years of having brokenness so apparent in our world I expect more of my God than to just fix my problems. After two thousand years, I expect my God to break forth as a beauteous heavenly light and to usher in the morning. After two thousand years I expect my God to shine in the darkness, because the darkness cannot overcome it.

You, you are the LORD, and there is no savior besides you. And though we were born completely in sin, we would dare to be taught by you, because you are the God who works wonders, even in such broken mediums as the witnesses you have appointed, even in such weak voices as the servant whom you chose.

Because when you’re born in sin, it’s not a return to righteousness, there’s no ability to act in a way that’s fully acceptable in God’s sight, even our best acts are still touched by our brokenness. Going from this kind of darkness to the light that Jesus provides is an entirely new way of living that doesn’t play by the same rules as our old existence.

God works through those who despair to show the depth of the hope we have in Jesus Christ. God works through those who are weak to show the vastness of God’s strength to hold us up. God works through those who are paralyzed by fear to show the heights of God’s faithfulness enacted on our behalf.

Though we are heirs to a broken world, and deserve the consequences of the world in which we live, we are wrapped in the righteousness of Christ, and made fellow heirs to a light that is beyond what we can imagine. That is the action we have witnessed, that we are rescued from our darkness before we even know what it means to be light.

The LORD speaks through Isaiah, From the dawn of time, I am the one. No one can escape my power. I act, and who can undo it?

From the coming of Christ’s light into the world, God is the one who announced, saved, and proclaimed, not some stranger. No one can escape from God’s power to bring light where there was only darkness, when God acts, no one can undo it. We must stand, then, as witnesses of God’s mighty acts, even when we do not know or understand.

The man born blind didn’t understand, no one had ever heard of a healing of the eyes of a man born blind. He didn’t even know what the man who had healed him looked like, it was only after he washed that he was able to see. He didn’t even know if the man who healed him was a sinner. 

But here’s what he did know, that he was blind, and now he saw. Beginning with that simple witness, he was able to affirm that if the man who healed him had not been from God, he couldn’t do this. He moves from the change he sees in himself to making a powerful claim about who his savior was: God, acting through this man who he did not know.

He believes his claim so fervently that he holds onto it even when the leaders of his community cast him out.

Jesus heard they had expelled the man born blind. Finding him, Jesus said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

Jesus hears what has happened to his blind witness, and he doesn’t abandon him, he goes and finds him. He finds him shaken, he finds him questioning his faith, he finds him as abandoned by his community as when he was still blind, he finds him afraid, and weak, and close to despair, and Jesus asks him to give his witness statement once more. Do you, my servant whom I chose, know and believe me and understand that the Son of Man is the one?

He answered, “Who is he, sir? I want to believe in him.”

To the prophet Isaiah, the Lord said I announced, I saved, I proclaimed, not some stranger among you. Because it hasn’t been just two thousand years, God has been active for ten thousand, and the light of the world shining brighter than the sun. From the foundation of the world God has saved and proclaimed and been intimately involved with his witnesses and servant, like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child God speaks comfort to my people Israel. Because even though we may not know Christ while he is doing the work of the Father who sent him, to the prophet Isaiah, the LORD says, I announced, I saved, I proclaimed, not some stranger among you.

And to a man born blind, Jesus says, “You have seen him.”

To a man born blind, who can count on two hands the number of faces he has seen in his life, to a man born blind, who cannot go home and resume his lifestyle of begging because the Son of Man has changed the nature of his existence, to a man born blind who began with an observation and moved to an affirmation that his healer was from God, to a man born blind, Jesus says, “You have seen him. In fact, he is the one speaking with you.”

The man said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshipped Jesus.

We don’t know what happens to this man after this chapter ends. Perhaps he is restored to his place in the community, perhaps he learns a trade and remembers who’s action he has witnessed. We don’t know if he goes on to start a family, or if he sneaks into another story somewhere later in the bible. After two thousand years, We don’t know how this witness’s testimony changes his life.

We don’t know how God’s intervention in our lives will change the nature of our servanthood. We don’t know what mighty works God will choose to display in us as we act on our visioning process. We don’t know what programs will flourish, or decline, or even what programs we’ll have to say “no” to.

