2020 certainly feels like a dark year. What do we have to be thankful for? Common grace and saving grace are two places to begin. Revelation 16 gives us a glimpse of what losing the first would look like, and 16:17 gives us a glimpse of how to find the second. The Lord bless and keep you in the face of Armageddon - which is actually a word of GOOD news for the Christian!
Devotional - Nov 24, 2020
Music Today: "Land of the Living" by Matthew Perryman Jones.One of the most beautifully evocative songs I know calling someone to leave the false hopes of Babylon for the city of our true love and true home. 'You cannot love in moderation/dancing with a dead man's bones/lay your soul on the threshing floor.'
'You Want it Darker' by Leonard CohenNeither of these songs are hymns or praise songs, necessarily, but it's hard to define this as anything other than a Christian confession, written only weeks before Cohen's death in 2016. Cohen was famously decadent in the '60s, '70s, and '80s at least, but, like Bob Dylan, had biblical and Christ haunted lyrics occasionally peeking out of even his earliest music. His last three recordings show this spiritual wanderer moving more and more directly to the cross of Jesus Christ. The key word 'Hineni' here is Jewish for 'Here I Am.' Many of his late songs describe a despair that a life without God can lead to.
It's been a tough year by American standards, but that 'tough' doesn't mean that much compared to what hundreds of millions of Christ followers deal with in all years, not just 2020. Revelation, including chapter 15, is quite realistic about this, despite all the symbolism. Yet stay with me for a few minutes to share in the remarkable gift the persecuted church sings about here. A reminder for gratitude this Thanksgiving!
Devotional - Nov 19, 2020
Music Today: U2, 'Walk On'. One of the ironies here is Bono wrote and dedicated this song to Aung San Suu Kyi, who at the time was a political prisoner in Myanmar/Burma. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and now Prime MInister, she nows appears to be turning a blind eye to the Myanmar military's current atrocities. A symbol, perhaps, of the difficult, twisted road toward justice on this planet that will only be perfected when Christ's return finally rights every wrong. One of my favorite worship services involved preaching on the coming justice of God at a contemporary worship service where a a gifted dancer (who had been in my youth group in a previous church) gave a stunning interpretation of this song for the offertory. Thank you Teresa VanDenend Sorge!
'You Bring the Morning' - Andy Squyres A newly recorded song on the tension of trusting in God's way of doing things while we live in a very different place. You bring the comfort I'll bring my thinking You bring the new wine, Lord I'll bring the drinking You bring Your spirit I'll bring my weeping I have nothing else But the promises You're keeping
