The BreadCast

(Job 19:21-27;   Ps.27:7-9,13-14;   Lk.10:1-12)   “I know that my Vindicator lives, and that He will at last stand forth upon the dust.”   “The hand of God has struck me!” Job exclaims as he begs pity from his friends who “hound [him] as though [they] were divine,” reminding him unendingly of the Lord’s justice and ever accusing him of having sinned against his Maker.  Job defends himself and wishes “that with an iron chisel and with lead” his “words were written down.”  And truly his prayer is answered, for here are his words “inscribed in a record… cut in the rock [of Scripture] forever.” And what has this poor soul to say?  Reflecting David’s own call for pity from the Lord and his own desire to know his God – “Of you my heart speaks; you my glance seeks” – Job declares, “My inmost being is consumed with longing”; his heart, too, is set upon God.  And as David proclaims in great hope, “I believe I shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living,” so Job makes known, too, his faith and hope in the Lord: “My own eyes, not another’s, shall behold Him.”  What testimony from a man in such travails! And in our gospel we see that his (and David’s) hope is not in vain, for here now stands the Lord forth upon the earth, Himself having taken the form of our dust and multiplying His presence among us as He “send[s] workers into His harvest.”  And He comes to bring peace; His disciples declare, “The reign of God is at hand.”  And every “peaceable man” receives now this gift of grace from the Lord Most High, this realization of His presence before us.  No longer does He hide His face. And now we wait again, for the Lord to return once more to our towns; now we long for the Day when with our “flesh [we] shall see God,” when we shall gaze upon Him forever and know His everlasting peace.  Now He comes to heal us; now He sends forth His Word and His workers to prepare His way… and so now we should make straight His way, for His reign is upon us.  May He never have cause to “shake the dust” of our town from His feet – may He never regret having come among us.  But let us, brothers and sisters, “wait for the Lord with courage” and perseverance, with a blessed hope born in faith.  Let us with Job know that our Vindicator lives and He shall not be long in coming… indeed, He is already here.  “Be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord.”  Welcome His Spirit into your home.    ******* O LORD, stand forth upon the dust; send out your workers into the harvest, that we might know your peace, that we might enter your reign. YHWH, let your peace rest upon this house; let our eyes be blessed with seeing you this day.  Help us to have courage as we wait for your Son’s return – believing hearts form in us that we shall never be removed from your presence. Your reign, O LORD, is indeed at hand.  It has walked amongst us in the form of your Son.  And it continues to go forth in the apostles you send to bring your peace to every land.  O let us be welcoming of your Word, and help us to bring that Word to every waiting soul. If we have but faith, O LORD, we have all we need.  Though in darkness we sit, yet such hope gives us light, and we know that we shall see you again.  Though we go forth with nothing, empty of the things of the earth, in you we have everything – the great abundance of the Spirit is ours. To you alone let us hold, LORD, knowing you will not cast us off, knowing your pity deep in our souls…  Let your rich harvest be gathered into your rooms.

