https://youtu.be/JhYz3VRbgmU?si=J1Zxs0Pz_3cISa7q&t=3175
Bri Stensrud, the director of Women of Welcome, explains why conservative evangelical women are rising up to support the dignity of immigrants and refugees even as many of their churches remain silent.
Mark 13:31
Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. NKJV
To those who believe there is given faith, hope and love. The greatest of these gifts is love and in the love of God hope springs eternal. Holy Spirit never leaves us alone and without hope. In Christ who promises that He will never leave you nor forsake you and in the the unity of Holy Spirit there is protection and there is peace. Greater is He in us than he that thinks that he will always rule this world. Jesus has already won the battle and it is ours to claim. Carla
Mark 13:32-33
32 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. NKJV
As one who was fully God and at the same time fully man, Jesus possessed all the attributes of deity, including omnipotence and omniscience. He knew what was in people’s hearts (2:8) and He could still the waves (4:39). When Jesus became a man, however, He voluntarily placed certain knowledge in the hands of the Father (Philippians 2:5–8).
Of course today, glorified in heaven, Jesus now knows the day and hour of His return. The NKJV Study Bible
The above predictions and signs of the age to come are held in tension with Jesus’ teaching that only the Father knows the day and hour. For Jesus’ followers, the implication is that they must be alert and ready for the appearance of the Son of Man at any time (verses 34–36). This means, primarily, that His followers should continue His mission of proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. Faithlife Study Bible
Acts 1:7
And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.
Matthew 24:36
“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.
Ephesians 6:18
praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—
Matthew 25:13
“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.
1 Thessalonians 5:1–2
But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.
This week I received a letter that restored my heart. A balm to my soul. Well, truth be told, the letter was written and sent in 1513. Let’s just say it took a while to get to me.
You see, when I give in to the cacophony—the din and dissonance—in our daily news recently, it’s as if I “lose my way”. Well, that’s what I tell myself. And I confess that every now and again, waves of melancholy are high (depleting hopefulness and courage), and I say, “No more”.
Thankfully, I received this letter to a friend.
In 1513, Fra Giovanni Giocondo wrote to Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi, “I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.
No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.
Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see. And to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look!
Life is so generous a giver. But we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you.
Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there. The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Your joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.
Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it; that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country home.”
(Fra Giovanni Giocondo—1435–1515—was a Franciscan friar, a Renaissance pioneer, architect, engineer, antiquary, archaeologist, and classical scholar.)
So. Here’s the deal: I believe this letter is addressed to every single one of us. Because this is a Sankofa Letter. In Sabbath Moment, I’ve talked about Sankofa (from the Akan language of Ghana), associated with the proverb, "Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi," which translates "It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten." Yes. More than ever, we need emotional and spiritual nourishment. Places of sanity and restoration… including reminders to invite and welcome the healing power of goosebumps. Letting us savor moments of palette cleansing awe. Yes, “Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you.”
The power of Giocondo’s letter is this simple reminder; these gifts (the “diviner gifts”) live within us. Today.
And yet, for various reasons, we do not see them.
And this I know, when we do not see, a part of us shuts down.
I loved the quirky movie (with the sophisticated title) Joe versus the Volcano, about a young man who has resigned himself to slogging through life. He puts in his time at a job he detests. He is hampered by persisting attacks from a "brain cloud," a supposedly fatal ailment. (I laugh out-loud when his friend asks incredulous, "You mean you were diagnosed with something called a brain cloud and didn't ask for a second opinion?")
Through a bizarre twist, Joe is presented the chance to sail to an obscure island where he is to be offered as a sacrifice to the volcano gods. Believing that he will die anyway he takes the offer. The trip, of course, awakens him from his soul-sick stupor.
And for the first time, he notices.
He sees.
He is enchanted.
He feels gooseflesh.
And he learns the lesson that it is not just where you look, but how.
"My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement." (From Joe versus the Volcano)
Sabbath Moments
Isaiah 42:1–3
“Behold! My Servant whom I uphold,
My Elect One in whom My soul delights!I have put My Spirit upon Him;
He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.
He will not cry out, nor raise His voice,
Nor cause His voice to be heard in the street…
Jesus, came to fulfill the Law and the prophets. It is finished. Unlike King David, who God would not let build His temple because he was a man of violence, Jesus was a man of peace. All God and all man Jesus gave up His sinless life in our place for our sins. We, as believers, declare His mercy and love to all we come in contact with. Jesus came to us with shouts of peace, peace to the people on earth! He is our example of how we are to live our lives. We are His hands and feet to love others out of God’s great love for us. The Apple trees are full of pink blooms and the flowering shrub outside our patio is full of the sweet scents of spring. Thank you God for allowing me to enjoy, once again, Your gifts to us in nature. Carla
Isaiah 53:8-9
He was taken from prison and from judgment,
And who will declare His generation?
