Lent | Vedran Smailović's Song on Spot of Scorched Earth

 

Vedran Smailović painting by Deryk Houston

"Two men looked out
from prison bars ...

One saw the mud,
the other saw stars."
+ Dale Carnegie

When life is so searing and enflamed, and the smoke seems to snuff out any hope, I want to highlight again a story that continues to pierce my heart and soul. The adapted excerpt below comes from Dominic Done's timely and timeless book, When Faith Fails, that's part memoir, part philosophical reflection on doubt and faith, part biblical theology, and something even more.

In the Tension of Uncertainty: 
We All Breathe
the Second-Hand Smoke of Doubt

The year was 1992 and bombs were falling throughout the country of Sarajevo as war was breaking out, decimating towns, businesses, and lives. On May 27, a bomb fell on a bakery, killing twenty-two people. It just so happened that the cellist from the Sarajevo Opera, Vedran Smailović, lived nearby. He heard the explosion and rushed outside. 

Bodies, blood, and fractured pieces
of the building were scattered everywhere.
Smailović was devastated
but decided to fight back
in the only way he knew how:
music.

For twenty-two days,
a day for each victim,
he carried his cello
to the scorched site of the bombing,
sat on a chair,
and played.

In a place of ruin,
his songs became a symbol of renewal.
In the confusion and tragedy of war,
an anthem of peace.

Victims of that conflict, not only in Sarajevo, but throughout the world, were reminded that beauty could be born in broken places.

Our world is like that bombed-out bakery. 

We're confused and lonely, stretching frantically through the rubble in search of purpose. We're handed two scripts. One says there is no meaning. It's all an accident. Things happen ... 

But Jesus gives us another script. He says that life does have meaning. And everything about who you are, the breath in your lungs, the heart pounding in your chest, your tears, fears, and dreams, matter. He promises that justice will reign, mercy will triumph, what's ruined will be rebuilt; and he invites us to join him the best we know how. Some say this is nothing more than a fantasy. And maybe they're right. But ...

I believe there is more to existence
than blind, pitiless indifference.

I believe in a God who created us,
loved us, gave Himself for us,
and is drawing us relentlessly,
inexorably, lovingly, to Himself.

I believe life has purpose.

I believe death
does not have the last word.

I believe in ultimate reality and, like Nunez's valley (in H.G. Wells' "The Country of the Blind"), it is teeming with life, beauty, color, and depth ...

It breaks us, wounds us,
but then – if we let it –
brings us back to life.

I believe even when the sun goes dark, 

it will return again. 

The eclipse will pass. 

The world may look different, 

but so will we. 

And I believe there is more to us 

than matter.

Where some see mud ...
I see stars.

+ "See Stars"
excerpt from Dominic Done's 
When Faith Fails:
Finding God in the Shadow of Doubt,
pgs. 67-69

Other Thoughtful Considerations:

Subversive

Love Over Fear

Beauty in the Beast

Revelatory Dark

Can I Say That?

The Anxiety Opportunity

Christ Is Lower Still

Searching for Enough 

Planting Seeds in the Dark

Insanity of God

Look at the Birds

Faith in the Tension

Ache of Meaning

What Our Sin Evokes in Jesus

With presence, peace, and many blessings,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

Isaiah's Advent | Peace as God's Disruption of Violent Disorder

Christ Swords into Plowshares Icon by Kelly Latimore

Advent

creates space 

for bold expectation.

Every Advent 

begins with a single candle 

— small, flickering, often fragile. 

It seems almost laughable 

against the surrounding darkness. 

Yet from the beginning, 

this is what Jesus' Church dared 

to call hope (peace, joy, love): 

a fragile flame that refuses to go out 

(i.e. defiant celebration), 

even when night seems endless.

Advent's original fire is

the light that resists despair

and joins God's peacebuilding 

revolution in our own time.

+ Recovering the Heart of Advent

This year, Emmaus City Church's weekly Advent devotional was created by Peace Catalyst International. It begins with these words about recovering this subversive season:

The story of Advent tells 

is anything but safe.

It begins with prophets

crying out under empire,

with a teenage girl singing

about the downfall of the mighty,

with shepherds who hear good news

that threatens the established order.

Advent began, in the generations

after Jesus' life, as a season of

repentance, longing, and resistance.

