Devotional 12-15-15

A man woke up weary one morning, as if he had not slept at all. He was greatly distressed over the turmoil of the world: wars, terrorism, exploitation, poverty, hunger, human trafficking…his heart ached and his mind was overwhelmed. He thought this morning he might find solace by reading the Bible rather than the newspaper. He had a Bible…didn’t he? He was sure he did. He got one when he was confirmed thirty years ago and he got one when he graduated high school. He thought he had kept one from a stay at a hotel (Thank you Gideons!) Finally after a lot of searching he found one at the bottom of a magazine basket. It was that hotel Bible. Then he remember his mother kept the other two as keepsakes. He flopped down in his chair, looked with disdain at yesterday’s newspaper, and opened the Bible. He happened to open his Bible to the book of Micah. This is what he read…..

“He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.   And he will be their peace.” Micah 5:4-5

He felt confused…then a little angry. “Jesus!” he yelled, “When are you going to get up and do this?” Jesus strolled in from the kitchen with a cup of coffee (free-trade, of course). “I’ve been doing it”, Jesus answered as he sipped his Hazelnut Mocha Crème Cappuccino. “I’ve been shepherding for nearly two thousand years. The problem is that the sheep keep straying. The sheep don’t want a shepherd or peace until you get scared. Otherwise you want to go your own way. You want power. You want control. You want gain, and you think the troubles of your neighbors and the troubles or those on the other side of the world are not your concern. You say you love me every time the question comes up, but you rarely take care of one another, except to the extent that it makes you feel good about yourself. You say I am your shepherd, but you neither follow me nor listen to my voice unless it suits you at the moment.”

The man didn’t much like being lumped together with everyone else. He was about to protest that but then a question came to mind: “Well why don’t you do the whole Second-coming thing already? Just wipe the planet, get on with the final judgment, and be done with it?”

“I think about that often. Dad and I talk about it every few days. The thing about the final judgement is…well, it’s final.” “So what?” the man replied. “They’ve have enough chances, haven’t they?”

Jesus smiled, “Why do you say ‘they’? You are one of them. We only made one humanity, you know. Sometime WE do think you have had enough chances. Some days I watch you and I feel that old complaint rise up in me:

“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.  All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

“Then one of you does something good, something right, something beautiful, and the whole decree goes out the window. However, if you really want a Micah kind of world, everyone who calls me Lord will have to act like that’s actually true.”

The man sat quietly for a moment and finally got the nerve to ask Jesus, “Is that really possible?” Jesus sighed and replied “All things are possible. The question is, will you follow me?”

Rev. Joe Hill

Devotional 12-14-13

  

One wonders what it was all like from the view of John the Baptist:

I was so certain…I want to still be certain…but the experience of meeting him and the experience I am now in…I can’t seem to make them stand together in the same mind.

He came to me! It was so strange that he should come to me, but he did. I baptized the Lamb of God, the Messiah! I trembled as I did it, bewildered at having such a tremendous task in my hands. And right then and there the heaven’s opened! Jehovah spoke and the Holy Spirit settled on him! And it just stayed there on him!

It was all happening so dramatically and so quickly. Generations of hopes and expectations were finally going to break out in the world! The prophets spoke such great words of promise and hope for us, it seemed at times that all of it could only be stories, but here it was – happening in front of me! I was in the middle of it all! 

As he continued up the river bank I wondered what he would say, what he would do. He walked up the bank…and he kept walking…and walking…he walked out of sight. Not a word to any of us. No call to arms, not a call to repentance, no great revelation, no summoning of angelic hosts to battle as in the days of King David. Where was the might and fire we were waiting for? Where the swift arm of God’s salvation? Where the strong hand of justice for the weak? Where the Messiah? That was him, right? I saw what I saw, I heard what I heard…that did happen…It did. 

