But God is compassionate, slow to get angry March 5, 2024
Psalm 103:8 The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry andfilled with unfailing love.
Litany of Penitence 5
For our self-indulgent appetites and ways,
And our intemperate pursuit of worldly goods and comforts;
Lord, have mercy upon us:
For we have sinned against you.
The Lenten discipline of fasting is transferable: it can teach us self-control, equipping us to say no to temptations that can hurt us or others. We say no to physical satiation so we can be filled with God’s unfailing love. If you listened to Kevin Antlitz’s sermon from February 25, recommended in my last post, this statement will sound familiar to you.
The Lenten discipline of fasting is abstaining from food for spiritual purposes. Not everyone can fast from food; perhaps you, like me, need to fast from something else. But here are guidelines for food fasting from Adele Ahlberg Calhoun’s Spiritual Disciplines Handbook (thanks, Kevin):
Don’t fast if you are in a hurry and are fasting for immediate results regarding some decision. Fasting is not magic.
Stay hydrated. Always drink plenty of water and fluids.
If you are new to fasting, begin by fasting for one meal. Spend the time with God that you would normally be using to eat.
Work up to longer fasts. Don’t attempt prolonged fasts without guidance.
If you decide to fast regularly, give your body time to adjust to new rhythms of eating. You may feel more tired on days you fast. Adjust your responsibilities appropriately.
Begin a fast after supper. Fast until supper the next day. This way you miss two meals rather than three.
Fasting benefits us, not God. We don’t do it to earn his approval or favor, but to grow in character like his. He’s not a mean, angry person just waiting to punish us. He wants our best, just like we desire for our own children. We reap the benefits over the long term. Spiritual disciplines are a marathon, not a sprint. In that way too they are counter-cultural. We need to train for them and build our tolerance and skills slowly, finding joy along the way.
But God wants us to know and reflect his pure love
Psalm 103:7 The Lord revealed his character to Moses and his deeds to the people of Israel.
Litany of Penitence 4:
For our sexual impurity, our exploitation of other people,
And our failure to give of ourselves in love;
Lord, have mercy upon us:
For we have sinned against you.
What do you think of the heading to this post, from last Sunday’s sermon by Kevin Antlitz? (You can listen to the context of his statement here (Feb 25): we choose to say no to ourselves so we can say yes to God and to those we love and care for. How do you embrace self-denial personally?
Psalm 103:6 The Lord gives righteousness and justice to all who are treated unfairly.
Litany of Penitence 3:
For our unrighteous anger, bitterness, and resentment
For all lies, gossip, and slander against our neighbors.
Lord, have mercy upon us:
For we have sinned against you.
There are two sides to this confession: our response to those who have hurt us, and our own unjust thoughts, feelings, words, and actions against others.
We need God’s mercy and healing in both. He longs to restore us rather than punish us.
For I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and wrongdoing. I will faithfully reward my people for their suffering … The Sovereign Lord will show his justice to the nations of the world. Everyone will praise him! His righteousness will be like a garden in early spring with plants springing up everywhere (Isaiah 61:8, 11).
Shutterstock: StudioSmart
Be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. … Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will bless you for it (1 Peter 1:6, 3:9).
But Jesus’ light can’t be extinguished by darkness
John 1:1-18 In the beginning the Word already existed. … The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. … So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son. … Jesus Christ has revealed God to us.
I’ve missed you! And I’ve enjoyed focusing on other things, like vacation. And the details of publishing Facing the Faeries 1906.
I’m returning to this blog halfway through the season of Epiphany, which ends with the beginning of Lent on February 14. The readings for this season have included the Gospel of John, with his emphasis on Christ as the Light of the world.
Epiphany began on January 6, the day selected by early church fathers to remember the magi visiting baby Jesus in Bethlehem and bringing him gifts. The magi were not Jewish, hence the connection with Jesus bringing light to theworld, not just to the people God chose to be his earthly family and lineage. The wise men illustrate for us the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham that through him and his descendants, all the earth would be blessed (Genesis 22:18).