Early Christians observed it as a time

of fasting and vigilance,

a preparation not only to remember

Christ's birth but to live in readiness

of His coming reign of justice and peace.

This story echoes

Isaiah's visions of peace (Is. 2:1-4),

John the Baptizer's call to repentance (Lk. 3:9),

and Mary's Magnificat (Lk. 1:46-55) —

each proclaiming that God's justice

is breaking in despite the empire.

Advent was a declaration of loyalty

to another Kingdom 

— God's reign of shalom —

amid the kingdoms of this world.

Hope

as prophetic imagination

rather than merely optimism.

Peace 

as God's disruption of violent order

and justice restored

more than just calm sentiment.

Joy 

as defiant celebration

in the face of suffering

instead of only individual happiness.

Love

as incarnational solidarity

over temporary affection.

+ pgs. 5-7

 PC: Recovering Advent

Since we are in the second week of Advent, this post will focus on the theme of peace as seen through the lens of Isaiah, the prophetic book Emmaus City is journeying with during Advent through Christmastide and Epiphany (i.e. December and January).

God's Disruption of Violent Disorder

Isaiah's vision of swords beaten into plowshares (Is. 2:4) and Zechariah's prophecy of a humble king "who will proclaim peace to the nations" (Zech. 9:10) arose under empires that claimed to bring order through domination. The so-called Pax Romana promised stability through crucifixion. The prophets dared to imagine another kind of peace: one that dismantles fear and restores right relationships between peoples and with God.

The first Christians understood peace as profoundly social. Their gatherings were not spiritual escape but embodied witness to a different order. St. Paul proclaimed that in Christ "He Himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one" (Eph. 2:14-18). As theologian Gerhard Lohfink notes, the Church's nonviolence "was not an ethical option but the visible shape of salvation itself."

Writing at the close of the first century, St. Clement of Rome urged believers to bear witness before rulers "with humility and fear," showing that the Way of Christ was steadfast goodness in the face of hostility. Origen insisted that Christians "no longer take up the sword against any nation," and instead "by our prayers defeat all demons that stir up wars." The second-century philosopher St. Justin Martyr testified that those who once fought "have changed their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks. 

Such peace was not private serenity

but public defiance — 

a radical political alternative

to the empire's false order.

It was a visible, communal witness that

the Pax Christi exposes 

the Pax Romana as counterfeit:

peace not through

domination or control,

but through forgiveness,

justice, and

restored relationship.

In the East, St. Basil of Caesarea's monastic rules envisioned peace as shared life rooted in simplicity, forgiveness, and hospitality. The desert communities of Egypt and Palestine likewise pursued nonviolence and communal equality as an alternative to imperial hierarchy — an embodied peace lived out in solidarity with one another.

To recover Christ's peace is to reclaim its downward, disruptive movement. It is to re-enter history — to pursue the kind of healing that confronts injustice rather than baptizes the ruling powers. True peace does not float above conflict; it enters it, disarming fear, dismantling domination, and daring to believe that God's reign of shalom is breaking in.

To confess Christ's peace, then, 

is to enter a politics of vulnerability, 

truth, and repair. 

It is to resist the false comfort 

— national, ecclesial, or personal — 

that rest's on another's suffering.

It means building tables

where enemies become neighbors,

exposing illusions of security

built on exclusion, and

risking love as the only power

capable of undoing violence.

For peacebuilders today, this work is anything but sentimental. It is slow, costly, and imaginative — a holy defiance that transforms conflict and heals division, trusting that even now, under empire's shadow, God's shalom is taking root. 

Lighting Advent's Candle of Peace

Advent calls us back into this kind of peace — public, courageous, and communal. This is not quietism or control; it is active participation in God's redemptive work, confronting domination with compassion and violence with vulnerability.

When we light the candle of peace, we testify that Christ's reign has begun, even amid conflict and fear. Advent peace confronts the world's violence with the Lamb's gentleness. 

To walk in this peace 

is to live with eyes open — 

to name the lies that sustain our safety,

 to choose love 

when indifference would be easier, 

to stay tender in a world 

that rewards hardness. 

This is the division

Jesus' true peace creates:

between truth and illusion,

justice and complacency,

mercy and control.