He came back! Doing miracles and teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven. He spent time with…sinners and traitors? With women? Ignorant tradesmen? What good, a fisherman? Can you fish for people? The unclean, prostitutes, tax collectors, Samaritans, what kind of Kingdom is he assembling?? 

And I, I sit in prison because I was unafraid to speak truth to power. Does Jesus know I’m here? It’s been so long…doesn’t he care what has happened to me? Doesn’t he care about the way things are? He must care…he must. Maybe he can’t do anything about it. But he is the Messiah, isn’t he? When will he stop teaching and healing and become king? Did I misread the signals? Is he the one?  I send some old disciples to ask.

He sent me back a message…”You know what I have done. You know who I am. Trust me.”

Somehow when I heard his answer, it felt like the burden he was carrying was so much heavier than the burden of my own doubts. If believing in him will make his heart a little less heavy…I will lay my burden down, and I will be glad to have made his burden lighter. Even without understanding all that he does…I will trust who he is.

Rev. Joseph Hill

Devotional 12-25-12

Luke 2:1-20
I’m pondering the message of the angel to the shepherds in Luke 2:11,12…

“To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”
“This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger“

This sign for the shepherds, was it meant to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, Savior, and Lord? How does being wrapped in rags and lying in an animal’s feeding trough prove that Jesus is any of these things? I don’t think it does. The circumstances of Jesus first days did not prove that he was Savior, Lord, and Messiah; all of the angelic singing and radiance was proof enough of that. The circumstances of Jesus’ first days proved he was the Savior, Messiah, and Lord given to the shepherds. Suppose this child had been born in the city of kings, Jerusalem with all of its grand and well-guarded splendor, rather than in the city of David, Bethlehem. Suppose he rested in a regal palace instead of in a stable. No common shepherd could have hoped to approach his quarters, let alone gain entrance or audience with the royal family. So instead his quarters were open to all. Any and every person from every walk of life had access to this infant king. Any and every person could approach his infant throne so long as they didn’t mind the smell of animals and the utter lack of finery. His were the most common and lowly of quarters with no guards or gates, no ramparts or walls. In the city of a lowly shepherd boy was God the son born as the son of man; so that all people might behold him, know him, and go out upon the mountains to tell of his birth.

It is no small matter that even a shepherd could look at the face of God in Jesus of Nazareth, behold his humble poor beginning and say “this is a savior for me! After that, they told all whom they could. Eventually they went back to their work, but from then on their eyes saw their days and tasks differently, for God had deemed their common, ordinary moments so worthy as to visit them with the good news of Jesus Christ. Thus every common moment thereafter was heavy with the possibility of a visitation from the sacred.

“To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

My prayer for you today is that you will take that “you “ personally. Jesus the Christ has been given to you in all of his loving, redeeming, living power. He is Lord forever, giving himself to you and calling you to give yourself to him. Live in the joy and assurance of this unfading eternal gift.

Rev. Joe Hill

Devotional 12-11-11

The season of advent is one of waiting…eager and watchful waiting. It is a season of waiting, but it is not about the waiting, it is really about the coming of the one for whom we wait – The Christ, God with us. The advent season is about more than a Christmas countdown, and about more than remembering the coming of the God in the flesh “once upon a time”. We wait now for that same Christ who died, who rose, and who comes again. Though the season we call advent culminates with Christmas, the present advent, the second coming, will go on (unless Jesus shows up at our Christmas service!). We're living in an advent all year, every season,

Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.” (Psalm 126:5-6)

These lines in the psalm speak instruction to the spirit. The image of those who wait in the psalm is an image of a people not simply mourning as they wait. They are working as they wait. They go out sowing even as they weep, groaning with all the creation for better things and better times. Even if the seeds fall on hard ground, they sow. Even if the seeds fall in shallow soil, they sow. Even if they fall in choking weeds, they sow. They weep. They groan. They wait. And they keep sowing – hoping, waiting, for the Lord of the Harvest to perfect their work. Let us not grow weary in our labors, knowing that the time of joyous harvest comes.