Returning to twice weekly postings on this blog, I have four opportunities to think about John’s view of Jesus as the Light of the world before we enter Lent. It seems John can hardly wait to get into this theme. As one of Jesus’ disciples, walking with him for at least three years, John was well positioned to tell us what he personally saw and experienced of what he calls Jesus’ glory, the divine light of unfailing love and faithfulness shining through him.
John was no pushover. Jesus called him and his brother James “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17). They wanted to call fire from heaven to burn up a Samaritan village that didn’t accept Jesus (Luke 9:52-54). Yet in John’s writings (he’s the most prolific New Testament writer after Paul), his emphasis is on love. His life was transformed by the light of Jesus shining into his personal darkness, gentling him and dramatically changing his perspective on the “others” in his world.
For us, you and me, grappling daily with the darkness, violence, and brokenness of the world, John’s introduction to his Gospel is tremendously encouraging. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.” Think about that. Isn’t it good news, solid rock on which to place our feet, a promise we can count on no matter how dark things get? We don’t see it yet, but the ending of the story will be glorious!
Tucked inside my fortune cookie!Isn’t that cool?
Thinking about this promise, I feel my anxiety for the world dissipate like air leaking from a balloon. My thoughts turn to my small role in shining his light into the darkness around me, beginning in my own heart. What a relief to know I’m just a minor character in this huge story God is writing. He has the whole thing figured out! Hallelujah!
John 21:3-6, 17, 19-22 [After Jesus’s resurrection] Simon Peter said, “I’m going fishing.” “We’ll come, too,” [six other disciples] said. But they caught nothing all night. At dawn Jesus, standing on the beach, called out, “Children, have you caught any fish?” No, they replied. Then Jesus said, “Throw out your net on the right-hand side of the boat.” So they did, and they couldn’t haul in the net because there were so many fish in it. …
Psalm 32:1-2 Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight! Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt!
[After breakfast] A third time, Jesus asked Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time. He said, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Then feed my sheep.” … Then Jesus told him, “Follow me.” Peter turned around and saw behind them the disciple Jesus loved. … He asked Jesus, “What about him, Lord?” Jesus replied, “… What is that to you? As for you, follow me.”
Have you ever wondered why Jesus chose this particular setting for his pivotal conversation with Peter after the crucifixion and resurrection, after Peter’s denials warranted a return to the moniker “Simon”?
This miraculous catch of fish is a reprise of Luke 5, offering Peter another chance to recognize and reconnect with Jesus, and with God’s call on his life. A chance to accept forgiveness and to move beyond his failures. A chance to heal his story.
God met me as well, on ensuing visits to the lake. Fast forward from the story I told in the last post. I’m now fourteen, graduated from boarding school, fearful of the future. Sitting alone overlooking the lake, I told the Lord I wasn’t ready to leave Guatemala because I had not yet learned to love. I acknowledged my heart full of resentment and bitterness. I didn’t want to take all that with me into whatever awaited me in my new life in the United States, where my parents would send me for high school. But how could I change? I had confessed my anger and hurt, but it refused to die, rearing its ugly head on a daily basis.
Romans 12:2 was the verse I was considering: “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” You’ll have to do it, Lord. I have no idea how to change the way I think. On the surface, nothing (apparently) happened. But it was a place marker, an anchor, an intention, a hope: “Someday, somehow, I will learn how to love other people.”
Shutterstock: Christopher Moswitzer
Fast forward twenty-five or so more years. A different country, a different lake, a different language. A big difference this time because I’m not alone. A dear friend is listening to my despair over Ephesians 5:1-2, “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children, and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us.”
“For most of my life,” I confessed to my friend, “I’ve begged God to teach me to love him and to love other people. But I don’t know how. I have no idea what it feels like to be a dearly loved child.”
“Then let’s ask him to show you,” she said. What followed was one of the most powerful prayer visions I have ever experienced. It healed a fracture line in my soul. It changed forever the way I knew Jesus and the way I viewed myself and other people. Literally, it saved my life. It was the beginning of learning the Romans 12:2 different way of thinking I had begged God for at fourteen.
