holy – Hope Walking

Deliver Us From Evil

What is evil?

As I went to sleep Thursday night Russian forces were attacking Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. The plant was on fire, and I did not know if I would wake up to a world covered with radioactivity. The fire died out, and I woke to the relief that at least we were out of that imminent danger – safer than I expected, but by no means safe overall. Evil is still very much with us.

But what is evil?

Most countries of the world agree that Russia’s bombing and invading Ukraine is outright evil. We all have an inner moral sense of what is right and wrong, and we often know an act is evil without having to think about it.

In the Christian worldview recognizing evil starts with recognizing the goodness of God. Our God of love created a world that is good and beautiful. You can see that everywhere. If someone destroys that goodness and beauty you know that is evil.

My grandmother Emma was born near where the war is now raging, so I decided to pinpoint her birth on historical maps. I found she was born in the Russian Empire, to a German family, in a city that is now in Poland, on land that was tumultuously disputed for centuries by those nations. Her young life was also filled with tumult. The family was working-wealthy, but her dad died when she was 10 and her brother was one. Her mom remarried badly, and they fled the country to escape the police chasing her stepfather across the border. When her mom died 5 years later, she put her brother in an orphanage and went to work.

I never got to ask my grandma about her life; she died when I was an infant. But I do know what her favorite hymn was, Be Still My Soul:

Be still my soul the Lord is on thy side.

Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain

Leave to thy God to order and provide

In every change He faithful will remain.

Jesus prepared us for a world plagued with evil when he said, “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have trouble and suffering, but take courage —I have conquered the world.”

And the prophet Isaiah instructs us how to not fear:

“Do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary.”

When we have the proper fear of our all powerful, world-ruling, loving God, our hearts will fear no one else.

Be still, my soul; your God will undertake

to guide the future as he has the past;

your hope, your confidence, let nothing shake;

all now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Be still, my soul; the waves and winds still know

his voice who ruled them while he lived below.

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Be Still My Soul (Sibelius)

Scriptures quoted: John 16:33 (NET) Isaiah 8:12-14 (ESV)

What God Thinks

Do you care what God thinks? Do you believe the United States Congress should care what God thinks?

Last month a telling dialogue between two members of Congress took place in the House of Representatives.

A Representative from Florida had said, “ We are seeing the consequences of rejecting God here in our country today.”

To which a Representative from New York declared, “What any religious tradition describes as God’s will is no concern of this Congress.”

From an historical viewpoint this is an amazing statement since our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, states its authority rests on “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” It also says citizens “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” The justification for our nation’s very existence falls if we are not concerned with the will of God.

When Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…Your will be done,” he was telling us to approach God with awe, and to be concerned about the will of our Father.

The word hallowed in the original Greek is hagiazo, which means to reverence and honor. This is different from the word sacred, which means the person or object has holiness that is inherent and apart from the judgement of any person.

What Jesus is asking us to do at the beginning of our prayers is to acknowledge the sacredness of the Father and act accordingly.

So what does that mean in our everyday life? We will map this out as we continue through the rest of the Lord’s prayer, but overall it means to give God honor by concerning ourselves with his will for us and for his world.

We have in the past months spent much time showing the goodness and closeness of our Father in Heaven. Now we will talk about acting as if we believe this.

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Click here for news article referenced above.

Pray Like This….secretly

She was sick. Really sick. She had been bleeding for 12 years.

Luke, the physician who recorded her story, doesn’t tell us the source of her problem, but we can guess it was from “the way of women.” She had no modern way to deal with this, just rags. Rags she had to wash and boil and wash again.

And she was tired. Any unchecked loss of blood leads to anemia. Sick, anemic and tired.

And she was poor. She used to have money, but she had spent it all going from doctor to doctor looking for help. But no one helped her. Sometimes the treatments made her worse. Sick, tired, poor.

