Holy Comforter, Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace, bring hope to our hearts in these days of darkness. Give peace and steadfast faith that you hold every child and adult in perfect and holy healing. Amen.
The following is my January coverletter for the Messiah Herald.
“'Comfort, O comfort my people,' says the Lord.” These words come to us from the prophet Isaiah, specifically, deutero-Isaiah, and are words spoken to the people from Judah in the Babylonian captivity. They are words spoken to give comfort to a people far from home and scattered in the captivity. They are words promising that Yahweh has not forgotten his people and that he will sustain them in their captivity and even return them to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. In time when Cyrus conquered Babylon the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem. Israel’s history of trusting in the promises of God despite struggles and suffering in the present has a long, long history.
Those same words are a part of our tradition as Christians, as well. The promises of God to the people of Israel and Judah were understood by the early church to have been fulfilled in the person of Jesus of Nazareth and were used to interpret and define his birth, life, and death. Today we have been grafted into the stump of Jesse and join God’s Chosen People in long tested waiting as we wait for Christ’s return, Messiah for Jew and Gentile.
God will not forget the people and families of Newtown, Connecticut. We may cry out where is God and wonder why he did not stop the chaos and the destruction of these precious young lives and those given to their care but the truth is that God has rarely stopped people when in hate and evil they sought to strike out against God’s will. The birth of Moses and Jesus resulted in immeasurable loss of young life. We have just remembered their loss in the Festival of the Holy Innocence. The history of humanity is rife with actions striking out to destroy others, including the smallest. In spite of that the people of God have responded again and again with faith and caring for the survivors and those who have borne the greatest loss. It is in that moment of people responding and caring person for person that God is present in divine will that bends towards life and love at great cost. "Whenever you did this for the least of these you did it for me," says Christ in Matthew 25. And so we still do.
Scripture tells us that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to die for it. Think of that in the context of Newtown. God did not even spare the unjust death of the one and only Son as too great a price to bring us and the people of Newtown some comfort. God knows and has shared our pain, Jesus knew grief and wept at the loss of his friend Lazarus and in raising Lazarus from the dead gave us a fore taste of the promises we still cling to in the face of every evil.
As we continue in the Christmas season and onto the Epiphany of Christ revealed let us hold steadfast onto the story and the promises of God as God’s people have always done. Thanks be to God for the grace that gives us hope.
The following is my January coverletter for the Messiah Herald.
“'Comfort, O comfort my people,' says the Lord.” These words come to us from the prophet Isaiah, specifically, deutero-Isaiah, and are words spoken to the people from Judah in the Babylonian captivity. They are words spoken to give comfort to a people far from home and scattered in the captivity. They are words promising that Yahweh has not forgotten his people and that he will sustain them in their captivity and even return them to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. In time when Cyrus conquered Babylon the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem. Israel’s history of trusting in the promises of God despite struggles and suffering in the present has a long, long history.
Those same words are a part of our tradition as Christians, as well. The promises of God to the people of Israel and Judah were understood by the early church to have been fulfilled in the person of Jesus of Nazareth and were used to interpret and define his birth, life, and death. Today we have been grafted into the stump of Jesse and join God’s Chosen People in long tested waiting as we wait for Christ’s return, Messiah for Jew and Gentile.
God will not forget the people and families of Newtown, Connecticut. We may cry out where is God and wonder why he did not stop the chaos and the destruction of these precious young lives and those given to their care but the truth is that God has rarely stopped people when in hate and evil they sought to strike out against God’s will. The birth of Moses and Jesus resulted in immeasurable loss of young life. We have just remembered their loss in the Festival of the Holy Innocence. The history of humanity is rife with actions striking out to destroy others, including the smallest. In spite of that the people of God have responded again and again with faith and caring for the survivors and those who have borne the greatest loss. It is in that moment of people responding and caring person for person that God is present in divine will that bends towards life and love at great cost. "Whenever you did this for the least of these you did it for me," says Christ in Matthew 25. And so we still do.
Scripture tells us that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to die for it. Think of that in the context of Newtown. God did not even spare the unjust death of the one and only Son as too great a price to bring us and the people of Newtown some comfort. God knows and has shared our pain, Jesus knew grief and wept at the loss of his friend Lazarus and in raising Lazarus from the dead gave us a fore taste of the promises we still cling to in the face of every evil.
As we continue in the Christmas season and onto the Epiphany of Christ revealed let us hold steadfast onto the story and the promises of God as God’s people have always done. Thanks be to God for the grace that gives us hope.
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