(Job 9:1-12,14-16;   Ps.88:3,10-15;   Lk.9:57-62)  “Why, O Lord, do you reject me; why hide from me your face?” The cry of our psalmist certainly reflects that of Job, who in his travails asks, “How can a man be justified before God?” who realizes that the Lord “does great things past finding out” and that “should He come near [us], [we] see Him not.”  But it also reflects Jesus’ treatment of those who might follow Him, and could easily be their cry as well. “If I appealed to Him and He answered my call, I could not believe that He would hearken to my words.”  Such a seemingly hopeless attitude may be understandable in one suffering such a plight as Job.  For he is as “the mountains [removed] before they know it”; he is shaken as “the earth out of its place.”  He is as one suddenly confounded by God, who is “wise in heart and mighty in strength.”  Before such power how can he speak, or expect to be heard?  And so, rightly in silence he must remain.  Certainly he could cry out to the Lord, “Will you work wonders for the dead?…  Do they declare your kindness in the grave, your faithfulness among those who have perished?” and in justice be saved from “the land of oblivion.”  But the test Job undergoes passes beyond justice to the suffering of the innocent before the mighty power of God. And what of those who would be Christ’s disciples spoken of in our gospel today?  To them why does the Lord speak so severely?  Why does it seem they, too, are unable to come before His face – why does He seem to reject them?  Is He not of love, this Son of Man, unlike the judgmental God?  Does He not welcome all with open arms?  Then why such sharp words to those who approach and those He calls to “come away and proclaim the kingdom of God”?  The Lord does not reject them, but puts them to the test as He has with Job to see if their hearts are truly set upon Him alone, as indeed they must be.  It is, of course, for the great glory to which He calls them that all His disciples are chastised so vehemently. Think not that He rejects you, brothers and sisters, when He hides His face from you.  Know that you are never hidden from Him, and that should He remove Himself from your presence, it is only to grant you clearer vision of His face.  None is more blessed than Job for none has known so fully the awesome power of God and given himself over to it so completely.  None but Christ and His followers, who give up all things, who suffer all persecutions innocently, silently, in order to know the surpassing might and tender mercy of God.  Indeed His “wonders [are] made known in darkness,” for then they most clearly shine. ******* O LORD, let us follow your Son, even unto death.  YHWH, we must give up all things to follow you; it must be your will alone we have in this world.  Even if you should put us in darkness, yet we should defer to your judgment, to your power over all things for good.  Your Son is severe with those who would follow you, LORD, who would be as you are, as His disciples.  For what a call this is!  And how ready must we be to enter its demands.  Your reign far surpasses anything we know, anything we come to rely on in this world, and so the passing of this world – and even our own lives – we shall not mourn but learn to entrust all our cares to you.  If the sun and the mountains are moved by you, LORD, how much more should we put ourselves in your hands.  Our trust should be so complete that we accept even your seeming rejection.  Hear our prayer and come to save us! that we might walk with your Son in your way.

(Job 1:6-22;   Ps.17:1-3,6-7;   Lk.9:46-50)   “Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall go back again.”   In the beginning and in the end, we have nothing: and so should be our attitude toward all things we are given – that they are not our own, that we do not possess them… that they shall pass from us unto eternity again.  As shall we all. In our first reading we begin to hear of Satan’s temptation of Job, of whom the Lord’s own words witness: “There is no one on earth like him, blameless and upright, fearing God and avoiding evil.”  But Satan in his jealousy responds, “Is it for nothing that Job is God-fearing?” and recounts all the blessings the Lord has bestowed on His “servant.”  The adversarial angel then wins from God permission to tempt Job by removing all his blessings. And the persecution is strong.  All in a day Job loses all his multitude of livestock, his servants, and his children.  Four messengers come, each with catastrophic news, each the sole survivor of the tragedy of which they speak, and each following the previous “while he was yet speaking.”  In a moment all but his life is taken from Job.  But Job proves God’s assessment of his character true by proclaiming, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!” thus properly putting all things in God’s hands, and praising His glory even in such tragedy.  We are told, “In all this Job did not sin, nor did he say anything disrespectful of God.”  He is as the child Jesus sits beside Himself in our gospel today. Satan has failed in his effort to get Job to curse God; he will not do so even at his wife’s prompting.  But Job, so Christlike in his suffering the abandonment God’s Servant knows so fully upon the cross, shall fall short of the Christ in one respect: this innocent child will not be able to keep from decrying his state or withstand the accusations of others that he must be guilty of sin.  He will not be able to suffer in silence, not opening his mouth to defend himself (taking this unwarranted persecution upon himself to redeem others, as Jesus has done) but will declare his “just suit” to the Lord, begging Him to “attend to [his] outcry,” saying with David in our psalm: “Hearken to my prayer from lips without deceit.”  He shall not be able to keep from stating his innocence, from saying, “Though you test my heart, searching it in the night, though you try me with fire, you shall find no malice in me.”  And in this way Satan shall break him; in this manner he shall fall short of the perfect humility of Christ.  (Though the Lord shall justify and reward his faithful servant in the end.) Brothers and sisters, do not act with jealousy, as even the disciples seem to today in trying to stop one “not of [their] company” from healing in Jesus’ name.  Do not even think among yourselves of who is the greatest.  This is an abomination before God.  Have the attitude of Job toward all things – that they are but gifts from the Lord and that we are nothing in ourselves.  Then you will be like His little child and so know His blessings forever.   ******* O LORD, naked we came forth   from our mother’s womb,   and naked we shall go back again –   our lives are in your hands. YHWH, let us be as an innocent child sitting patiently at the side of your only Son.  Though the foe come to test our hearts, by your grace let us prove ourselves worthy of your blessings.  Let us never sin against you in word or in deed but place all things in your holy hands and accept whatever befalls us.  O LORD, let us never be jealous or proud; let us never imitate the sin of Satan, who would see your children falter, who would strike any against whom his envy might rise.  Let us but seek to serve you in all humility and so know the great joy of being as your Son.  From all wicked thoughts release our souls that we might walk with you.  Hear our prayer for mercy, LORD; though we be not perfect, you can make us so.  Let it be our sole desire to be pure before you, that we shall never know your wrath or be cast from your sight.  Take all things from us, but only spare our life.  Please never leave our side.