After two thousand years, here’s what we do know: though we were blind, we have eyes, and though we were deaf, we have ears. And we have seen the LORD.

Together in the Storm

Together in the Storm from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Mark 4:35-41

³⁵Later that day, when evening came, Jesus said to them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake.” ³⁶They left the crowd and took him in the boat just as he was. Other boats followed along.

³⁷Gale-force winds arose, and waves crashed against the boat so that the boat was swamped. ³⁸But Jesus was in the rear of the boat, sleeping on a pillow. They woke him up and said, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re drowning?”

³⁹He got up and gave orders to the wind, and he said to the lake, “Silence! Be still!” The wind settled down and there was a great calm. ⁴⁰Jesus asked them, “Why are you frightened? Don’t you have faith yet?”

⁴¹Overcome with awe, they said to each other, “Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him!”

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God.

It’s strange to talk about storms when it’s sunny outside. I can reach back to when I was in youth group and picture a day on the boat out on Lake James, near where I grew up. Picturing myself on a boat is no problem. Dave and Morgan can show you pictures of what the sea of Galilee looks like, so I can imagine being there, but it’s strange to think about a sky darkening, violent winds, torrents of rain and flashes of lightning when we look outside our windows at see birds singing, a lazy haze over the parking lot, and great helping of sunshine.

It’s strange to talk about storms when it’s sunny outside.

We’ve all certainly sat through the kind of great thunderstorm of which Mark speaks in this text, they’re a humbling display of the powers of nature, a place where one sees the hand of God in the majesty of creation.

But outside, it’s a bright sunny day with a high of 93 degrees, and man is it humid. But it doesn’t even really look like rain...

On a day like today it’s easy to keep this story of boats and storms out at arms length, to put it in a particular place in history and let it stay there, I have no doubt that Jesus and his followers sailed into some severe weather that evening on the sea of Galilee. But it’s strange to talk about storms when it’s sunny outside.

We can join Jesus in his Sunday afternoon nap, this story takes place after he’s preached a series of parables, and many preachers will tell you that the Sunday afternoon nap is one of the greatest gifts God has given us in this world, and on this lazy sunny day, we can curl up on a pillow for a great nap, but this storm business just doesn’t fit when it’s sunny outside.

Unless you’re dealing with another kind of storm in your own life. Not the kind of storm they tell you about on the news, where a nice suit and a smiling face report facts and describe computer models, but rather the kind of storm we put on our motivational posters, where it’s just a symbol for all the problems we’ve internalized. The storm has become a cliche, unless you’re in the middle of it.

I wonder if the disciples would have told this story to the people they met after Jesus’s earthly ministry ended. I wonder if they would tell it to the head of household who’s finances have dried up and he isn’t sure how he can provide for his family anymore. I wonder if they would tell this story to the mother holding her sick child. I wonder if they would tell it to the student who felt overwhelmed by all his responsibilities. I wonder if they would tell this story to the teenager who was sure she had disappointed her parents, and wasn’t sure if they would still accept her. I wonder if they told this story to the community in crisis, trying to decide how it would maintain its identity in the face of a world that is changing so quickly, or not quickly enough. I wonder what problems we would lift up that would inspire them to tell this story once again...I wonder...

Because when that’s the kind of storm you’re dealing with, then it’s the sunny day that doesn’t fit anymore, and it’s strange to be out in the sun when your storms are so great that your boat is swamped. When you’re in the storm, it doesn’t matter what the weather is like, you don’t want to have that Sunday afternoon nap on the pillow next to Jesus, you want this man to get up and help keep the boat from sinking.

We can echo the disciples voices: “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re drowning?” Teacher, we know that you’re still present, we know you’re right here in the boat with us. The wisdom of your parables is still ringing in our ears, even though we don’t yet fully understand. You speak and we struggle to hear it over the sounds of the thunder. We want to stand beside you, but the waves are crashing over the sides of the boat and our feet will not stay under us. Why do you choose now to be silent, sleeping in the midst of a storm that is more than we can bear. We need your instruction now, tell us what to do! You’ve told us how to handle our faith, now how do we handle this boat in the midst of a storm?

