Be Still My Soul

I remember many a Sunday morning when our children were young that getting everyone ready and headed for church was such a harrowing experience that by the time I arrived, I wondered why I had even bothered. I was so frazzled, so discombobulated, I couldn’t even focus enough to worship.

I wonder if I had made a practice of singing Psalms of Ascent, or even made a practice of preparing the night before, I could have helped the whole family focus on the power, protection, security, and mercy found only in God.

I wonder if it I might have found a moment to see eye-to-eye with God. To center myself in the place where God receives me just as I am. Maybe I should have gone to bed sooner so I could rise and pray, not that God would still be there when I got there, but that I perceived God’s presence from the moment I woke.

Could I have made a way to live in such a manner that I was aware of God’s presence in the search for a hair brush, the finding of two socks that matched, trying to get everyone to the table so I would have time to dress? Could I have breathed deeply into a place of quiet trust that we would get there on time in spite of me?

Was there a moment when I was trying to get toothpaste onto every toothbrush that I could have calmed and quieted my soul. I wonder if God was struggling to get my attention when all I could focus on was getting coats and hats and where are those mittens, they are supposed to be in the sleeves of your coat.

Now, because of my suppressed immune system, I have quiet Sunday mornings where I go to church by myself on my computer. No getting out in the cold or among crowds of people. I can even stay in my pajamas, wrapped in a blanket of God’s love – God-bound, not home-bound.

I miss those hectic mornings, although I’m not sure I would want to relive them unless I could change them. After all, that is what God wants. He wants to change not the mornings, really, but to change my heart. For he searches my mind and my heart and encourages me to hold on to what I have until he comes.

Then again, Jesus didn’t rush to get to the temple. He stopped at the Sheep Gate - the gate through which the shepherds brought the sacrificial lambs. The shepherds were never “clean” enough to enter the temple. Near that gate gathered the ill and the infirm hoping to be the first to make their way, or to find someone to throw them into the healing waters. Jesus didn’t rush by, or slow down, he stopped.

Stillness in his presence is as much of a gift these days, as are the memories of those mornings when getting my family to church was more important than if I got there at all.

Be Still

Daily Readings Book of Common Prayer

Sunday,  January 6, 2013

http://www.crivoice.org/epiphany1.html

Psalm 46 : Trust the Lord's saving presence in the midst of cosmic upheaval and geopolitical uproar. God is our refuge, our sanctuary. God calls us to "Be still and know that I am God."

Psalm 97 :  A song extolling God's glory. His incomparable greatness motivates praise. "For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth."

Psalm 96 : A call to praise and worship God in the sanctuary where God's presence can be experienced powerfully.

Psalm 100 : A call to give thanks in the temple. A call to come into His presence and celebrate God's goodness.

Isaiah 52: 7-10 : "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns.'"

Revelation 21: 22-27 In the New Heaven and the New Earth the role of God, the Lamb is to be the temple and the source of all light.

Matthew 12:14-21 Jesus fulfills Isaiah's prophecy of God's chosen servant's desire for secrecy, and foreshadows and becomes key to the great commission where Jesus commands his disciples to carry the Good News to Gentiles and Jews alike.

The  Wesley Study Bible, New Revised Standard Version, Abingdon Press, 2009

Three gentile kings seek and find the King of the Jews, the holy child. They follow a new star that stops over the place where they child was. When they saw the star stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. We too can follow the Lamb who is become our light. His righteousness is become our righteousness, and we are called to "be still" and know that we are in the presence of God.

They knelt and paid him homage. They opened their treasure chests. They offered him gifts of gold frankincense and myrrh. God's incomparable greatness motivated their praise. In the temple, the sanctuary of the presence of the holy child, the Son of the Trinity, the magi were called into God's temple. They came into God's presence and celebrated God's goodness. We, too are called into our sanctuaries, our holy of holies, into Jesus who is become for us the temple. 

In Herod's court, the kings created geopolitical upheaval. The kings were perceptive enough not to return to Jerusalem. Joseph once again heeded the words of the angel of the Lord and fled with Mary and Jesus to Egypt. He must have pondered the angel's words that Jesus would save his people. That once again God would "call his son out of Egypt."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHf1p3C8iVw

We are called out of our places of exile, our positions of enslavement, our habitations of pain, back to the high hill. We are commissioned with all disciples to be the messengers of the Father to share the Good News of the Son, Jesus, King of Kings, the sacrificial Lamb. By the power of the Holy Spirit we are sent to the mountain tops to declare peace, good news, and salvation.

"Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember I am with you always, to the end of the age." Matthew 28: 16-20 (NRSV)

God Is My Strength and Salvation

Sat Dec 29

am: 18:1-20 pm: 18:21-50

Isa 12:1-6

Rev 1:1-8

John 7:37-52

Today, I feel physically and emotionally weak. I feel mentally and spiritually foggy. I didn't sleep much. The anxiety and panic has been draining, like a tornado trying to get out from the inside. I, the elephant matriarch, told my mother she shouldn't come visit.

Sinus infections, bronchitis, sore throats, and even pneumonia. Everyone is, was or will be sick before the first of the year. The Mayan Calendar did NOT predict that. Little sleep, lots of prayer.

I don't have to be strong because God is my ROCK - solid, steadfast protection against the vulnerability of pain, anxiety, fogginess and hard decisions.

Praise God, the storm on my insides is not nearly as strong as God's violent theophany. He, as a violent thunderstorm, leaves me in a place of stillness where I can be sure HE IS. Even when I am in turmoil, his grace is sufficient. He has loved me and freed me.

In my weakness and fear, my panic and anxiety Christ invites me to draw near. He invites me to drink Living Water. He invites me to cling to the Holy Spirit. He invites me to invite others to dip into the rush, the healing and the protection of River of blood. 

For Christ is the culmination of God's purposes and activities since before the beginning of time. Even our ability to HAVE faith is a result of God's grace - God's presence in our lives and hearts, enabling us to believe in the redemptive power of Christ's passion.

Dear God, thank you. I love you, O Lord, my strength. So, as David,  I pledge myself to you, for you have saved me from my enemies.  Thank you for reminders that you will treat me as I treat others. And so, like Isaiah I remain confident that that You are the  source of salvation that transcends you anger. So, like the prophet I can sing of trust in your salvation as a source of hope when my emotions, my body, my mind, and my spirit betray me. May my trust in you cause me to read or hear and obey your word. Thank you for your grace that allows me to believe. May your presence in my life and heart encourage me to believe in the redemptive power of the blood of Christ. Remind me of my commission to share your love and to reveal to others the convergence of texts revealing Jesus as the culmination of your purposes and activities. In the power of the Trinity:  Ancient of Days, King of Kings, and the Wind of the Word, may I encourage others to drink the Living Water. Amen.