(Ec.11:9-12:8;   Ps.90:1,3-6,12-14,17;   Lk.9:43-45)   “The dust returns to the earth as it once was, and the life breath returns to God who gave it.”   “As a watch of the night” is our life, passing unnoticed while souls slumber.  “You make an end of them in their sleep,” Psalm 90 prophesies (as we hear the same verses of this same psalm for the second time in three days); indeed man lies unaware of his coming death, ignorant of the day which passes.  For though in our youth we “follow the ways of [our] heart, the vision of [our] eyes,” and seem to “ward off grief” at will, yet “the next morning [we] are like the changing grass”; so quickly does our flower fade.  And so little of this do we see. In our gospel the Lord speaks again to His disciples of His imminent death, and so, really, the death we all must undergo; but though He makes a clear point that they should listen carefully, saying, “Pay close attention to what I tell you,” yet they seem unable to hear His words.  Our gospel tells us, “They failed… to understand this warning; its meaning was so concealed from them they did not grasp it at all.”  He repeats what He has said before in no uncertain terms, and yet they are deaf to His word; yet they are blind. How like us all the disciples are.  When confronted with the coming of death how easily we shut our eyes.  Though it draw upon us inevitably, how desperately we hold to the vanity of these passing things, unwilling to hear of the day when “the sun is darkened… and the strong men are bent… and the sound of the mill is low.”  “Man goes to his lasting home, and mourners go about the streets” – so Qoheleth paints the image of the time when “the clouds return after the rain.”  How compelling his verses are, and how ominous… and of this darkness we must hear.  It is not wise to remain blind to the passing of this life, or with it we shall die when it ends.  Though none of this should touch our souls, yet we must learn to let the body go. O Lord, “you return man back to dust, saying, ‘Return, O children of men,’” yet you hold each of us in your loving hands.  And so we cry unto you this day, “Return, O Lord!  How long?  Have pity on your servants!”  For we wait with expectant hearts for Him who has risen from the dead to come to us again.  Let your Spirit breathe upon us now and turn this dust into the image of your Son.  May it be your Day which comes to us, even as we die.   ******* O LORD, we conquer death through the death and resurrection of your Son – be with us as we wait for His return. YHWH, death comes inevitably to all.  It draws near to us like the setting sun.  We are mortal, the subjects of our own sin.  And so to dust we return. But your Son has subjected Himself to this death of ours, LORD; He has undergone its torments.  In our place He has stood, and been broken for our sakes.  He who lives with you in eternity has been delivered into the hands of men and suffered the darkness upon their souls.  And so, may we not be born again? O Jesus, you have overcome the darkness with your unending light; you have come to rescue us from falling into the well, that the clouds might not return again after the rain but that we might know new life with you in the morning after this world passes away, in the glory of your coming Day. Help us, O LORD, to overcome our fear, to conquer the bonds of this dark place and our own mortality.  Let this not be our lasting home, but raise us to your presence that even this day we might rejoice in you.