There’s a saying, “We’re all in the same boat.” It’s meant to convey that we all struggle through things together, but it also removes the particularity of the things with which we are struggling. I don’t know that I buy that the single mother working two jobs has the same struggle as the young man who is targeted by online bullying. The grandfather who struggles to find a place in a world where he and his closest friends are seeing the decline of their minds and bodies is going through something different than the young woman wondering if perhaps she does not love in the same way her friends do.

Perhaps we are not in the same boat. A congregation as diverse as this one and a church as diverse as the PC(USA) is full of people who see the world differently and interpret what they see based on different values. It’s tempting to think that we’re the only ones who are having to deal with all this mess, that somehow no one else can feel the same as we are feeling. No one else will have to face the problems we have. Especially in a world where the expectation is that one must have all the answers, one must have a handle on all of one’s problems, one must not show any kind of weakness or dependence on others. It’s as though it’s alright to ask for help if and only if you don’t need it.

It’s tempting to feel like we are alone out there in our own little boat, facing an impossible storm, especially when it’s sunny outside, and we feel like nothing can bring us back from our self-imposed separation from those we want to love, whom we want to love us. Perhaps we are not in the same boat. But we’re not brought together by some wooden fishing vessel. Our diverse particular little boats are united by Christ, whom we have followed out onto this sea, and into this storm.

And when our particular boats get swamped, Like the disciples in our scripture lesson, we only know that our master seems to be asleep in the back, either unaware or uncaring that this storm into which we’ve sailed is about to end us, and it’s tempting to think that our boats are either in the worst shape or are in the worst part of the storm, and we’ve got to somehow get by on our own.

But when we left the crowd and took God in the boat just as he was, other boats followed along. They heard the same teaching, they’ve seen the same wonders, and though their boats are different, we know that they’re out there, struggling across the stormy sea of Galilee as well, even though they cannot see our boat or be a part of our crew, we can know that no matter what the storm looks like to them, they are crying out to God just as we are: “Lord, don’t you care that we’re drowning?”

I’ve always pictured Jesus, hearing this question in his own boat, groggily getting up, calming the storm, somewhat grumpily saying to his disciples, “Why are you frightened? Don’t you have faith yet?” And immediately going back to his pillow and resuming his great nap.

But Jesus was only riding in one of the boats, the other boats wouldn’t have seen everything that happened. As the wind settled down and a great calm came over the lake, they would have looked at one another, then to the other boats, perhaps just in time to catch a glimpse of Jesus turning toward his disciples, maybe they were close enough to hear what he said to them, maybe they were far enough away to recognize who it had to be, that even the wind and the sea obey him. We don’t get that part of the story.

But we can infer that once they crossed the lake they all reached the same shore, and they mingled with the other crews, and each told their own part of the story, each shared their particular experience, and each saw Jesus through the eyes of those around them.

Although we’re in different boats, we’re all in the same storm. It looks different to each of us, and we experience and understand it differently, but more important than that diverse commonality is that we all see Christ’s hands calming that storm, and bringing us safely to the other side, irrespective of our own fears and faiths, our Lord goes through the great storm with us, and through the great calm after it. We see this Jesus differently, just as we saw the storm differently.

This week begins our three week series of exploring what the Bible says about Love, Marriage, and Sex. We will undoubtably find ourselves in different places on a number of issues these weeks, but we will come together all the same, listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit to surprise us in the midst of our disagreement. We cannot stop listening just because we disagree with one another, because that would refute the power of Christ to bring our little boats together, and to hold them safely as we find different ways of navigating across this sea.

We may not be in the same boat, but we are united in Christ, and our comfort in the storm is that we are not alone even while we are drowning. It’s strange talk about storms when it’s sunny outside, but it’s not the weather than unites us. It’s strange to talk about how sunny it is outside in the midst our internalized turmoil, but the storm cannot pull us apart. We know that our timid faith, such as it is, is in the Christ who holds us all together, no matter what boat we’ve put ourselves in, and no storm can shake our inmost calm while to that great rock we are clinging.

