Wilderness Wanderings

Our text comes from Hebrews 11:29-12:2

May the Lord bless you as you listen and reflect on his word.

By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days. By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Isaiah 38:15-20

But what can I say? He has spoken to me, and he himself has done this. I will walk humbly all my years because of this anguish of my soul. Lord, by such things people live; and my spirit finds life in them too. You restored me to health and let me live.

Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back. For the grave cannot praise you, death cannot sing your praise; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness. The living, the living—they praise you, as I am doing today; parents tell their children about your faithfulness.

The Lord will save me, and we will sing with stringed instruments all the days of our lives in the temple of the Lord.

This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. As you journey on, go with his blessing:

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping, that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep rest in his peace. May Almighty God bless, preserve, and keep us, this day and forevermore. Amen.

May the Lord bless you as you listen and reflect on his word. I pray that it will not be another burden on your day, but by the grace of the Spirit, help you to rest in Jesus.

Mark 7:24-37.

Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an impure spirit came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

"First let the children eat all they want," he told her, "for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs."

"Lord," she replied, "even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."

Then he told her, "For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter."

She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him.

After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means "Be opened!"). At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. "He has done everything well," they said. "He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak."

Isaiah 35:4-7

Say to those whose hearts are afraid, "Be strong and do not fear. Your God will come. He will pay your enemies back. He will come to save you."

Then the eyes of those who are blind will be opened. The ears of those who can't hear will be unplugged. Those who can't walk will leap like a deer. And those who can't speak will shout for joy. Water will pour out in dry places. Streams will flow in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool of water. The thirsty ground will become bubbling springs.

This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping, that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep rest in his peace. May Almighty God bless, preserve, and keep us, this day and forevermore. Amen.

A Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text of Matthew 11:28-30. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection!

To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

1. How do you perceive religion?
2. How does Jesus call people?
3. What are spiritual disciplines/practices? What are yours? Why do you do them? Does anything you heard today challenge you to change how you practice your religion?
4. What is their purpose?
5. Who does the bulk of the work? Who brings the results?

Our text comes from Romans 2:1-16.

May the Lord bless you as you listen and reflect on his word.

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So, when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God "will repay each person according to what they have done." To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honour and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honour and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favouritism.

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God judges people's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping, that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep rest in his peace. May Almighty God bless, preserve, and keep us, this day and forevermore. Amen.

Our text comes from Deuteronomy 4:9-20, 23-24.

May the Lord bless you as you listen and reflect on his word.

[Moses said to Israel], "Only be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, "Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children."

You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice. He declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he commanded you to follow and then wrote them on two stone tablets. And the Lord directed me at that time to teach you the decrees and laws you are to follow in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.

You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore, watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. But as for you, the Lord took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are.

Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping, that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep rest in his peace. May Almighty God bless, preserve, and keep us, this day and forevermore. Amen

1 Praise the Lord.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.

2 Who can proclaim the mighty acts of the Lord or fully declare his praise? 3 Blessed are those who act justly, who always do what is right.

4 Remember me, Lord, when you show favor to your people, come to my aid when you save them, 5 that I may enjoy the prosperity of your chosen ones, that I may share in the joy of your nation and join your inheritance in giving praise.

6 We have sinned, even as our ancestors did; we have done wrong and acted wickedly. 7 When our ancestors were in Egypt, they gave no thought to your miracles; they did not remember your many kindnesses, and they rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea. 8 Yet he saved them for his name's sake, to make his mighty power known. 9 He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up; he led them through the depths as through a desert. 10 He saved them from the hand of the foe; from the hand of the enemy he redeemed them. 11 The waters covered their adversaries; not one of them survived. 12 Then they believed his promises and sang his praise.

13 But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his plan to unfold. 14 In the desert they gave in to their craving; in the wilderness they put God to the test. 15 So he gave them what they asked for, but sent a wasting disease among them.

