Month: November 2016

Categories
PWTE Daily Devotion

Servant

The Heart of Jesus.

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

Servant
In the Beginning God’s Creative Word
Spoke in the Darkness,
Serving up light and life in a riotous
Panoply of colors and sounds,
The heartbeat of divinity
Displaying itself to an infant cosmos.

In the Beginning darkness of human sin
A foreign word reigned,
Serving up blame and lies in a cacophonous
Dissonance of feigning deception,
The death-knell of humanity
Displaying itself to a suddenly-aged world.

november-12-98Servant
Destined by his love from before Creation
Word of the Father, woman’s seed
Served up the Promise of a bruising redemption,
Restoration and Victory.
Clothed in the symbols of God’s deliverance
Adam and Eve left Eden still destined by grace for Paradise.

Heeding the Call of God’s mercy,
Prophets populated the land of promise,
Serving God and people with words from God’s own heart.
‘Thus says the Lord’ repeatedly rang out over ears turned deaf—
God’s children ironically turning to attend to mute gods,
No gods at all.  Hubris always displays the result of the Fall.

Servant
Creative Word, Promise-Word, Emptying-Word
Now appeared in human form, not an apparition,
Serving the mystery and being substantively God-Man.
Bruised by death he crushed the serpent, springing again to life,
Delivering us back to the Father’s waiting arms,
We who cling to the Cross, believing and trusting.

God himself knelt before men to wash their feet.
With water and towel he bore uncleanness to clean,
Serving as example for a servant life.
Rising then, he walked the lonely way of cross
And death, simultaneously serving God and man,
Exemplifying the uncharacteristic characteristic of Divine humility.

Servant
Etched across the fabric of discipleship is the echo of Christ
Kneeling, cringing, suffering, dying—a Holy
Serving of God’s own promise, power and purpose.
‘Follow me.’  The voice of Christ constantly calls,
The Word engenders faith and we embrace as
We are embraced, gifts now, ourselves for serving.

In our ever-Beginning moment of life in Christ
We are marked with Cross and bended knee,
Servants moving to the rhythm of God’s song,
A melody to carry the body and soul to
Sabbath, to Shalom, to Shelter in the shadow
Of his wings, and bear us into the world as

Servant

Text and picture, Copyright Don Schatz

Categories
PWTE Daily Devotion

Graveside

He remembers we are dust…

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“…for He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust.”
Psalm 103:14

This photo was taken at my aunt’s graveside service about two weeks ago.  Florence was 91 when she died. My uncle Leonard had died twelve years earlier.

gravesideAs I called the extended family around the coffin for the graveside service, my cousin Paulette told her three siblings, “The four chairs in the front are for us.”

Her brother Wally replied, “I don’t want to sit there.”

Paulette asked him, “Why not?”

Wally said in a low tone, “Because I don’t want to be next to the grave.”

All of us immediately understood his double meaning.  He did not want to sit next to the grave because he now was the next generation in line to die.  His father and mother were both gone, and now he would be next.

A sobering thought for a whole baby boomer generation that is aging and losing their parents.  A whole generation that thought of itself as forever young are now becoming the next generation that await their own graveside services.

Many Americans my age experience a grand denial of aging and death.  They refuse to think about death and dying and “meeting their Maker.”  They pretend this will not happen to them, this ending of this life and their appointment to meet God face to face.

But thankfully God is not in denial about the sober facts of death.  He “remembers that we are dust.”  That all are destined for the grave.

And He has done something very amazing about this death problem.  He sent His own Son to die that you might live.  He rose from the dead that you might rise.  The Father has had compassion on His children and removed the curse of sin and death from you and me.  His love in Jesus Christ is from everlasting to everlasting, and His righteousness with all those who fear Him.

In Christ Jesus, I need not fear death nor the grave.  Even though I die, yet shall I live.  Praise God who does not abandon us to the grave! Praise God whose mercy is from everlasting to everlasting!  Praise God for our resurrection in the Lord Jesus Christ!

Text and Picture Copyright Steve Nickodemus

Categories
PWTE Daily Devotion

Who’s Having More Fun?

Utah Olympic Park, Park City, Utah

 Fun isn’t always about playing it safe.

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s booth.
“Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him.
Mark 2:14 New Living Translation

I had finished an exhilarating climb to the start houses for the bobsled and luge at the Utah Olympic Park in Park City, Utah. My son, Joel, and I had been at this track in February of 2002. We watched history as driver, Jill Bakken, and brakewoman, Vonetta Flowers, won the first ever women’s gold metal in bobsled.

Utah Olympic Park, Park City, Utah
Utah Olympic Park, Park City, Utah

After returning from my hike I ducked inside the museum and to my surprise I saw a ski jumper doing aerials as I looked out this window. Mind you, this was October and we hadn’t had any snow. In fact, the temperature was near 70 and it happened that these jumpers were landing in a swimming pool.

So, who had more fun: those of us looking out the window, or those who flew into the air and landed with amazing precision in the chlorinated water?

I would guess that it was the latter.

How might have Levi’s life changed had he not taken the plunge by leaving his tax booth and following Jesus? He wouldn’t have failed Jesus by abandoning him the garden. He wouldn’t have been huddled in fear with the other disciples after Jesus’ death. He wouldn’t have suffered the same fate as Jesus. Playing it safe behind the window of fear would have saved him a lot of trouble.

But is safer always better?

For Levi, safer wasn’t better. Though he didn’t know what he was getting into when he left his business behind, he must have known that what he was entering into was better than the life he was leaving. Following Jesus isn’t safe, but it’s better than being consumed by the wish that our lives were different and somehow better than they are.

In my opinion, those who have fun are those who leave the safety of window.

Text and Picture Copyright Douglas P Brauner