(Ec.3:1-11;   Ps.144:1-4;   Lk.9:18-22)   “He has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into their hearts.”   Yes, “there is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens”; and there is a time for time to cease and the timeless to come to the fore – a time for the things above the heavens.  And that fullness of time has come upon the earth, for the Son of Man has known His “time to be born”; and in man’s discovering “the work which God has done,” no time for vain toil is there anymore.  The time has come to make Him our “refuge and [our] fortress,” our blessed “rock” of truth. “One day when Jesus was praying in seclusion and His disciples were with Him,” the time had come for Him to “put the question to them”: “Who do you say that I am?”  And now it was Peter’s “time to speak,” to declare the faith of the Church: “The Messiah of God.”  And though it was not then time “to tell this to anyone,” for the Son of Man had yet to know His “time to die,” soon the time would come for the Son to rise, and then there would be no more “time to be silent.” That time has come upon us now, brothers and sisters.  Now is only “a time to plant” and “a time to build” – a time to raise the kingdom of heaven here on earth, a time to labor to complete God’s Church.  For timelessness now has its time; life eternal overtakes us.  And so we have only “time to love,” having broken the wheel of sin by the sacrifice of Christ and so come out from under the shadow of hatred.  No return to the vanity of the things of this world is there for us, for we must do all as if doing nothing. It is true: “Man is like a breath; his days, like a passing shadow,” but it is also so that the Lord “take[s] thought of him.”  And in this earthen vessel He has placed the Spirit of life – and that Spirit is now known in full in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  It is “time to embrace” Him and know the “time of peace” He breathes eternally upon His creatures, letting all shadow pass away as we walk in His holy light and proclaim His holy name.   ******* O LORD, your timelessness let us know in our hearts,   that we might overcome the world through your Son.  YHWH, in the fullness of time you sent your Son to die at our hands that we might be raised up with Him.  And now that He has died for our sins, a new time has come to your people – a time of salvation.  All time pointed toward Him and all time flows from Him, and all time is in Him who is all that is.  O LORD, let us make our home in Him and in His resurrection.  You are timeless, O LORD and God, and so how can we poor creatures so bound to time, so subject to the dust of this earth, come to know you who are beyond the heavens?  We could never have discovered your hand at work among us if you had not sent your only Son to redeem us and reveal to us your glory.  And so, let us embrace this gift you offer that we might mourn and weep no more but rejoice ever in your presence, despite the Cross that comes.  Let us be raised on the Cross with Him that we might be raised unto His eternal reign.

(Ec.1:2-11;   Ps.90:1,3-6,12-14,17;   Lk.9:7-9)   “See, this is new!”   Here is He who is “new under the sun.”  For it is not so that “John has been raised from the dead,” nor that “one of the prophets of old has arisen”: He has not “already existed in the ages that preceded us.”  He is the Christ! He is the Messiah!  He it is who has come to “fill us at daybreak with [His] kindness, that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days.”  In Him the dark of the night veiling our eyes is banished from our midst. O Herod, drowning in your debauchery; O Qoheleth, pursuer of your passions in all their vanity, why do you race to catch up with the sun as if it should stand and wait for you?  What makes you think you could hold the wind in your hand?  Why would you see end of the rivers’ path to the sea?  Why do you toil so blindly, taking your refuge in created things and frustrated when you cannot control them to your own ends, when they betray the peace you seek?  “Back to dust” you shall indeed return, and the sun and the wind and the sea still stand; and above them all does reign our God, for whom “a thousand years… are as yesterday, now that it is past.”  In Him you should have taken refuge. Herod, do you too now begin to see the ends of your debauchery; does its emptiness now overtake your soul?  Do you remember the words the prophet delivered to your ears?  What is the cause of your curiosity, and will you listen now to the voice echoing through your halls?  The kingdom of the world crumbles before our eyes and no “profit has man from all the labor which he toils at under the sun,” unless it is the Lord who “prosper[s] the work of our hands for us.”  Dead we are and alone will ever be in our profligacy, the emptiness upon us. Qoheleth, your words are proven wrong: it is not so that “there is no remembrance of the man of old,” for we read your thoughts with diligence today; and three thousand years after your time you teach us still of the dark vision of life without the Christ.  And of Him who has come after thee there is great remembrance, and more than this, for His breath is now upon us.  In Him is “the ear filled with hearing” and the eye “satisfied with seeing,” for now truth and light do walk with us, even under the sun.  And though our body “by evening wilts and fades” as of old, our soul “at dawn springs up anew.” For “the gracious care of the Lord [is] ours” and He “teach[es] us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.”  And this wisdom is true; this wisdom is new: this wisdom bears us light to transcend the vanity of a worldly life and come to the kingdom of heaven.    ******* O LORD, your Son is He who makes all things new –   let us live and work in the light of His presence.  YHWH, your Son is new under the sun; into our midst He has come.  May we be more than anxious to see Him: may we be made new in Him.  In days past, LORD, the world and men toiled in futility for their sin against you, for their separation from you.  You were ever new and ever calling us to life in you, but we labored in vain, going our own way – the way of darkness that leads to death, the way that is indeed apart from you.  Return all souls to your light, your life, known to us now in your only Son.  You reign over all, LORD our God, all of time is but a moment to you and all the world is as a speck of dust.  Have pity on us, LORD, for we are quick to wilt and fade.  At daybreak may we rise with Jesus and walk in the light of your new day, dwelling forever in your reign, living and working always in your presence.