And she was lonely. In her day there were laws – good laws to help stop the spread of disease- about not touching certain things. These rules labeled her “unclean,” and anyone who touched her became unclean. No one wanted to touch her. She lived without hugs, kisses, hand-holding and arms around her shoulder, and, of course, no intimacy with a husband. Her inability to have children brought her shame. If she did stay with family they would be sure not to touch her or anything she touched. Alone, sick, tired, poor.

Without hope.

Without hope until one day someone came to her village with stories about a rabbi who was a healer. Stories were carried by mouth from village to village. Slowly they began to arrive in her village. There was a rabbi named Jesus who was teaching in a new way, and he was doing astonishing things. Stories about useless legs walking, blind eyes seeing, leprosy leaving. Stories that amazed and puzzled everyone. Stories that started to raise the dead hope in her heart.

“Maybe,” she thought, “Maybe Jesus will heal me. If he comes here I will go ask him. Surely if he can cure blindness and leprosy he can cure me.”

But how would she go? Everyone in the village knew she was unclean They would see her coming. They would back away. They would yell at her and tell her to go home.

“Go home,” they would say. “Jesus is a holy man. If you touch him you will make him unclean! Go away. He is not here for you.”

Not here for her? She sighed to think about what might happen is she tried to get close to Jesus. But in the courage born of desperation, she decided she would do it.

“The messenger whom you long for is certainly coming.” She had heard that prophesy many times. “For you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.”

Healing! She longed for healing. She would go and touch the wings of his shawl and be healed. She knew it. She planned for it. And then the day came.

One afternoon she heard children shouting in the street, “Jesus is coming! Jesus is coming!” Her neighbors hurried out of their homes to see Jesus. But she couldn’t join them. No, she could not go with the crowd because they would tell her to go home.

Instead she grabbed her shawl, pulled it over her head, covering her face so no one would know her. Then, looking down, she walked quickly in the direction of the noisy crowd. No one noticed or stopped her; they were too busy trying to get a look at Jesus.

When she saw him coming she ducked her head and, trembling with excitement, pushed through the tightly packed crowd until she was almost near Jesus. Then bending down even more she watched his feet come closer and closer. Her heart raced.

“Now!” she thought and reached out her hand to touch the wing of his shawl. Immediately she felt something. She felt well! But as she turned to run home and share her good news, Jesus suddenly stopped and yelled, “Who touched me?”

Panic poured over her. She started to tremble and shake as she realized he knew what she had done. Was he mad at her? She had broken the law by touching Jesus. Now that Jesus knew, would he take her healing away? She froze and waited. Her eyes welling with tears.

“Oh, come on, Jesus,” his friends said, “Look at this crowd. Everyone is touching you. Why do you want to know who touched you?”

Everyone stopped as Jesus continued to look from face to face. “Someone touched me,” he said. “I know that power has gone out from me.” Finally his eyes met hers.

Now her trembling increased to the point she could barely walk, but somehow, as the crowd parted she made her way to him and fell to the ground.

“I had to touch you,” she told Jesus. “I’ve been so sick for so long. I just had to touch you. I knew if I touched you I would be healed, and I am healed!”

Not daring to look up she stared at the hem of his robe and waited.

“Daughter,” he said to her in the kindest voice she had ever heard.

“Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

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In Matthew 6 Jesus tells us to pray “in secret.” Of necessity the woman in our story had to approach Jesus secretly. In the commotion of a moving crowd she made a hidden place. Many persons in that crowd touched Jesus, but his power only went out to her.

You may have read books and articles on how to have a great Quiet Time with God. Their advice can be very helpful. But let’s not focus on how-tos and miss our goal: meeting in secret with God. The most important thing is wanting to be alone with God and making our way through whatever obstacles we have to be with him.

Remember Jesus said, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

I hope you will read this woman’s story as Luke wrote it in chapter 8 of his Gospel, starting at verse 43.

“But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.”

Malachi 4:2,3

“ But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.”

“But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.”