Why did this healing take so long? Why did I have to go through so much trauma and drama between fourteen and forty? I’ll probably never know. But I’m grateful, so thankful that it did happen. It was an essential foundation stone in the healing journey that has continued through the almost thirty years since that day.
Tomorrow Dave and I plan to board a plane for Ireland, for a “triple trip,” celebrating our 45th wedding anniversary last August, Dave’s St. Patrick’s Day 70th birthday, and researching Book 3 of the Cally and Charlie series. I have the sense—though I don’t know how, exactly—that the week in Ireland will be another significant step in the healing God continues in my life. I’ll let you know!
Luke 5:4-10 Jesus said to Simon, “Now go out where it is deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish.” “Master,” Simon replied, we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.” This time the nets were so full of fish they began to tear! … When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m too much of a sinner to be around you.” … Jesus replied to Simon, “Don’t be afraid.”
Romans 8:1-2 So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. … The life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin. … Letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.
The sun grew warm as I built a sandcastle with my brother and sisters. I took off my sweater and laid it on a rock. After a while, we ran to the lake to splash in the waves lapping the shore. When I returned, my sweater was gone.
My seven-year-old heart was terrified to tell my mother I had lost my sweater. I delayed returning to our vacation house for as long as I could. Thus I was doubly in trouble, not only for my carelessness but for not showing up in time to help with lunch. I was denied lunch and grounded for the remaining day and a half of our vacation. But what hurt most were the words my mother poured out on me, and the tone of those words. I’m not sure I learned to be more responsible. I do know my fear of her dug even deeper roots into my soul.
It’s natural for a child to project that experience of fear onto God, to assume God is like our parents or other authority figures who haven’t known how to support and encourage us. The breakthrough, healing moments (I’ll tell about one of them in the next post) come from discovery that Jesus isn’t like them. That’s what Simon learned.
“The Chosen” depicts Simon in BIG trouble over his debt to the Roman government. The miraculous catch of fish more than paid Simon’s taxes. It freed him to give up fishing and follow Jesus.
But Simon had an even bigger debt, the debt of his sin, which made him ashamed to come close to the Holy One. Dane Ortlund in his precious book Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, points out in almost every chapter that the only safe thing to do with ourselves when we recognize our sin is to go straight to Jesus. Remember the story in John 8 of the woman caught in adultery? (No mention is made of the man … apparently, she was committing adultery by herself.) Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”
Compassion. That’s what we’ll find when we go to Jesus in our sin. He weeps over the wounding that takes place within us and in others when we sin. He wants to free us from sin’s devastating impact.
Ortlund says (page 174), “His love is great because it surges forward all the more when the beloved is threatened, even if threatened as a result of its own folly.” I wish for courage this Lent, for you and for me, to trust Jesus’s heart of love, his compassion, his gentleness, his longing to connect with us, to free and heal us. Hear him say to you as he did to Simon, “Don’t be afraid.”
Hebrews 7:23-25 There were many priests under the old system, for death prevented them from remaining in office. But because Jesus lives forever, his priesthood lasts forever … He lives forever to intercede with God on our behalf.
Lent. What is it, exactly?
Since I didn’t grow up or live most of my life knowing about or practicing Lent, I’ve been asking God for a concept or image to help me understand it. In the Ash Wednesday service yesterday, we were invited to observe a holy Lent because since early times:
“ … the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need that all Christians continually have to renew our repentance and faith. … Let us now pray for grace, that we may faithfully keep this Lent.”
This morning I read chapter 8 of Dane Ortlund’s beautiful book, Gentle and Lowly, The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, which takes a deep dive into Hebrews 7:25. Ortlund describes Jesus’s heart as so warm toward us that he is constantly talking to the Father about us. “Christ does not intercede because the Father’s heart is tepid toward us but because the Son’s heart is so full toward us. But the Father’s own deepest delight is to say yes to the Son’s pleading on our behalf. … The intercession of Christ is his heart connecting our heart to the Father’s heart.”
