At long last (nearly 3 months after our trip) the book is ready. The price reflects Blurb’s cost; there is no markup. This is simply a labor of love. The link to the book on the Blurb website:
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Revelation 2:1-7
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.
“‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’
The theater in Ephesus is where rioters once shouted, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians”. When we visited there we sang praise to Jesus Christ.Jesus stands among the churches to whom he writes. His presence is at once comforting and challenging. On the one hand it is good to know that Christ is near his people. On the other hand it is a cause for proper fear. Martin Luther explains it this way in speaking of the Ten Commandments, “We should fear and love God…” We can find comfort in God’s presence and grace; we love him for that. We must also realize that he really does care what happens to his church, his people, and the world itself; we will restrain ourselves out of a healthy fear of offending him by hurting those whom he loves.
In this passage, Jesus calls the Ephesian church to repent for the loss of their first love. It seems likely that this church to whom Paul had written, “By grace you have been saved by faith…” had forgotten how dead they had been, or how far God had reached to them in redemption. They were in danger of losing the church itself by their abandonment of this deep thankfulness for God’s grace.
Grace is free, but not cheap. It cost Jesus his life. It is a priceless treasure. God’s grace is the constant companion of those who look to Christ in repentance and faith. But lose sight of it, neglect the awareness of our need for it, take it for granted, and we are likely to lose it. That’s not because God stops being grace-full, but because of the nature of grace itself. Arrogance discards grace as a relic of weakness and a quaint bygone religious relic.
God calls us to repentance and the good works he has prepared for us to do (Ephesians 2:10); works not to gain grace, but to express our praise to God for his glorious grace. I hope somehow I can express my thanks to God for this glorious grace today.
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Revelation 1:4-7
To the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.
The Coastline of Kavala (near Ephesus, one of the seven churches of Revelation)Oswald Hoffmann, former speaker of The Lutheran Hour radio program told a joke that I’ve retold many times, and always to a good laugh. The punchline is, “I’m fine, I’m just fine!” If you really want to read the whole joke you can see it here. Suffice it to say, context is everything.
That’s so true if we are to understand the book of Revelation properly. The first thing to remember is that this revelation was given to John during a time of persecution of the Christian church, and of John himself. Interpret this whole book with John’s exile because of his testimony to Jesus Christ, and the dangers everyday Christians were experiencing firmly in mind. You will gain a much better read on what God was actually saying.
As important as the milieu of John’s day is, the words at the beginning of this book are vitally important. John offers “grace and peace.” This phrase is more than a formalistic greeting at the beginning of a letter. This is a deep-felt expression of good will toward those who would read these words. These are the words of a close loved one with your best interests at heart.
That’s not always easy to hear, and sometimes we rebel at challenging words even when spoken out of deep pure love. But if we are to hear what is going to be offered in the coming pages, we must keep grace and peace in mind.
God has incredibly pure and true good will toward us. He wishes us deep and profound peace. If we are to be disturbed, it is so that we will move to a better place and experience a better life. Sometimes that requires that we be disturbed. But the disturbance is akin to being violently awakened from a peaceful deep sleep because the house is on fire and unless we are roused, we will perish in the flames.
God’s words to and through John in this Revelation of Jesus Christ are light and life. They come from the One who rules over all, who also died for all, who also has the keys to life and death. He has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us to be a kingdom of priests to serve our God and Father. This is a great blessing and profound responsibility. We ready ourselves for God’s revelation. We need to know these things. We also need to take to heart his call to vigilance. -
1 Corinthians 10:12
Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.
Our group on the New Orleans Segway tour Every time I have seen a group on a Segway tour it as been because they had stopped to attend to someone who had fallen. Last week, while on such a tour I was that guy for whom the group stopped. I had become a bit cocky and felt all too competent 90 minutes into the 2 hour tour. A slight bumpiness in the road, a look to the left, an unintended turn, followed by an over-correction resulted in my spill. I fell hard. Had I not been wearing a helmet I would surely have cracked open my head. As it was, I got up, and finished the tour successfully. The incident left me only with some soreness and a bruised ego.
But just because you have navigated safely for 2/3 of your life, doesn’t mean a tumble is not in your future.
The fuller context of this verse points us toward the example of others and the lessons in humility they teach us. We don’t have to learn only by our own mistakes; we can also learn from the mistakes of others. That’s why we have the examples of failures as well as successes in the Bible.We need to be careful not to assume it will be the other guy who falls, or the other woman who gives into temptation.
Thank God for those life-lessons we can gain from others’ mistakes. Thank God we have a Savior who did not fail and who picks us up when we do. Jesus also gives us a good example to follow. He did not fall or fail because he was truly humble. He was fully commitment to God’s ways, and trusted in the Father’s keeping.
When we display such humility we offer a good example for others. We don’t have to be the negative object lesson from whom others’ learn, we can be the shining light of humility and trust that stands out in a world crowded with pride and self-aggrandizement.