(Prv.30:5-9;   Ps.119:29,72,89,101,104-105,163;   Lk.9:1-6)   “Take nothing for the journey.”   How can he who takes nothing with him for his journey be provided for?  Does not such action contradict the wisdom of the king who asks in his book of Proverbs – “Give me neither poverty nor riches”?  Is it not poverty the Lord recommends to His disciples? The evangelical counsel of poverty practiced by the religious communities and striven for by all true members of the Christian faith is not the same as that which our author of Proverbs wishes to avoid (no more so than the riches he would keep far from himself are those of the heavenly kingdom).  For those whom Jesus sends out never find themselves “in want,” the want which would lead the desperate to steal and so sin; rather, the only “want” His disciples have is for an increasing understanding and practice of the word of God.  And the poverty they practice is meant to feed this hunger for the greatest of food. Proverbs itself gives us answer to the means by which the Lord’s disciples taking “no bread, no money” are fed: “He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.”  The Lord is always our food.  Cannot He who “endures forever,” whose word is “firm as the heavens,” care for the small needs of His creatures here below?  Will not he who labors for Him have all he needs to accomplish his work?  Certainly!  For though the disciples take nothing, it does not follow that they have nothing – for they have the Lord with them, and that is everything. Indeed, it is because the first of the wise king’s requests of God – “put falsehood and lying far from me” – has been answered in them that this second is accomplished.  “Remove from me the way of falsehood,” our psalmist echoes, and for the Lord’s disciples this has been done.  They “add nothing to His words” as “from every evil way [they] withhold [their] feet”; and so “the law of [His] mouth,” which resounds from their own mouths as they “proclaim the reign of God,” “is to [them] more precious than thousands of gold and silver pieces” and feeds them abundantly. The Word of the Lord will be received by those who seek His truth, and in turn feed the speaker as it does the hearer.  So let us be wary of “being full” of the things of this world, lest we find no room for God, and let us make our psalmist’s declaration truly our own: “Falsehood I hate and abhor; your law I love.”  Then all things will be provided for.   ******* O LORD, you send us forth with your Word to heal souls of all evil – keep us on your way of truth. YHWH, it is you who provide for all our needs.  If we serve you, if we are true to your Word, we shall never be in want.  For then all we shall desire is to be with you, and you will be faithful to this longing. LORD, you are with those who go out in your NAME, who desire only to do your will.  For they are of truth and you are of truth – you are Truth itself – and so they share in your way.  And your way is a way of love and healing, your way is one that leads to life.  Let us follow in this way, and we shall live forever. You yourself hold our lives in your hand, and so what do we need but you?  We cannot provide for ourselves; it is you from whom all our food comes.  And if we trust in you we shall be fed, we shall have all we need to live, all we need to proclaim your Word, O LORD, and that your kingdom is nigh.  Let us be a living witness to your presence among us and the care you give to all your children.