So we light the candle of peace,

defying every false peace

built on fear, and

following the One whose peace

heals and brings justice

to the world.

Peace isn't just quiet or calm. It doesn't mean pretending everything is fine when people are being hurt or left out. God's peace means setting things right — helping people feel safe, loved, and included.

When Jesus was born, 

angels sang "peace on earth,"

not because everything was easy,

but because God was coming close

to heal what was broken.

God's peace grows when we choose gentleness instead of getting even, when we listen to people who are left out, and when we share what we have so everyone has enough.

Peace doesn't just happen;

it's something we make together,

little by little,

the light spreading in the dark.

Here are some ways to simply "walk or prepare the way of peace" — small actions that bring healing and fairness where things feel broken:

+ Include someone who's alone

+ Protect against unkindness

+ Say sorry first

+ Share what you have

+ Pray for people who are hurting

Light the second candle, and say, "Guide our feet into the way of peace." (Luke 1:79) 

+ adapted excerpt from 

pgs. 17-21,

PC: Recovering Advent

Next Posts

+ Joy as Resistance

+ Life is Hard. Sing

+ Finish the Story as Alpha & Omega

With presence and peace in Christ,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

Lent RIP 3/24/1980 | Óscar Romero in Salvador, "Courageous"

 

St. Óscar Romera of El Salvador

"An accommodating Church

that seeks prestige

without the pain of the cross

is not the authentic 

Church of Jesus Christ."

+ Óscar Romero,

Martyr,

1917-1980 A.D.

Emmaus City Church continues to soak in stories of people throughout the past millenia who have followed Jesus, with Our Church Speaks: An Illustrated Devotional of Saints from Every Era and Place as a wonderful treasure trove. As these dear sisters and brothers throughout time and space sought to reflect the humility and holiness of Christ, so do we this year:

"Pursue peace with everyone,

and holiness —

without it no one will see the Lord."

+ Hebrews 12:14

This post features an excerpt on Oscar Romero who was assassinated on this day 45 years ago. During this season of Lent, I hope Romero's story encourages you as it has me so that you might also walk this journey with anticipation for how Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, will overcome darkness and death in your life during this season.

Óscar Romero in Our Church Speaks

 Óscar Romero

Peacemaking Rooted in Love

Óscar Romero served Christ amid the clashing agendas of the Cold War. He was archbishop of El Salvador during a violent civil war between the military-led government and revolutionary guerrillas. Rival Cold War powers funded each side of the war and intensified its fury.

Romero was once known for his cautious and conservative approach to ministry, but this changed with the outbreak of widespread violence. Thousands of impoverished people cried out against both the government and the guerrillas and were subsequently imprisoned or murdered. Seeing these evils, Romero was compelled to speak boldly for human rights and the poor. "Let's say to everyone," said Romero, "we must take the cause of the poor seriously, as if it were our own cause, or even more, for it is indeed the very cause of Jesus Christ."

Romero's courageous defense of the poor earned him many powerful enemies on all sides of the conflict. His critiques of Marxism challenged many revolutionaries. "If one understands by 'Marxism' a materialistic, atheistic ideology that is taken to explain the whole of human existence and gives a false interpretation of religion," Romero said, "then it is completely untenable by a Christian."

Allies of the government opposed Romero for his forceful preaching against the status quo.

"A Church that doesn't provoke any crises,

a Gospel that doesn't unsettle,

a Word of God that doesn't get

under anyone's skin,

a Word of God that doesn't touch

the real sin of the society in which

it is being proclaimed — 

what Gospel is that?"

Government allies were also threatened by Romero's stand against injustice in the government and military. After a military slaughter of men, women, and children in March 1980, Romero preached a powerful sermon calling on soldiers to abandon their posts. "No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. ...  I implore, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression." The next day, Romero was in a hospital chapel to celebrate Mass. As he stood at the altar, a government agent entered the room and shot Romero to death. Chaos and violence continued, even at Romero's funeral, where smoke bombs went off and gunfire broke out amid the ceremony of over 250,000 attendees. A delegate from Pope John Paul II eulogized Romero during the ceremony. Despite the chaos in El Salvador still evident at the funeral, the eulogist's message was one of hope, calling Romero a "beloved, peacemaking man of God ... (whose) blood will give fruit to brotherhood, love and peace."