Prayer: Great God, we are in a time when it is easy to put ourselves into categories of for and against, of right and wrong. We live in a world that teaches us to order ourselves according to those with whom we agree, but you taught us that in Christ there is no Jew nor Greek, male or female, slave or free. Our boats are different, but your unifying love for us remains constant. Give us the strength to remember that we are your people, and though we’d rather all of this would settle down, living in the storms is where we can see that even the wind and the sea obey you. Help us to remember that your voice speaks amid the chaos, and that we will reach the shore together, not as identical people, but as a people united in your relentlessly transformative love. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Home By Now (II Corinthians 5:1-10,16-21)

Home By Now from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Base!

It’s the safe place, those playing the game have set it aside as a state that is outside the rules of the game, where the person who is “it” can’t get to you. A place where the slower ones among us can stop to catch our breath, and those who are more daring can venture farther and farther away, tempting the “it” person after them, only to dash back to whatever tree or post has been designated as the inviolable safe zone.

In baseball, the rules about bases are more prescribed, only one person on a base at a time, you have to go through them in a specific order, and you can’t pass someone on your team.

But the concept is the same, as long as you’re touching this bag, you’re safe. Everything else is just an incentive to get off of the base so the defense has a chance to get you.

Like so much of what happens in our schoolyard days, we never really grow out of these bases. They just get more complex. Rather than just picking whatever landmark catches our attention, we build houses, offices, buy fancy cars, or just lay claim to a particular booth at our favorite restaurant. Because, Hey, if we lived here, we’d be home by now.

Paul, though, puts us into a tent. And like our schoolyard bases, the only thing that keeps us safe in this tent is that we’ve all agreed to pretend that there is more between us and the chaotic world from which we’re retreating than such a thin piece of fabric. If you tag me when I’m already on base, you don’t understand the game. If you come into my tent, then you’re not playing right. But the reality is that our tents can collapse in on us with no warning, because they are held up only by what we have said at recess.

But as Christians, we don’t have to be afraid of that. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Now that sounds like some sort of divine homeless shelter that we can tap into when our camping trip goes horribly awry. Many Americans see God in exactly that light too, as an emergency shelter when we can’t handle things on our own. I see the situation differently, largely because of the next verse. “In this tent we groan, longing to be clothed in our heavenly dwelling.”

That groan makes all the difference. It’s a groan of anticipation, of longing for something that is already here, but is not yet apparent. It’s the same groaning in which the whole of creation joins as we suffer together in the birth pangs of the age of the Spirit, the new creation that Christ has ushered in for us. We’re waiting for that birth to be completed, and Paul, in a mixed metaphor that makes this English Major cringe, gives voice to our desire to be clothed in Christ’s righteousness so that we do not have to stand on our own, because all we have is our own naked limited selves and this crude tent we have fashioned out of our own abilities. We groan because even though we live here, we thought we’d be home by now.

So we continue to live here, in this earthly tent, because it’s what we’ve got. It’s a temporary dwelling, and our mistake is only when we put our trust in it and ignore its expiration date. But that which is mortal will be swallowed up by life, and the one who has prepared us for this very thing is God, and God’s continuing presence through the power of the Holy Spirit is our guarantee, or as one translation put it, our “down payment” on this new home that God has built for us.

All of our earthy efforts to build up some fantastic building for ourselves are just making a fancier tent. It’s a place where we can yell “base,” but its comfort is fading, because this is not our true home, we don’t fit here, but we know where we belong. “So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.”

That verse is troublesome. We want to be able to do both, to somehow be able to experience God in a real way, but that very desire also captures the heart of being created in the image of God and walking on this earth as a human being. Walking, Paul says, by faith, not by sight. We can walk with our God, and be assured of her nurturing love, and feel his protecting presence around us. But there is a degree of separation while we are at home in the body. We feel the presence, we know God is intimately and continually involved in creation, but it’s not the same as being able to know God the same way God knows us. A divide exists because we are human, and limited by nature. So we long for unity with God, even while we are at home in the body.