16 In the camp they grew envious of Moses and of Aaron, who was consecrated to the Lord. 17 The earth opened up and swallowed Dathan; it buried the company of Abiram. 18 Fire blazed among their followers; a flame consumed the wicked. 19 At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped an idol cast from metal. 20 They exchanged their glorious God for an image of a bull, which eats grass. 21 They forgot the God who saved them, who had done great things in Egypt, 22 miracles in the land of Ham and awesome deeds by the Red Sea. 23 So he said he would destroy them— had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him to keep his wrath from destroying them.

24 Then they despised the pleasant land; they did not believe his promise. 25 They grumbled in their tents and did not obey the Lord. 26 So he swore to them with uplifted hand that he would make them fall in the wilderness, 27 make their descendants fall among the nations and scatter them throughout the lands.

28 They yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor and ate sacrifices offered to lifeless gods; 29 they aroused the Lord's anger by their wicked deeds, and a plague broke out among them. 30 But Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was checked. 31 This was credited to him as righteousness for endless generations to come. 32 By the waters of Meribah they angered the Lord, and trouble came to Moses because of them; 33 for they rebelled against the Spirit of God, and rash words came from Moses' lips.

34 They did not destroy the peoples as the Lord had commanded them, 35 but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. 36 They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them. 37 They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to false gods. 38 They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood. 39 They defiled themselves by what they did; by their deeds they prostituted themselves.

40 Therefore the Lord was angry with his people and abhorred his inheritance. 41 He gave them into the hands of the nations, and their foes ruled over them. 42 Their enemies oppressed them and subjected them to their power. 43 Many times he delivered them, but they were bent on rebellion and they wasted away in their sin. 44 Yet he took note of their distress when he heard their cry; 45 for their sake he remembered his covenant and out of his great love he relented. 46 He caused all who held them captive to show them mercy.

47 Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise.

48 Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.

Let all the people say, "Amen!"

Praise the Lord.

This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping, That awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep rest in his peace. May Almighty God bless, preserve, and keep us, this day and forevermore. Amen.

Today marks the beginning of a new season in our Wilderness Wanderings. The focus of our church this Fall will be on Spiritual Disciplines. And so in our devotions this Fall, we'd like to take a simpler pace. A little known fact is that the Christian Reformed Church participated in forming something called the "Revised Common Lectionary," which provides a set of scripture readings for each day, including for Sunday worship. The idea is that across the 3-year cycle of the lectionary, a full dose of the breadth of scripture can be engaged. We likely won't continue this for 3 years, but at least for this Fall we'll suspend our commentary, and invite you to simply hear the Word. We won't follow the lectionary strictly (as we won't be preaching from it on Sundays), but we'll offer at least one, and perhaps more text each day drawn from the scriptures flowing through the Lectionary on any given week. If those who assembled the lectionary have done their work well, you'll hear interconnections between the different texts over the course of the week. May God bless you as you hear his word.

1The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus 2 and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)

5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?"

6 He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

"'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 7 They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.'

8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions."

9 And he continued, "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! 10 For Moses said, 'Honor your father and mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.'11 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— 12 then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."

14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them." [16]

17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 For it doesn't go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

20 He went on: "What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person's heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person."

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping,That awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep rest in his peace.May Almighty God bless, preserve, and keep us, this day and forevermore. Amen.

Listen to my words, Lord, consider my lament. Hear my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. … For you are not a God who is pleased with wickedness; with you, evil people are not welcome. … Lead me, Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies—make your way straight before me. Not a word from their mouth can be trusted; their heart is filled with malice. Their throat is an open grave; with their tongues they tell lies. Declare them guilty, O God! Let their intrigues be their downfall. Banish them for their many sins, for they have rebelled against you. But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you. (Psalm 5:1-2,4,8-11)

Psalm 5 explicitly introduces us to a new form of prayer: lament. It's already showed up in the Psalter starting at Psalm 3, but Psalm 5 explicitly uses the word, and so today is a good time to remind ourselves about what it means to lament to God.