1 Corinthians 10:6-13
Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” 8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. 9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, 10 nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. 11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. 12 Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
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Psalm 145:1-3
I will extol you, my God and King,
and bless your name forever and ever.
2 Every day I will bless you
and praise your name forever and ever.
3 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
and his greatness is unsearchable.
One of the Painted Churches near Schulenberg, Texas Today, as I read the five psalms that go with this 25th day of the month (see reading plan below), I recalled singing this psalm in my college choir. I went to a state university, but one of the choir professors was a member of a local Lutheran church and composed a choral arrangement of this psalm. I still remember it today – 40+ years later!
The psalm ends with these reassuring words:
The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
19 He fulfills the desire of those who fear him;
he also hears their cry and saves them.
20 The Lord preserves all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.21 My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord,
and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.What a great promise to hold to! What a calling for his people: praise his holy name. I look forward to doing so today with God’s people at St. John. I hope and pray that the reader of this blog will join with fellow believers in praise to God today in worship as well.
Today’s psalms are 25; 55; 85; 115; 145. That is just one way of reading through the psalms in one month. You take the day of the month, read the psalm with that same number, add 30 to that number, read that psalm, add 30…and so on. Doing that you will read five psalms per day, 150 in a month’s time. (I usually “cheat” on day 29, since psalm 119 is so long I skip it on the 29th and read it on the 31st.
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John 20:15-16 (see fuller context here)
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her,“Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).
Saul had a “God moment” on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). The rich young ruler had one when he asked Jesus about inheriting eternal life (Mark 10:17-22). Isaiah experienced a major one in his vision (Isaiah 6:1-5). The soldiers had a different sort of “God moment” when the angel came from heaven and rolled away the stone as they were guarding the tomb (Matthew 28:1-4). In one way or another these encounters with the living God defined their lives for good or for ill. The difference has to do with their ultimate understanding of what God was doing in their lives and in the world.
Mary’s encounter with Jesus at the tomb on Easter morning is powerful in its simplicity and hints at the nature of fear, love, and hope. Mary’s love for Jesus is obvious: she is weeping because she still grieves Jesus’ death. She is fearful that those who treated Jesus so shamefully had managed to inflict further insult and injury by taking and possibly desecrating his body.
Through her tears she cannot tell who she is speaking to there at the tomb. But when Jesus speaks her name, all her worst fears, her deepest sadness, and dashed hopes begin to melt away. I get the sense that her response, “Teacher” was the question of believing disbelief, the encounter with the too-good-to-be-true presence of the living Jesus. Could it really be him? Is he really alive? Is all my worry, pain, grief, and sadness really able to be let go? May my tears really be turned to joy?
God’s promises to his people are so profound, so far-reaching, and so beyond our ability to conceive. There be a day when we will have every tear wiped away, a day when every knee will bow before the Lord of life who is the Lamb of God, who has taken away the sins of the world. There will be a day when we will see Christ face-to-face, and he will call us by name and we will rejoice in beyond-all-our-dreams hope realized. We will delight to proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord!
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John 13:1-5
It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
If ever there was One who did not embody such a childish and self-centered attitude it would be Jesus. That makes this small section from the Gospel of John, and especially verse 3 even more profoundly impactful to me. Jesus was the greatest man ever to live. He was God in the flesh. All things were put under his power. So what does he do? He washes the disciples’ feet. That’s simply amazing.If all things were under my power what would I do? Figure out how to add 200 square feet to my house and move it a bit more into the country. I’d get that annoying and impossible to identify “click” in my car fixed. I’d do something about the traffic on 290 – at least when I needed to get anywhere…and maybe on Beltway 8, or maybe fix that traffic signal on Spring Cypress and Skinner to behave in the way I know it should behave.
What folly! We all know better than to think that if we “fixed” things according to our sense of the way things ought to be, we would only make matters worse. And worse yet, we too easily fall into the trap of thinking and acting like, “It ain’t braggin’ if it’s true.”
But not Jesus. Jesus used his greatness to serve. He ultimately sacrificed himself for the sins of the world – the greatest expression of love possible. So next time you are inclined to brag about how important, great, or how things ought to go the way you believe they should go: be it traffic on 290, the weather, or even the current state of the economy, remember that God grants greatness to those who understand how to use it properly. And whoever would be great among us must be servant of all. That would preclude bragging, or any kind of social engineering we might be tempted to pursue.
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Revelation 13:14
And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”
“Courtyard Cross” – Bejing, China I just learned of a sudden and unexpected death of Rev. Kim DeVries. His wife indicated that he had gone jogging and didn’t return at the expected time. It seems he may have died from a heart attack or blood clot. I am stunned to learn of his death. He served as Senior Pastor of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church in San Antonio and was a faithful pastor and true gentleman. I am saddened to learn of his death.
Diane and I also recently learned of the death of a colleague’s 88 year old mother. Although it wasn’t totally unexpected, her death was a ringing reminder of the limits of our days on this earth. Hence the appropriateness of these words from Psalm 90:12
So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.