This body, which is not just our flesh, but all that we are, is our home because we remain a people who are redeemed and claimed by God, but who have not seen the whole of the kingdom of God. We can see the kingdom, and the face of God, but in a mirror, dimly, and we move in faith because we are confident that one day we will see face to face. Yes, we have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord, where we can know the fullness of God’s love and be truly whole, as has always been intended for us. We do not belong to this world, we belong to Christ.

But we still live in this world, a world that so badly needs the savior that God has already lovingly given to us, a world that stubbornly refuses to admit that need. For the time being, we reside in this world, living in tents while we await the transition to our home in the Kingdom of Heaven. So whether we are at home or away, we must make it our aim to please God. Because we are the body of Christ, all of us and each of us. We are representatives of Christ to this world, sent to faithfully embody the gospel in a world that thinks it’s already living the good life, even if it doesn’t look too well.

We see our home here, and we know that all too often it doesn’t feel like the place of comfort, love, good feelings, and acceptance that we want it to be. It’s a world where we are separated from our Lord, and like so many families that have gone through a separation, a divorce, or a death, we have to learn how to be a family when we cannot be with those whom we love, and those who love us. We once knew Christ from a human point of view, but we know him no longer in that way. We cannot go back to the way things were, but we can move forward in faith knowing that something new and beautiful is already being created for us. So we look forward to the day when our home can be made whole again, even though we do not know what that will look like.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view. Our world has changed, and we also are different, because of God’s action in Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. We know that this world does not have the final hold on us, and that the limits of our abilities do not limit what God is already doing in the new creation.

It’s in accordance with the prophecy we read in Isaiah that God’s new creation is coming to fruition. While this world where we are encamped is full of brokenness, God is creating a new heaven and new earth. Anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new! The former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. As people who belong to Christ, we are a part of that new heaven and new earth. We are no longer held back by any of the things that we used to oppress ourselves and one another. All of this freedom, all of this new creation, all of the joy and delight of which Isaiah speaks, all of this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

We know that in spite of all of the running around, all the stuff we create for ourselves is just a game of tag. It matters to those who are playing, but when the game ends, both the “it” and the rest are welcome in each other’s homes. God has set aside a home for us, a place from which we can explore new things, new possibilities, freed from the fear of having to earn our place in the world. The Lord is our home, and that same Christ that we claim as the center of our lives answers us before we can call out, and while we are yet speaking, God hears.

They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.

That’s the image of a world that is redeemed. We no longer need to set aside a “base” for ourselves, because all of creation will be brought together in peace. We’ll be at home with our Lord once again. We know that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, going down to a world that was fallen so that it could be lifted up again, elevated to be with God because God has declared it so, not counting their trespasses against them. We know that we are not our own, and we do not belong to this world, but rather we belong to God, and are fellow heirs of the kingdom with Christ Jesus our Lord.

And this message of reconciliation is entrusted to us. Not just Paul and his followers in Corinth, us. Not just those of us who are called to sit in the front and lead worship, all of us. Not just those of us who serve on committees, or who volunteer, not just this particular congregation, but the whole of the Body of Christ. We groan in our tents because we know that we do not belong there, we have been reconciled to Christ and we cannot go back to the way things used to be. Isaiah message of a new creation, Paul’s message of a reconciling Christ, that message is entrusted to us.

So we are ambassadors for Christ. We don’t have a higher rank in heaven, we don’t get any special treatment on earth, the opposite is often true. We are ambassadors in a foreign land, and we are easy to ignore, because the world does not even know that they need to hear us.

But as Christ’s ambassadors, we don’t need to be effective, because we know that God will effect any and all change. We just need to tell our story. That for our sake God caused the one who didn’t know sin to be sin for our sake so that through him we could become the righteousness of God. The story is that we do not need to be righteous, we belong to Christ, and God will stop at nothing to be reconciled to us, to be with us in the heights of our joys and the depths of our sorrows. Home is not where we are insulated from our suffering, home is where we can engage with everything that is going on in our lives and know that we are still loved, and that we don’t have to be afraid.