Scripture

"Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they shall be called

sons and daughters of God."

+ Matthew 5:9

The Óscar Romero Prayer

It helps, now and then,
to step back and take the long view ...
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water the seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need
further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that.
This enables us to do something
and to do it well.
It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning,
a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace
to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between
the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders;
ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future

not our own.

Meditation: 

Peacemaking Rooted in Love

Thomas Hobbes, a seventeenth-century English philosopher, wrote, "Bellum omnium contra omnes," a Latin phrase meaning, "the war of all against all" or "the war of everyone against everyone." Hobbes describes this as the natural state of humanity — a state of continual fear. 

Fear is underneath all conflict. Fear of not being enough, fear of being left out, fear of being taken advantage of, fear of being the wrong kind of person, fear of being victimized, fear of losing your cherished way of life.

Our news media outlets are fear factories. The way to get clicks and sell ad space is to prey on people's fear. There's a lot of money to be made in making people afraid. If you're willing to stoke people's fear, you can get candidates elected and sell people things they don't want or need.

All conflict is rooted in fear, 

and since perfect love is 

the antidote to fear (1 John 4:8),

all peacemaking must be rooted in love.

In other words, true peacemaking

in the Way of Jesus must not be rooted

in fear of conflict.

To be a peacemaker is actually

not a very peace-ful vocation.

Peacemakers move toward conflict,

but they do so motivated by

the love of Christ.

Therein lies the crucial difference

between peacekeeping and peacemaking.

Peacekeeping fears conflict and seeks

to maintain the status quo,

often at the expense of truth-telling

and justice.

Peacemaking does not fear conflict

and therefore does not fear

to tell the truth and seek justice.

Peacekeeping is surface-level homeostasis.

Peacemaking is more like surgery

to remove a malignant tumor

 — invasive and often painful.

The gospel paradox of peace is that the cross

 — a historic symbol of conflict,

war, torture, and violence — 

is now, for us, a symbol of peace.

To make peace in the Way of Jesus is,

therefore, always for the good of the other

at a cost to the self.

Peacemaking requires sacrifice.

It did for Jesus; it does for us too.

Óscar Romero was a peacemaker in the Way of Jesus, and thus his life was filled with conflict and ended in violence.

Peacemaking is now part of the vocation of all Christians. Peacemaking is living out the shalom of the new creation, starting now. Frederick Bauerschmidt, professor of Loyola University, has written, "If Thomas Hobbes is wrong and the book of Genesis is right, then human reconciliation with God, our return to the natural state of things, is inseparable from our reconciliation with each other. To end the war of humanity against God is to end the war of everyone against everyone."

What conflict is disrupting

your corner of the world?

Where might you, motivated by love

(and not fear), enter that conflict

as a peacemaker in the 

Way of Jesus?

Prayer

Almighty and everlasting God, You created us in Your own image. Grant us, inspired by the witness of Your servant Óscar Romero, grace to contend fearlessly against evil and to make no peace with oppression; and to help us to use our freedom rightly in the establishment of justice in our communities and among the nations, to the glory of Your holy name, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

+ Our Church Speaks,

pgs. 59-61

The Celebrity & The Saint

The celebrity demands,

"Look at me!"

The saint whispers,

"Look at God."

The celebrity says,

"Try to be like me,

but you'll never be like me."

The saint says,

"Why would anyone want to be like me?

Who has God made you?"

The celebrity is ever ascending,

climbing the tower of Babel

to the double-platinum throne.

The saint is ever descending,

saying, "Please have my seat, I insist."

The celebrity offers you everything

you want but can never have.

The saint offers you the thing you fear

but will redeem your soul.

The celebrity is a Ferrari

screaming down the highway

with music blaring.

The saint is the freshwater creek

beside the highway

that almost nobody ever notices

and is nearly impossible to hear

over the roar of traffic.

Yet the water murmurs

as it wanders over stones

and around oak roots.

It is not silent.

+ Ben Lansing & D.J. Marotta,
Our Church Speaks

Bonus Reflection:

With Christ,
God has injected Himself 

into history.

With the birth of Christ,
God's reign is now inaugurated
in human time.