This is beautiful. And for me to benefit from Christ’s intercession for me, I need to open my heart to his. Jesus doesn’t force his way. He gently invites me to connect with him.
So this is my image for Lent: my heart open and connecting with his, so that he can cleanse and heal and grow his beauty and grace in me.
But how do I translate that into an image for this blog? My mind flooded with the memory of a very special prayer time with a Christian therapist who helped me heal from PTSD. I found myself in a beautiful sunny meadow, romping with Jesus as a small child, maybe four or five. Just the two of us. Jesus seemed to have all the time in the world, as happy to be playing with me as I was thrilled to be with him.
At one point Jesus fell laughing to the ground, and I ran to sit beside him. A gorgeous blue butterfly settled on his shoulder. He reached out, the butterfly crawled onto his hand, and he extended it to me. “The butterfly will be scared of me and fly away,” I thought. But it didn’t. Breathless, I watched it come to me. I trembled with delight. Jesus and I played with the butterfly for a long time.
When my therapist gently touched me and brought me back from this vision, I knew I was not alone. Whatever I had to deal with, Jesus was with me.
I ran to find paper and colored pencils to try to draw the butterfly. I’m not an artist and couldn’t capture its beauty. But I believe the butterfly was (is) the Holy Spirit.
So that’s the image I’ve placed as the header for this Lenten season. A symbol for me of connection with the Trinity through the Holy Spirit who draws me into Jesus’s heart of love, and through him to the Father.
Jesus’s work on my behalf isn’t just a thing he did in the distant past. He LIVES to intercede for me. And for you. His love for us is as fervent today as the passion that took him to suffering and death. And resurrection. For our transformation.
God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns (Philippians 1:6).
Mark 10:46-52 As Jesus and his disciples left Jericho, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus was sitting beside the road. When he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was nearby, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” “Be quiet!” many of the people yelled at him. … But Jesus stopped and said, “Tell him to come here.” So they called the blind man. “Cheer up! Come on, he’s calling you!” Bartimaeus threw aside his coat, jumped up, and came to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked. “My rabbi,” the blind man said. “I want to see!” And Jesus said to him, “Go, for your faith has healed you.” Instantly the man could see, and he followed Jesus.
Epiphany. A season of revelation. Of a clearer vision of Jesus.
It seems fitting that the last story in Mark before the events of Holy Week is about seeing. And that yesterday, Christians around the world considered Jesus’s transfiguration, as a portion of Jesus’s glory was revealed to his followers, Moses (representing the law), and Elijah (representing the prophets). The Father said, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him” (Mark 9:1-8), then Moses and Elijah were gone, and the disciples saw only Jesus.
How have you seen Jesus during these weeks of Epiphany? Has God opened your eyes in some way? Has he spoken to you personally or acted on your behalf to change the direction things were going? What’s your story of encounter with God?
Between Epiphany and Holy Week, we walk with Jesus through Lent. Many evangelical Christians don’t have experience with observing Lent. I knew nothing about it when I was growing up. On Thursday I plan to post my current thoughts and recent experience of Lent. Perhaps you’ll want to take steps toward honoring this in-between season, observed by many in Christ’s church almost from the beginning.
Also during the weeks of Lent (Feb. 23-April 1), I want to publish your story about how you have seen God’s revelation of Jesus during Epiphany. Write it down in one page and send it to me at debrakornfield@gmail.com. Your story will encourage others and you’ll have it to refer to yourself when you need reassurance that God sees you and cares for you.
During Epiphany, we’ve been looking at the question, “Who is this man?” from Mark’s point of view. Perhaps you’d like to look back over the topics we’ve considered since January 6. Ask God to open your eyes to see what he wants to show you and to open your ears to hear the words of love he is always speaking to you.
“I want to see!” The passion and desire of a lifetime poured into Bartimaeus’s words. I love that Jesus asked him what he wanted, giving this man the opportunity to use his voice and express what had been stomped down inside him his whole life.
Do you, too, want to see? Don’t be quiet. Cry out to the Lord for his mercy and healing.
Debra Kornfield 