We may wish to go on living as though there is no tomorrow, or without a sincere awareness of the limits to our life on this earth. But sudden and unexpected deaths of friends and family as well as the deaths of those who have lived a full life are a call for wisdom. I would hope that at my life’s end people would say that I had a heart of wisdom, and that as I die I rest from worthy labors.
Perhaps that is what it means to have a heart of wisdom. To live and work “in the Lord” so that whatever we do is not in vain. This is the calling in 1 Corinthians 15:58
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
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James 4:13-17
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
Dancing Girls – Calvert, Texas Few people I know would reject a peek into the future. Whether it is to see what stock to buy, who will win the Superbowl, or just what surprises the New Year will bring: we have inquiring minds. We would love to know at least some aspects of the future. As we face a New Year, much of our resolutions, planning, aspirations, and plans have to do with managing how the future will unfold before us.
But what if our resolution to lose weight is realized because of a debilitating illness? Or imagine how we would feel if our team won the Superbowl but it was discovered that an organized crime ring had managed to influence the outcome? What if we knew about and were prepared for the surprises that lay ahead but missed the greater issues of daily life with our family and friends?
James tells us that we should always look to the future keeping in mind God’s will and providential control over all things. He certainly got that from Jesus himself who told his disciples, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:7). Rather than resolving (how did you do with that this past year?), or planning as though we have control over the future, our call is to put our lives into God’s hands and seek his reign in our lives.
We may hope for a good return on our investments. It’s OK to have a favorite team. There is nothing inherently wrong with having a wise preparedness for the future. When those hopes and preparedness are subject to a desire to honor God and live under Christ in his kingdom, we have a strong foundation from which to launch into the New Year. That’s because not only does God reign over all things, but he is truly good, and his mercy in Christ endures forever. May the Holy Spirit keep us in this faith throughout the year!
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1 Thessalonians 5:17Pray without ceasing
Calvert, Texas Storefront Almighty and merciful heavenly Father, how great is your faithfulness; how wonderful is your love! You have brought me safely through this year now coming to an end, through great moments of joy and challenging times of trial. Through it all I look back and see your fatherly divine goodness and mercy, your daily provision, and your faithful goodness. I see this in the care you have provided me and my family. I see it in the birth of children, the encouragement of others through times of trial, the joys of family and friends, and the rich adventures you have allowed me to experience. I see your goodness and love in the blessings of a glass of wine and a tasty meal. I see your kindness in the encouragement of friends and conversations of brothers and sisters in Christ. I see your grace, also, in the divine protection you have provided me – even without my knowledge, the angelic interventions and unseen helpers along life’s way. For all this I give thanks to you, O God.I am all too aware, also, of my own failures and faults that lie in my past this year:The kind words unspoken, and the hurtful words uttered;The good thoughts not held to, and the evil thoughts embraced;The loving actions abandoned, and the hurtful things I have done;For all these things I ask your forgiveness. For the sake of Jesus’ suffering and death, and according to your promise remove these from me as far as the east is from the west.And now as I face the New Year, let me do so even more resolved to live under Christ in his kingdom and serve him. Let me rejoice in and praise you for your fatherly divine goodness and mercy in every form. Let me look with great hope to the New Year, but even greater anticipation of the Great Last Day, that by the power and work of your Holy Spirit in my heart, I may rejoice in your presence eternally; through Jesus Christ my Lord. AmenLuther’s Evening PrayerI thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have graciously kept me this day; and I pray that You would forgive me all my sins where I have done wrong, and graciously keep me this night. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. AmenPrayer for the third evening of the month from Diary of Private Prayer, by John Baillie, revised by David BahnO you most wise, most great, most holy, in wisdom and power and tender mercy you created me in your own image. You have given me this life to live. You have appointed my lot and determined the boundaries of my habitation. You have surrounded me with gracious and beneficent influences. You have written your law within my heart.
And in my heart’s most secret chamber you are now waiting to meet and speak with me, freely offering me your fellowship in spite of all my sinning. Let me now avail myself of this open road to peace of mind. Let me approach your presence humbly and reverently. Let me carry with me the spirit of my Lord and Master Jesus Christ. Let me leave behind me all fretfulness, all unworthy desires, all thoughts of malice towards my fellow men, all hesitancy in surrendering my will to yours.
In your will, O Lord, is my peace.
In your love is my rest.
In your service is my joy.
You are all my heart’s desire.Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you. (Psalm 73:25).In your presence, O God, I think not only of myself, but of others, my fellow men:
Of my friends, especially of …. and of ….
Of those who to‑day have worked or played with me:
Of those who are in sorrow:
Of those who are bearing the burdens of others:
Of those who are manning difficult stations or lonely outposts of your Kingdom:O you who are the one God and Father of us all, be near to us all tonight and graciously keep watch over our souls. Hear my prayer for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.
David Bahn - Reflections 