(Prv.21:1-6,10-13;   Ps.119:1,27,30,34-35,44;   Lk.8:19-21)  “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act upon it.” Our readings today are filled throughout with one line pearls of wisdom culminating with Jesus’ above instruction in our brief gospel.  And though each individual proverb or paean to the command of the Lord seems a separate entity distinct from the others which surround it, in fact, all speak of the same sword of truth that separates the way of the wicked from that of the just.  In even thousands of proverbs there is but one word – that we must be hearers and doers of the word of God. “Like a stream is the king’s heart in the hand of the Lord; wherever it pleases Him, He directs it.”  Oh that such blessed obedience could be all our own!  Oh that we would follow Him so perfectly, for “happy are they whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord”; and they become as His only Son.  “To do what is right and just” must be our constant aim, our eternal prayer.  “Lead me in the path of your commands,” we must beg of our God, for in it alone we know the light of His grace; in His way alone we find all our “delight.”  Only in observing His decrees, walking in His love, do we become brother and sister and mother to the Christ. For the wicked shall not enter His embrace, shall not be counted among His family.  “Haughty eyes and a proud heart” the Lord will not countenance, for “the tillage of the wicked is sin” and with sin the Holy One has no relation.  Thus we may be certain “there is One who brings down the wicked to ruin.”  As grandiose as his plots may seem and as adamantly as he may pursue them with “a lying tongue,” he is but “chasing a bubble over deadly snares” and shall be caught in the trap he himself has laid. “When the wise man is instructed, he gains knowledge”; he draws ever closer to the light of the Lord as he drinks in His Word.  Let us be as those who “meditate on [the Lord’s] wondrous deeds.”  Let us beg Him with our psalmist: “Give me discernment, that I may observe your law and keep it with all my heart.”  When Jesus speaks let us be quick to listen and follow in His way, that truly we may become His blessed family, one in the Church modeled by the Mother of God. ******* O LORD, open our ears to hear your Word and walk in your way. YHWH, if we are haughty of eye and proud of heart, how can we know you and become one with you?  You are holy and only those who strive for holiness walk in your way.  Help us, LORD, to be as your Son and follow always your blessed commands. O LORD, let our hearts ever be directed by your hand; let our obedience be such that we simply go as your guide led ever by your Spirit.  In your Son there was no question as to what should be done or whether He should do good or ill – He did nothing of His own will but only yours.  Help us to be perfect as He in living your Word, in embodying your truth.  Then we shall be brothers to Him, for then you shall be our Father. Let us be made in your image, LORD, doing what is right and just in all things.  Your law of love let us observe – let us thirst for your wisdom and knowledge.  Nothing let us desire but to be one with you and your only Son.  Then we shall be blessed as His Mother.

(1Cor.15:35-37,42-49;   Ps.56:10-14;   Lk.8:4-15)   “Just as we resemble the man from earth, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.”   It is not difficult to recognize our earthly bodies.  They are with us always, and make themselves known in the “weakness” that befalls us.  Adam’s sin is upon us his children and reminds us always that we are human, of the earth. But as we know this body of the earth so “subject to decay,” so “ignoble” in itself, so we should know the “spiritual body [that] comes up” as this “natural body is put down” by us.  Here is the meaning of Jesus’ teaching that we must lay down our lives, that we must die to this world to be raised up in His presence.  For the earthly form we know so well by the weakness and sin inherent in its confines we must set aside, not nourish in its passions, that ever the Spirit might take shape in our lives… that we might take on the likeness of Christ.  And so even our corrupted nature may bring growth and fruit of great significance when we sow it in the ground, when we place it back whence it has come.  In this death is life. “A farmer went out to sow some seed.”  This farmer is, of course, Jesus, the spiritual Man who casts seed of the Spirit for all waiting hearts to receive and nourish to growth as a “full-blown plant” in the Father’s light.  If we heed the Word He proclaims to us with exclamation, if we become ourselves as “the seed sown on good ground,” given rebirth in the Gospel of Christ, resurrection of our weakened form we will know; even now it shall begin to mature within us.  But if we are empty as “those on the footpath” or rootless as “those on rocky ground” or stifled as “the seed fallen among briars,” how then shall we escape the natural body and its corruption and reach up to the kingdom of heaven?  It cannot but be that we shall die – and in this death there will be no resurrection to life. O brothers and sisters, let us be as David, who declares in faith, “Now I know that God is with me” and asks with such confidence, “What can flesh do against me?”  How indeed can the flesh hold us down, pressed to the earth though it may be, if we have God’s Word in us growing so surely?  In God let us “trust without fear,” and on the day of full growth, when this “earth formed from dust” has died completely and the Man of Spirit has His kingdom revealed, we shall rejoice with David and sing: “You have rescued me from death… that I may walk before God in the land of the living.”  Then the Spirit so real we shall know.   ******* O LORD, let your Word take root in our hearts and grow unto your heavenly kingdom.   YHWH, let your Word be firmly planted in our hearts; let us bear fruit unto Heaven.  Let us be raised with your only Son and walk in the light of your presence.  Let us be men of the Spirit. Your Son comes casting seed upon this earth, dearest LORD.  He seeks to plant your Spirit within our souls.  O let us have ears to hear His Word!  Let us have hearts open to His call.  Why should we wish to die in sin?  Why would we be subject to decay as our natural bodies?  Should we not rather put on the body of Jesus and be thus spiritual men?  O may we bear the likeness of the Man from Heaven!  Let us have no fear, LORD, as we grow with Jesus; let the flesh hold no sway against our coming to you.  Help us to lay down our bodies that our spirits may rise and we may make our home in your eternal light.  Open our eyes in your presence.

