Thursday, April 23, 2020      (today’s lectionary)
Daybreak of eternity
Obey? We must obey God rather than men. Your strict orders might seem inviolable and strong in your eyes, but we remember … you killed Jesus by hanging him on a tree and the God of our ancestors (yours too!) raised him up. Seated him at his right hand.
Oh, those accusers were infuriated! (Acts 5)
 Lord you are good. When I taste you and see you, it is good. It is well with my soul. All manner of things shall be well. Blessed are we who take refuge in you, only in you, always in you, in you today and in you tomorrow. You are the foundation, you are the cornerstone, you are the light of our life.
And then only you, Lord, in the center of our soul, in our midst, you come close to our broken hearts. You collect our crushed spirits and put us back together. O, we do have troubles, even when we are just, even when we are fair and do the right thing. But always, out of those troubles you deliver us. We are not alone.
The Lord hears the cry of the poor. (Psalm 34)
God does not ration his gift of the Spirit. The Father loves the son and has given everything over to him.
They walk, three Musketeers, into the breech, arm in arm.
But there is no army to be defeated. They do not come in battle garments or in rank. There is no breech to protect. We throw down our palms, we build up our towers of praise, we fall utterly down on our faces. Worship! Worship!
Lift up your face, God calls. Follow me, Jesus commands. Let your minds grow quiet and hear the music of the spheres, the Spirit pleads.
This is not a battle, it’s a celebration. We are not standing in trenches, but seated around the banqueting table. Our guns are gone. Nothing is held back. Rationing is only a fading memory, from a time when we broke away from the table of God, when we had eyes only to see scarcity but not abundance. No longer. There is no hurry. There is more than enough.
You are all our children. And we are your true parents. We do not need anything from you, and we offer everything to you. Come, come and eat, come and drink. Let all the stars sing above your heads, and taste, see. The Lord is good.
The one who comes from heaven is above all.
He testifies to what he has seen and heard.
At the stable the cows and mule and chickens and camel lowed, mooed, crowed and praised their maker.
Testify!
At Passover the young man with all the questions awed the temple teachers. Those fine leaders in the law, the farisees.
Testify!
John the Baptist fell facedown into the water as he heard the heavens open. This is my beloved son! Listen to him.
Testify!
And there are so many other things that Jesus did. I suppose the world itself could not hold the books about them, were they to be written. (John 3, etc.)
No, these infinities are meant for heaven, not for earth, calculated in Kairos time, not heavy, drowsy chronos. These times fly up, forward, into the wind. Look there, in the sky. Watch them fade away into free falling eternity.
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