For He was cut off from the land of the living;
For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.
9 And they made His grave with the wicked—
But with the rich at His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was any deceit in His mouth. NKJV
The implication is that the Servant’s treatment was completely unjust. The phrase is best understood as indicating oppressive legal treatment leading to an undeserved death sentence. The Servant is taken away with his generation. He symbolically takes on the role of the exiled Israelites.
From the land of the living is a Hebrew phrase and is best understood as a rhetorical question: “Who could have mused that [the Servant] would be cut off from the land of the living?” The Servant has not died yet in this poem—instead, the prophet is foreshadowing the Servant’s death by suggesting that it seemed improbable that the Servant would die. He was raised up just a little earlier (Isaiah 53:2).
The Servant being cut off from the “land of the living” is symbolic of the exile of God’s people in Babylon. The Servant, in his death, takes upon himself the very reason why the Israelites went into exile: their iniquities. In doing so, he takes upon himself the symbolic punishment of exile as well. Even though God’s people deserve to be punished for their rebellion against Him, He has sent His Servant to redeem them.
The Servant was destined to suffer for the people. It was known by his actions and his deeds. The Servant’s opponents may accuse him, but they will not prove his guilt. They will fall away, while he will remain. The servant passages in chapters 40–55 reflect the Servant’s vocation in 52:13–53:12 and set the background for his role, creating an archetypal Servant vocation. My people refers to Yahweh’s—and the prophet’s—people. Faithlife Study Bible
This language clearly indicates that the Servant would die. Often in Hebrew poetry, the rich appear as synonymous with the wicked. Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man, but he was not wicked (Matthew 27:57–60). The Hebrew term death is in the plural, as a focus on the deep significance of Christ’s death.
The Old Testament pointed to the doctrine of the atonement long before Jesus died for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3 where Paul speaks of the doctrine coming from “the Scriptures”). The atonement was part of God’s eternal plan (Ephesians 1:4–7). The Father was pleased that His Son should die because it would cover up the sins of many and reconcile them to Himself (verse 11). Offering refers to the “trespass offering,” the sacrifice of a ram in order to secure the Lord’s atonement for sin (Levisicus 5:6, 7, 15; 7:1; 14:12; 19:21). Here the prophet Isaiah describes the Servant Jesus as a trespass offering. His seed refers to the spiritual seed, born to the Servant after His death (Galatians 3:26–29). The NKJV Study Bible
1 Peter 2:22
“Who committed no sin,
Nor was deceit found in His mouth”;
Matthew 27:57–60
Now when evening had come, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be given to him…
Acts 8:32–33
The place in the Scripture which he read was this:
“He was led as a sheep to the slaughter;
And as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.
In His humiliation His justice was taken away,
And who will declare His generation?
For His life is taken from the earth.”
1 John 3:5
And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.
Isaiah 42:1–3
“Behold! My Servant whom I uphold,
My Elect One in whom My soul delights!I have put My Spirit upon Him;\
He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.
He will not cry out, nor raise His voice,
Nor cause His voice to be heard in the street…
But Terry, the world feels (and is) catawampus. So, it is no surprise when we assume that wonder (or awe or joy) is not easily or readily accessible.
I don’t disagree. But gratefully, the opposite is true.
And I was grateful for this confirmation and invitation from Maria Shriver. “The volatility of this seemingly endless war has so many of us shaken, scared, and frankly, outraged. Living in that constant state of ‘fight or flight’ doesn't just steal our peace. It’s an expensive tax on the very time we claim to value so much.where you put your attention is where your time actually goes. You can protect your calendar and still spend your hours in distress, in dread, in toxic loops of news and noise and comparison. Or you can choose, imperfectly and stubbornly each day, to put your attention on what fills you. On joy. On awe (just look at the pictures of Earth sent by the Artemis crew). On the people right in front of you. On a walk outside, when the light is doing something extraordinary, and you almost miss it.”