Often in the face of evil: whether it's come through events or people, we will opt to do something about it ourselves. Our fight or flight response is activated and so we'll strive to overcome the evil or perhaps seek to run away from it or ignore it. But whichever response we use, it does not always occur to us to invoke God's name as part of our response.

The mindset of the Psalms and Psalmists is different. In the face of evil and enemies, the first inclination of the Psalms is to come to God. And as people of faith, this is a good inclination to embody in our own lives. Lament helps us to do that by forming us in three core habits. You may remember them from our sermon series on lament that had begun just before our first COVID lockdown.

Firstly, the prayer of lament takes God seriously, as here. David declares God to be his God and also his King. David believes in his God and King, and reminds God of who he is: a God who is not pleased with wickedness nor welcoming of wicked people.

Secondly, the prayer of lament takes the evil of this world seriously. David has enemies and faces evil—people who lie and betray trust. But rather than taking matters into his own hands or fleeing away from the evil around him, David turns the situation over to God. Taking God and evil seriously means that the presence of evil in this world is firstly God's problem and is a problem rightly submitted to God. God has said that wickedness has no place in his kingdom: so David appeals to God—"declare them guilty, O God!"

Finally, the prayer of lament is a prayer of submission to God. We don't only turn the evil of our world over to God, but also ourselves. We don't set ourselves up as a judge over God when we see evil in the world, instead we submit to him as the rightful ruler. This finally is where the Psalm ends: "let all who take refuge in you be glad."

So, when you feel pressed by fear, pain, enemies, or the overwhelming crush of evil in this world: do something about it. Lament. Take God and the evil you face seriously enough to pray, shout, and cry about it before God. Then rest in submission to this God to whom you've come for refuge.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you. May he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm. May he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you. May he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.

"He will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body" (Philippians 3:21).

The gospel story sounds too good to be true. It is the story of sheep rescued from a dark and fearful wilderness by the strong arms of a fierce shepherd. It's the story of children released from prison, of demons unmasked. It is the story of fearful disciples in a storm-tossed boat; the storm stilled by the command of their Master. It is the story of sick people healed, of blind people seeing. It is the story of dead people coming to life. It is the story of the God-man.

It is the story of God who is captured, sentenced, and crucified by His own people. His friends weep and his enemies laugh. And all because of a snake. The gospel is a story about a snake who experienced the thrill of evil victory. "I have won," he hissed. "God lays in the grave." But as the sun rose over the horizon chasing the darkness from the garden, the guards ran with it, and the unexpected happened. The story turned. There was one more chapter to be written. The Shepherd came out of the tomb; God was alive. Heaven and earth shouted for joy; the angels danced, and the Father smiled as His Son went off to find His friends. And the snake; he lay in the dust; his head crushed; his tail quivering as life left him.

It is a story that we are part of. That Sunday morning, many years ago is our story. The resurrection is part of our Christian faith, its cornerstone. As we read the resurrection story our hearts are stabbed with joy. We dance with the angels as good triumphs over evil. We are glad, our faith is not in vain, Christ arose.

But…

This life and this present world are subject to sin. We seldom think of sin as vanity, but it is. Life is vanity when it has no meaning. If we do not know the meaning of life, why live? why do anything at all? Most people don't like that question because it is too deep; it gets too close to the answer that life is not worth living; that there is no purpose to it. This is the haunting refrain of the book of Ecclesiastes.

Vanity means emptiness, fluff, a fistful of wind, a pocketful of nothing. It means to pay the mortgage for all your working days and then to die. It means working hard and running fast and getting nowhere. Vanity is a political speech that means exactly nothing. Vanity is the hope that tomorrow will be different, that there is gold at the end of the rainbow; vanity is wisdom and folly, hard work and laziness, laughter, seriousness, and everything, because everything leads nowhere.

In this life, we struggle against this sin. We fight against sin in our own lives. We struggle against sin in the world. We push against greed, and we bite our tongues to keep from lying. We stand up for the oppressed and give money to the poor. We seek to elect politicians who strive for justice. When our eyes fill with longing for another's toys, we turn away.