We don’t have to be afraid because God is our home, God who is the giver and renewer of life. All we do we do out of gratitude for what God has done for us, in simply making a space for us to be at home with one another and with God. Those of us who are slower can catch our breath, those of us who are more daring can venture farther out and explore all of creation, and we are all secure in the knowledge that our heavenly father is waiting for us, with a loving smile, when we turn back toward home again.

Endgame

Endgame (Psalm 77) from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

I cry aloud to God,

aloud to God, that he may hear me.

In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord;

In the night my hand is stretched out without wearying;

My Soul refuses to be comforted.

I think of God, and I moan;

I meditate, and my spirit faits. Selah

You keep my eyelids from closing;

I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

I consider the days of old,

and remember the years of long ago.

I commune with my heart in the night;

I meditate and search my spirit:

“Will the Lord spurn forever,

and never again be favorable?

Has his steadfast love ceased forever?

Are his promises at an end for all time?

Has God forgotten to be gracious?

Has he in anger shut up his compassion? Selah

And I say, “It is my grief

that the right hand of the Most High has changed.”

I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord;

I will remember your wonders of old.

I will meditate on all your work,

and muse on your mighty deeds.

Your way, O God, is holy.

What god is so great as our God?

You are the God who works wonders;

you have displayed your might among the peoples.

With your strong arm you redeem your people,

the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. Selah

When the waters saw you, O God,

When the waters saw you, they were afraid;

The very deep trembled.

The clouds poured out water;

the skies thundered;

your arrows flashed on every side.

The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind;

your lightnings lit up the world;

the earth trembled and shook.

Your way was through the sea,

Your path, through the mighty waters;

yet your footprints were unseen.

You led your people like a flock

by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

We’re in the midst of Lent right now, which means that our confession is still waiting for the assurance of pardon. That assurance will come at Easter. Throughout Lent, however, we are mirroring Christ’s fasting in the wilderness. We willingly put ourselves in the place the psalmist describes in the first ten verses of today’s text. We approximate spiritual desolation to prepare ourselves for the Joy of the resurrection. Because we need both, we need to know and understand the fullness of our own humanity, and that means we look for a while at the darkness, so that we can know what it is to be blinded with the light of Easter Sunday. But in looking at the Lenten Barrens, We can also remember the hollowness of when it was not an affectation, but an experience.

My soul refuses to be comforted. I’ve been there. As described here, it’s as if even though the psalmist wants so desperately to be comforted, but their own nature prevents it. I’m confident that we’ve all been there. I’m sure some of us are there now. And Lord, when we raise up our heads it’s not to sing a song of praise but a defiant shout challenging why would you, who is supposed to love us, call us into this mess. You who are sovereign, put us here and we’re covered in filth and cannot find our way out of it.

We don’t sleep. We look around and see the injustices in the world around us, people suffering at the hands of nature in Japan, people suffering under the heel of dictators in the middle east, people suffering in our poorest neighborhoods from crime and hunger, people suffering in this room, from hurt, from fear, from the anxieties we pile up on ourselves because we have so much that is expected of us, and we want to be good. So we don’t sleep. Because the world you created and called good has fallen and we are trapped in that fall. Our cry is not, at these moments, How great thou art, it’s where are you. Because where we are, in these first ten verses, we can’t see you, and our soul refuses to be comforted.

Where are you, oh God? Because we’re trapped in a saccharine poem about how you carry us through the hardest parts of our lives and that is why we only see one set of footprints. And we’re looking for the magic prayer that will make it all better, and we’re looking for the perfect poem to assure us that you are walking with us. But there’s a hurricane while we walk on this beach, and the only thing we can see carrying us is the tide as we’re swept away.

God, We know you’re out there, when are you going to show yourself?

We are desperate, oh Lord, for you. We’re starving for the glory we keep hearing about in the hymns our grandparents sing to us. Our hands are stretched out without wearing out of fear that if we take even the briefest rest, we’ll miss the moment when you reveal yourself. Our hands are stretched out without wearying because we want to feel the joy well up from within us, but no matter how long we try, we are enveloped in a darkness where rather than being filled with your glory we feel a profound hollowness. And the taste of our Grandparent’s hymns sours in our mouths when we try to swallow them.