On this night,
as every year for twenty centuries,
we recall that God's reign is now
in this world and that
Christ has inaugurated 

the fullness of time.
His birth attests that God
is now marching with us in history,
that we do not go alone.

Humans long for peace, for justice,
for a reign of divine law,
for something holy,
for what is far from earth's realities.
We can have such a hope,
not because we ourselves
are able to construct the realm of
happiness that God's holy words proclaim,
but because the builder of a reign
of justice, of love, and of peace
is already in the midst of us.

+ Óscar Romero,

December 25, 1977

More Our Church Speaks Highlights:

+ Mary Slessor, "Mother of All" 

+ Paul Miki, "God's Samurai" 

+ Josephine Bakhita, "Beloved"

+ Absalom Jones, "Free" 

+ Agnes Tsao Kou Ying, "Stand" 

+ Harriet Tubman, "Visionary"

Many blessings of peace and presence,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us

Advent is Near & Needed | Christ Comes to You in the Chaos

The basic, life-changing, mind-transforming, spirit-redeeming reality is not what we do, but what God does. And He has done it. It is given: Jesus, our Messiah, the Prince of Peace who gives us Himself and the peace that passes all understanding in the midst of our chaos. 

Prince of Peace 

Dylan Thomas | Joel Houston | Matt Crocker, 2015 A.D.

My heart a storm, clouds raging deep within,

The Prince of peace came bursting through the wind.

The violent sky held its breath and in Your light I found rest.

Tearing through the night, riding on the storm;

Staring down the fight, my eyes found Yours.

Shining like the sun, striding through my fear

The Prince of peace met me there. You heard my prayer.

Hope like the sunlight piercing through the dark,

The Prince of peace came and broke into my heart.

The violent cross, the empty grave, and in Your light I found grace.

(Chorus)

You're always there and You hear my prayer.

Your love surrounds me when my thoughts wage war.

When night screams terror, there Your voice will roar.

Come death or shadow, God I know Your light will meet me there.

When fear comes knocking, there You'll be my guard.

When day breeds trouble, there You'll hold my heart.

Come storm or battle, God I know Your peace will meet me there (again and again).

Oh, be still my heart. I know that You are God.

Oh, fear no evil for I know You are here.

"For to Us a Child Is Born" + Eugene Peterson, As Kingfishers Catch Fire

Scriptures: Isaiah 9:1-7; Luke 1:28, 31-33

In the dark days of Isaiah's prophetic ministry, rumors were flying through Jerusalem of an impending military attack by the Assyrians. A glance over the walls of Jerusalem took in the sight of the enemy on every hillside. In the general panic, everyone was terrorized. "We've got to do something. We've got to get organized. What do we do? We've got to get our act together. Where do we start?" Instead of offering a strategy, Isaiah preached a sermon. First, you need to know what has already been done. Are you aware of what God has done? Are you alert to what God is doing? Do you have any idea at all of what has been going on since God made heaven and earth and all the centuries since? If you devise a plan of action that doesn't take into account God's activity, you are going to do the wrong thing. The basic, life-changing, mind-transforming, spirit-redeeming reality is not what we do but what God does. And he has done it. It is given. And the giving continues.

It isn't something we invent or slap together hastily in our spare time. It is the massive, eternal, enduring gift of God. The world is given to us. We don't go out and about and buy it. We don't hire someone to find it for us. We don't acquire an education and training to make it happen. It is right here. Salvation is given to us. We don't earn it. We don't become educated for it. We are not trained into it. An expert does not package it for us. It is given. How will we recognize it? Isaiah says it simply: "To us a child is born, to us a son is given."

God starts out where we start out: a child is born. He submerges himself in our biology, our psychology, our history. He becomes one of us so we can become what he is. God's way of revealing himself to us and giving himself to us is Jesus. That saves us a lot of time and trouble. 

We don't have to look for God's presence in the skies, nor the schools, nor the religious places, but in a child born among us. God does not come as a mighty heavenly warrior, brandishing a sword and hurling thunderbolts. God does not come as a wise sage, calling a few superintelligent persons to a seminar at which he imparts the secret knowledge of salvation. God does not hide himself in the babbling brooks and whispering trees for us to piece together like some gigantic puzzle. No. God gave us a story: "To us a child is born, to us a son is given."