But so often it feels like it's all in vain. The world does not get any better. And we, well, we don't seem too either. We cry out with Paul, "What a wretched person I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death, to vanity?" But because of the resurrection we can also answer with him, "Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24-25).

The resurrection gives us something to hope for in the future. While we struggle against sin today, we know that tomorrow sin will be gone. While our bodies are weak today, we know someday they will be strong. The gospel is our story. We too will be changed. Christ will transform our lowly bodies. They will no longer be subject to disease or age or sin or vanity. Christ will transform our characters to be like his. We will have no more inclination for lying. Our eyes won't covet our neighbour's stuff.

As surely as Christ opened the eyes of the blind and stilled the storms, he will transform us. There is hope for us. Thanks be to God.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever he may send you. May he guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. May your day end with rejoicing at the wonders he has shown you. May you rest in his provision as he brings night, and then new dawn.

When you did these things and I kept silent, you thought I was exactly like you. But I now arraign you and set my accusations before you. (Psalm 50:21)

Psalm 50 is the first of the psalms of Asaph, which tend to circle much more around the covenant and its requirements. So it is here in psalm 50, which begins by setting up a scene of judgement.

God arrives as judge and calls the heavens and the earth as witnesses. The heavens and the earth were, after all, the witnesses God called when the covenant was first made in the wilderness. This is perhaps also a reason that we find the sky blackened and an earthquake shaking the rocks at Jesus' crucifixion in the Gospel of Matthew: the heavens and the earth are testifying to a new covenant being made.

With the heavens and earth serving as witnesses, God then calls his people. He does not take fault in their sacrifices or offerings, but he does remind them he doesn't actually need, eat, or drink the things they offer. God provides for them, not they for him. Everything already belongs to God, what could humankind possibly give him that isn't already his? No, it is not out of our plenty that we give a bit to God: it is out of God's plenty that we have received whatever it is that we have—and that has only been given to us to hold and distribute as a trust and for a time.

So we give our thanks offerings and fulfill our promises (like our baptismal and profession of faith promises) to God because it is right and proper that we do so, to remind us that nothing was ours to begin with, and to help us practice the posture of an open hand and a responsive life before the God to whom all things belong.

Worship is not just about dealing appropriately with the resources of God's Creation though, it is also about salvation. We practice the habits of worship not only because we depend on God for our provision, but also for our salvation—for our help "in the day of trouble." Nothing in Creation or Salvation is something we accomplished ourselves: it is all a work of God. We depend on him for everything.

Having set the record straight on what worship is for, God moves to the character and conduct of his people—naming disobedience, theft, adultery, slander, and false testimony. He says "when you did these things and I kept silent, you thought that I was exactly like you. But I now arraign you and set my accusations before you."

I have long found this one of the most arresting statements in all of the psalms. It addresses the main issue that the whole psalm deals with, namely that we have a tendency to imagine God in our image. So our issue is not just turning other objects and pursuits into gods of our own making—idolatry—but also making God himself into a god of our own making. So even when we're faithfully doing the right motions of worship and avoiding idolatry, we can still be off base when we shrink God down to our size, pin his wings to the cork board like a biology project, and lose all sense of his cosmic, mysterious, holy otherness.

That goes for our ethical relationship before God when we think things like "God won't mind a white lie" or "he'll see and understand why I'm doing this and that I'm basically a good person." But it also goes for our understanding of God: we easily get the sense that we are the ones that hold God up or let God down rather than understanding the extent to which we depend on his every grace and provision for the very breath we breathe and life we live.

This whole psalm is a call to remember the holiness and otherness of God—to remember that he is the judge—and that we are never able to fully know his mind or his ways. This is an invitation to stand in a humble awe and fear of the Lord and to live and worship accordingly. It is he that we depend on for our very creation and for our continuing provision and salvation—which in Jesus, unlike in the psalms, we have received in full. And so it is Jesus that our lives are to be conformed to, not he to us.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you. May he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm. May he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you. May he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.