All we can taste is the condemnation and how richly we deserve it. And so we ask the questions, echoing the psalmist. God, we know you’re out there, but where are you now, when we feel so abandoned? God’s absence confirms our fears that we have been passed over, and that God’s steadfast love, for us at least, is at an end. The Theologians rationalize to us that God is still with us, and the words of poets try and comfort us with empty assurances and we try and pretend that we’ve got it all together, but our soul refuses to be comforted, and we don’t sleep, and our own hypocrisy stops our mouths from testifying to what we once knew in our core. And we are in mourning, because as far as we can see, God has turned away from us. And that change means our death.

But then, I read verse eleven again, and see it differently. “It is my grief that the right hand of the most high has changed.” The Spirit moves through the language from “I am sick at heart, for the right hand of the most High has changed,” to “The Right hand of the Most High has changed my grief.”

And we remember.

We remember like we are sneaking up behind ourselves, afraid that if we name it before it’s formed, or even think too hard about it, we’ll startle the truth, and scare it away. Because we’re in the wilderness and still cannot see the God who loves us enough to die for us. We still cannot see the God who chooses us even and especially when we consistently reject her. Even though God keeps our eyelids from closing we still cannot see an end to this tomb, all we see is our own emptiness in the face of it. But we can remember. And by remembering, we can trust.

And so I call to mind the deeds of the Lord. And I remember who you are. You are God. You are the God who says to the waters “Be still”, and they are still. When the same water that destroys cities in floods after hurricanes, or threatens nuclear disaster after earthquakes, or washes away entire peoples after tsunamis, when these waters see our God, the very deep trembles.

We’re still in the wilderness, We’re still blind to what God is doing, and all we can see ahead is the road to Jerusalem and the shameful death on the cross for ourselves. But we remember that our God redeems his people with a strong arm.

God redeems us when we’re in these first ten verses by giving us verse eleven and moving our despair into hope. “And I say, ‘It is my grief that the right hand of the most high has changed.”

It’s not much action, but when we are entrenched in a war against our own souls and will not be comforted, turning our hearts is huge, and exactly what we need. It moves the stories at the end of the psalm from ‘Isn’t it pretty to think so” into voices saying “We are your kinsmen, and the air is thick with their company.” The company of voices who have been in that desolate wilderness. Our spiritual kinsmen have seen the mighty works of the Lord, and they have seen that God brings God’s people out of that wilderness and into the promised land. And we remember that these are our songs, and our stories, and that God will lead us through once again.

We, in our desire to play at being God and control our own destinies might prefer that God reveal the endgame to us, but that is not, at least in my experience, how God chooses to act in our lives. So God transforms our introspective despair into a memory that identifies with a God who’s path is through the mighty waters. Once we accept, with God’s help, that these stories are, in fact, ours, we cease to trust in ourselves but in the God who raises the dead. In that moment, we know that we too will be raised up out of our despair.

The psalmist wrote in a time before Christ’s death and resurrection, and so identifies with the struggles of a people brought out of slavery through the waters and into nationhood and a land of plenty. We’ve seen God do even greater things. We’ve seen God become one of us, die for us, and break the power sin and death have over us. We are in the midst of Lent, wandering with Christ in the wilderness, wandering with the Israelites in the desert, wandering through our own refusal to be comforted, and their stories are our stories. And knowing their stories, we can know that our story doesn’t end in our darkness, but in God’s redeeming grace. We cannot see past the cross yet, but we can remember that the story doesn’t end there.

This text shows us that when we cannot see through our darkness, God turns our lament into remembrance. We remember, according to this text, that our God works wonders, and we are empowered to act through our memory of faith. Because we remember that God’s love is steadfast, and God is faithful, and compassionate, and remembers us, because we are precious in God’s sight, and honored, and he loves us. Therefore the God who calls into being things that are not, whose path is through the waters, will lead us like a flock, and though God’s footprints are unseen, we know that we don’t need to see. Because our God, the God who loves us, is the God who works wonders. And we will find the grace we’ve always had when God leads us to the promised land of Easter morning.