Resurrection Clothes

Have you ever had a time of severe trial of your faith that eventually passed, and you wondered afterward why it was so hard to trust God during that test? I have, and through one of them, in particular, I learned a lesson that I’ve remembered ever since—a lesson about hope and trust in God. A number of years ago, everyone in my immediate family was experiencing serious personal problems all at the same time, and I felt responsible for things beyond my control (which was almost everything). Eventually, as these situations worsened and I was constantly worrying—really obsessing over them—I fell into a state of anxiety and depression. I didn’t seek medical treatment or counseling because I felt so hopeless that I couldn’t imagine anything making it better. And besides, the problems everywhere I turned seemed so real and unfixable that my wounded mind told me my feelings were true. I tried to turn it all over to God, but then each time I’d immediately start worrying again. Fin...

In the Armor Woods        for Murphy, Betty and Mike Walking here today brings so much back, such joy once had, so sad. Old Murphy, kind sweet man, and Betty Murphy’s feisty fun child-doting wife, who loved our little grandson Gus, loved his hair long, even at age three and four. That’s just Gus! she said.  Now, our preteen Gus has short hair, bleached! Still sweet thank God but not the little dumpling they once knew. Murphy, Betty gone, the woods so fallen too. This windfall must be walked around, this nature going back to nature, as it always wants to do.    So young it seems now (in my early 60s then!) no thought that everything would change this way. But that’s just how life goes and goes and goes.  It is all right. I must believe it so. Choose happy or nostalgic sad. My choice. Let’s smile and love this day, this walk, this time of life. Let’s live! This walk, this day— they’re so muc...

“The image of the scapegoat powerfully mirrors the universal, but largely unconscious, human need to transfer our guilt onto something (or someone) else by singling out that other for unmerited negative treatment.”* Reading this quote today, I suddenly saw that since Jesus was taking on Himself all of the guilt of all of us, He couldn’t in turn single out his accusers, Pilate, Herod, the soldiers who arrested, whipped, jeered, drove Him, and nailed Him to the cross. Though they were singling Him out for “unmerited negative treatment,” He could not thus single them out. His surrender to and acceptance of His role as sin-bearer—fulfilling for all time and eternity the function of scapegoat for all humanity’s sins—allowed and required Him to see these people as no more guilty than all the rest of humanity. He was not there to blame them but to rescue them—and us. A scapegoat did not blame the Israelite priest who bound it, ritually loaded it with the nation’s sins, and s...

My boy is not like other boys. He knows, I’ve told him, how he lept within my womb And was the first to recognize his Lord That day his mother came to me, Our sons unborn within. He knew! He danced! I felt his joy! And now when cousin Jesus Comes to see us, John, though larger, Is his willing follower. No jealousy, No childish pranks against the younger boy. And I too, by a grace unbidden, Know no hint of wishing That my boy might be The One. My son, my boy, is training for his role In introducing cousin Jesus to the world. What that will be like we don’t know, of course. For now it is a guarded secret. You’re the first I’ve told. So keep it quiet Till the time arrives, but when it does Remember what I’ve said. Just wait. You’ll see. There’s no denying what is meant to be. And yet, I have a sense of something more— Foreboding almost—Yes, that’s it, but Let’s not talk of that. Just watching These dear boys at play warms my heart s...