We ask, "Really? Can that make any difference? What can a child do?" Isaiah, we must remember, preached in desperate times. He was involved in an international crisis. He walked the streets of Jerusalem with persons stretched to the breaking point with anxiety, with pain, with fear, their hearts heavy with the burdens of sin, their arms aching from carrying the baggage of guilt. They were people like us – they needed help, they needed deliverance, they needed relief, and they needed hope. They needed all the things that persons who have rebelled and lost a sense of security, persons who have trivialized the sacred and found themselves separated from meaning and reduced to boredom and banality. They needed a gospel adequate for their needs, and their needs were extreme and desperate. To such people Isaiah said, "To us a child is born, to us a son is given."

C.S. Lewis has a marvelous elaboration of the detail in Isaiah's vision:

In the Christian story God descends to reascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still, if embryologists are right, to recapitulate in the womb ancient and pre-human phases of life; down to the very roots and seabed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him. One has a picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden. He must stoop in order to lift, he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders.

Four names describe what God, via the child, becomes for us:

| 1 | Wonderful Counselor: He is not a dictator but a counselor. He listens more than he talks. He comprehends our needs and helps us find ways to meet them. He pays attention to us. When we are in his presence, we know we are significant, important, unique. And the result is that we find a will and the means to life with zest.  

| 2 | Mighty God: He is able to do what he sets out to do. And what he sets out to do is conquer sin, defeat the evil that would maim and cripple our aspirations to goodness. There is nothing passive about our Savior. He incarnates an aggressive assault on what is wrong with the world that will finally result in a new heaven and new earth.  

| 3 | Everlasting Father: God is the origin of our existence and continues into eternity. He is no absent Father. There is continuity in God, and as we live in him, our lives have continuity. We escape the jumble of impressions and the chaos of experience. We don't have to start each day looking for something new to keep us going, to be happy or entertained. We have histories that accumulate in meaning and significance and worth, for we have both a past and a future in God. 

| 4 | Prince of Peace: As the prince rules, peace develops. He is thorough and complete in what he does. Peace is harmony that comes from putting everything together so it fits. I try to get peace by getting rid of what irritates me; God gets peace by restoring everything to health. I try to get peace by getting rid of what I don't like; God gets peace by loving the unruly and unlovely into a life-changing salvation. I try to get peace by saying, "Shut up. I don't want to hear it anymore"; God gets peace by saying, "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). 

The four names are a frontal attack on all that keeps us from God, an all-out assault on what is wrong with the world. Persons who don't yet see this are described by Isaiah as those who "(walk) in darkness." Those who do see it are described as men and women who "(see) a great light" (Isaiah 9:2). Many of us, maybe most of us, stumble around in darkness for years, oblivious to the light. And then we see. It is already given. It was only a matter of time before Isaiah's vision became fulfilled history in Jesus, who was born in a Bethlehem manger and walked in Galilee, touching, feeding, and speaking to all who came to him. At Calvary he conquered sin and the grave. He is now present among us, mighty to save.

Twice in the course of Isaiah's vision in chapter 9, the word increase is used. Near the beginning we read, "Thou has increased its joy; they rejoice before thee as with joy at the harvest" (verse 3). And near the end of the vision there is this: "Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end" (verse 7). There is plenty given. It is given in a way you can receive it. What is given will do what needs to be done in you. It doesn't run out. It is inexhaustible. What is given increases week by week, year by year. What you got last week or last month is not subtracted from what you still have coming to you. "Of the increase ... there will be no end."

Much as I liked and enjoyed my sly uncle Ernie (who used to fake like he was taking from the offering plate), I must say that if he were in this congregation, I wouldn't trust him to supervise even the cribbery in our church school. All the same I have to admit that when he was in church, he asked the right question when he jokingly asked me after the offering plate passed by: "How much did you get?" For everybody gets something. A plate full of money is passed in front of you, the Word of God is opened before you, the praises of God are sung around you, prayers to God direct and bless you. With all of that given, surely you got something, didn't you? But how much?

The moment we ask the question that way, everything changes dramatically. The very reason we come together for worship changes. We are not here to find what is lost or perform a duty. We are here to receive what is given. 

How much did you get?

Next post: Advent '23 | Relentless Love: When We're Afraid, God Pursues

Christ is all,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us