As I was writing this Sabbath Moment, the doorbell rang. I went to take the delivery. Off to the side of our entry walkway are two great Camellia shrubs, now full of blooms. One shrub with a creamy white flowers, and one with a shade of blooms between carmine and ruby. The Camellia is sometimes called the Queen of flowers because of its gentle elegance. A hummingbird calmly and steadily hovers at one of the open blooms. Wings fluttering—at a rate and speed already wondrous—the hummer savors his late lunch. And I savored the moment. In awe—and so grateful—for the wonder. Sabbath Moments
1 John 4:7–12
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love…
Jesus, the name above all names! We can love others because God first loved us. Whoever believes in the salvation that only comes in Jesus will spend eternal life with Him. In Him and through Him and in the unity of Holy Spirit the world has eternal peace! This is the work of God. Carla
John 3:14-17
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. NKJV
Every time the words lifted up occur in the Gospel of John there is a reference to Jesus’ death (8:28; 12:32, 34). When Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness (Numbers 21:9), those who looked at it lived. So it is with the Son of Man (1:51). This is the first time eternal life is mentioned in John’s Gospel. When a person trusts Christ, he or she is born again and receives eternal and spiritual life, God’s kind of life.
God’s love is not restricted to any one nation or to any spiritual elite. World here may also include all of creation (Romans 8:19–22; Colossians 1:20).
At His first coming, Jesus came so that the world through Him might be saved. When Jesus comes again, He will come in judgment upon those who refused His offer of salvation. The NKJV Study Bible
Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness alludes to the events of Numbers 21:9 and presents the Son of Man as superior to Moses. The Son of Man be lifted up alludes to both the crucifixion and the exaltation of Jesus in His death and resurrection.
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God loved the world, this verse presents a concise summary of the gospel message, tying the events of Jesus’ death to God’s love for the world He created. The statement is remarkable in its depiction of divine care for the entire world—not just His chosen people, Israel.
One and only Son the Greek the term used here is monogenēs, meaning “one of a kind.” At one time, it was presumed that the term derived from the Greek words monos (“one” or “only”) and gennaō (“to beget”). The translation “only begotten” is based on this assumption. Subsequent manuscript discoveries produced evidence that the term actually comes from monos and the noun genē (“kind” or “type”). The term monogenēs therefore refers to uniqueness and has no inherent reference to chronology or origin. Hebrews 11:17 reinforces this by referring to Isaac as the monogenēs of Abraham. Isaac was not Abraham’s first child—chronologically, Ishmael came first. But Isaac was considered unique because of the supernatural intervention that aided in his birth and his role as the son through whom God’s covenant with Abraham continued.
Ancient critics of the doctrine of the Trinity used this term to claim a chronological beginning for Jesus. Conversely, the Nicene Creed used this term to assert Jesus’ inherent relationship to the Father: that as the eternal Son He is “begotten [gennēthenta], not made” by the Father.
John prefers to refer to Jesus as the “Son” and God as the “Father” (John 3:35; 6:40; 17:1). Jesus’ reflection and representation of the Father is complete (14:9–10). As one sent by God, Jesus fully represented Him on earth (13:16, 20). Faithlife Study Bible
John 3:36
He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
1 John 4:7–12
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love…
Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
John 6:29
Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”
Did you see any of the photos from the epic—around the moon—mission?
With some images never before seen by human eyes.
I have just one word: Awe. Oh, and goosebumps. Okay… two words.
And I loved this headline in today’s newspaper: “The Mission to the Moon Inspires a Sense of Reverence.”
And I can hear Mr. Roger’s voice, “Our world hangs like a magnificent jewel in the vastness of space. Every one of us is a part of that jewel, a facet of that jewel. And in the perspective of infinity, our differences are infinitesimal. We are intimately related. May we never even pretend that we are not.” (Dartmouth commencement address 2002)
Psychologist Dacher Keltner of UC Berkeley defines awe as “the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world.” (“How Awe and Everyday Wonder Can Shape Our World”)
It’s the moment our sense of “self” softens in the face of something greater, whether that’s nature, art, spirituality, or human connection. Keltner talks about how this softening—this emotion—“really gets us to be other-oriented, kinder, more focused on caring.”
These days, I am often asked about “suggestions” for sanity and healing and reparation. My answer “Today, let goosebumps astonish us”. Goosebumps—making space for the softening in our chest whenever we see humanity or kindness. So. Today, I invite and welcome the healing power of goosebumps. And yes, palette cleansing awe.
“We do not pray in order to escape the world around us,” Sister Joan Chittister reminds us. “We pray with one eye on the world so that we can come to understand what is really being asked of us here and now, at times like this, as co-creators of the universe.”
Meaning that awe can make us feel more connected—to other people and humanity as a whole. Awe has an amazing capacity to bring people together. Excerpt from Sabbath Moments