Come quickly. Lord Jesus

Rev. Joseph Hill

Devotional 12-12-10

From Matthew 11:2-11

"Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?"

It is the question that reveals of crisis of faith for John the Baptist. Israel seemed to John to still be in such terrible religious and political turmoil. Jesus was the Messiah. He was the one John expected to reform the temple and cast out the Romans. Jesus was supposed to be change John could believe in! But so terrible was John’s anguish over the ongoing condition of God’s chosen people, his Holy Land, that he had to ask the question…”Am I waiting for someone else?” Or perhaps his question to Jesus really was “What are you waiting for?”

It is a question I have pondered more than once. In light of so much depravity and suffering in the world, so much hypocrisy and hatred, I proclaim that Chris has died, Christ is risen, and that Christ will come again (sing it with me!). Yet I too wonder at times “Lord, what are you waiting for?”

When faced with John’s question, Jesus pointed to his teaching, his healings, his tenderness to the outcasts, and the resurrections he performed. He was saying to John, “Cousin, it has already begun!” The big picture does look bad sometimes, but Jesus was saying to John, “I’m sketching in some new details.” The tapestry of life that we hope will come out beautiful in the end does sometimes appear too dark and ugly, but Jesus is saying “I’m weaving in some new and beautiful threads and in the end it shall all be well.”

It is easy, especially for the sensitive heart, to be overwhelmed by the many things that seem always to cast down and never to uplift and inspire. The extent of human need is especially felt at this time of year. But there is still beauty in the world, the newborn and the growing child, the tender hug or handshake, the person who takes a stand for someone weaker, the church of God in those brief moments when we live up to the vision God has for us, the glad surprise and the unexpected acts of grace and generosity, and of course always there are the obvious moments of God’s faithful providence. There is beauty and wonder still, the child inside and Spirit of God within both testify to it. Be still and look for it, feel for it, listen for it. Where you discover it, celebrate it. It is not enough for you to work at becoming and making the beauty. You must also see the beauty and wonder of the world where it already is, lest you feel that you labor alone or in vain

Beauty and wonder are all around, yea the Kingdom is come! It has already begun! And in the spirit of this advent season, we watch…and we wait…come quickly Lord Jesus.

Joe Hill

Devotional 12-24-09

Luke 2:8-16 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see--I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.

I offer to you an adaptation of “A Meditation about Christmas” by Howard Thurman -

There must be always remaining in every man’s life some place for the singing of angels. Someplace for that which is in itself breathlessly beautiful and, by an inherent prerogative, throwing all the rest of life into new and creative relatedness. Something that gathers up in itself all the freshets of existence from drab and commonplace areas of living and glows in one bright light of penetrating beauty and meaning… then passes. The common place is shot through now with new glory. Old burdens become lighter. Deep and ancient wounds lose much of their old, old hurting. A crown is placed over our heads which for the rest of our lives we are trying to grow tall enough to wear. Despite all of the crassness of life, despite all of the hardness, despite all of the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the singing of angels.

-"Do not be afraid; for see--I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people "-

It is of profoundest significance that the gospel story, particularly in the book of Luke, reveals that the announcement of the birth of Jesus came first to simple shepherds who were about their appointed tasks. Whatever else theology and tradition may add to or extrapolate from the nativity story, the birth of Jesus remains the symbol of the dignity and the inherent worthfulness of the common man. Stripped bare of art form and liturgy, the literal substance of the story remains: Jesus Christ was born in a stable. He was born of humble parentage in surroundings that are the common lot of those who earn their living by the sweat of their brow. Nothing can rob the common man of this heritage. When he beholds Jesus he sees in him the possibilities of life even for the humblest, and a dramatic revelation of the significance and meaning of God.

-"Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"-

If the theme of angel’s song is to find fulfillment in the world, it will be through the common man becoming aware of his true worthfulness and asserting his generic prerogative as a child of God.

Joseph Hill