GOING TO CHURCH

Because Lois & I are quarantined until 9/21, we weren't able to attend church in person this morning. Instead we were able to participate in on-line worship with our brothers & sisters at Grace Lutheran Church in Norfolk, NE. You may not have been able to return to church in person yet, & you have many options for on-line worship. You can find find our Sunday morning worship at Grace Lutheran via Facebook or via the Grace Lutheran website.

THE LOVE OF CHRIST

"When the apostle Paul wrote that nothing can remove the love of Christ—neither "trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword"—he was referring to struggles that were dangerously real to him and the people to whom he was writing. He is insistent that God's love is more enduring than famine or suffering, racism, cancer, or injustice. It is stronger than death, as unyielding as the grave. How do you put this in to words without trembling? How do we explain the crucifixion or the resurrection without falling to our knees in shock, in wonder, in speechless gratitude?

"Stumbling over words to describe the hope we profess, we can be broken again by the mystery of it all and even our misplacing of it. We can be stopped by our loss of its realness, our overlooking of the immensity of Christ and the immovability of his love. Christ has died; Christ has risen; Christ will come again. In the silence of our tangled thoughts, the one behind the creeds calls to us over and above the words." Jill Carattini, Slice of Infnity

FULFILLMENT

"I have come to realize that God does not want to punish us but, rather, to fulfill our lives. God created us, loves us, & wants to help us to realize our potential so that we can be useful to others."  Ben Carson, Men's Devotional Bible

COMFORT

"As those who are suffering in Christ, so we can also comfort one another as He comforts us:  "As we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too" (2 Cor. 1:5) And though we pray the cry of abandon, we also continue Psalm 22 & move from pleas to confidence. For our Lord Jesus fulfilled this psalm on God Friday & then by His bodily resurrection, God answered Jesus' plea for aid (Psalm 22:19). "You who fear the Lord, praise Him ... glorify Him ... for He has not not despised or abhorred the afflictions of the afflicted, & He has not hidden His face from him, but has heard, when he cries to Him" (Psalm 22:22-24) The Psalm moves from abandonment to certainty:  "All the ends of the earth shall remember & turn to the Lord, & all the families of the nations shall worship before You. For kingship belongs to the Lord, & He rules over the nations" (Psalm 22:27-28).  Dr. Kenneth Wieting, The Lutheran Witness, May 2020