(1Cor.15:12-20;   Ps.17:1,6-8,15;   Lk.8:1-3)   “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.”   This is the heart of our faith.  This is the “Good News,” the Gospel preached in our midst.  This is our firm belief.  Upon it all our hopes stand.  Christ has been raised, and His disciples will follow Him.  As surely as we accompany Him here in His mission on earth, so surely will we find ourselves in His presence in heaven.  Dying in Him means rising in light. But “if our hopes in Christ are limited to this life only, we are the most pitiable of men.”  We could then be said to have truly wasted our time, for then the very heart of our faith would have been torn out, and what but scoffing would we have to hold?  A dead Christ we would carry in our arms, and we “the deadest of the dead” with Him. Paul speaks of this quite pointedly; he pulls no punches in this regard, declaring openly: “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is void of content and your faith is empty too.”  Yet there are those today, as then, who “say there is no resurrection of the dead,” that “Christ was not raised” – and these would call themselves Christian.  And in the same manner there are many who do not truly believe the resurrection, yet wear the Christian nametag.  If we have doubt in our hearts, or, worse yet, if we preach against the core of the faith, what do we do but kill ourselves?  What do we do but work against the very Gospel of Christ?  And how then do we merit the name of Christian? Brothers and sisters, we must know in our hearts and be assured that Jesus is risen from the dead.  We must realize that God has “attend[ed] to [David’s] outcry,” that He has “hearken[ed] to [his] prayer” – that the most urgent longing of our souls has been answered by the “savior of those who hope in [Him].”  With David, we of faith should say with his resolve: “On waking, I shall be content in your presence.”  Has the resurrection not been indicated in the “women who ha[ve] been cured of evil spirits and maladies” and who now accompany Jesus?  Does not Mary Magdalene, “from whom seven devils had gone out,” give clear example of hope in Christ fulfilled?  For she is not at all as she was, and this woman once so completely possessed by death itself is the first to see the Lord risen. We must know the resurrection in our lives on earth; this is the only way we will comprehend it in heaven.  Release from sin allows us to see already the eternal fruits of the kingdom.  Accompanying Him now, our sins behind us, already upon heaven’s road we tread.  And we know of a certain we shall pass through these “towns and villages” even unto His kingdom.   ******* O LORD, your Son has been raised from the dead; may we be raised with Him and be at your side. YHWH, your Son is raised from the dead for us that we might enter your glorious presence.  Though in the shadow of the wings of the Cross on this earth we make our home, it but prepares us for the kingdom.  For even here our sins are taken away, and we come to new life in the Spirit. We cried out to you, O LORD, and you heard our voice and sent your Son to walk among us.  And if we follow in His steps we shall come to where He leads – we shall come to you.  The path He trod must be our own, for it is the way of salvation.  Through death on the Cross we come to life, for as we die with Him so we are raised. Let us rejoice in His resurrection, O LORD; let us have faith in the new life at work in us even this day, and look with hope to our place in your kingdom.  On waking may we look upon your face and be content in your eternal presence.  For your glory let us ever strive, giving all to you as we walk in your way.