5 Pentecost, Year C, 23 June 2013

Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39

Preached by Rev. Dr. Jason Haddox  

 

What name did your mother call you when she wanted your attention RIGHT NOW?

 

“Jason Monroe Haddox, get in here…” 

Even if it’s been years since you heard that voice, you still know that sound.

The power of naming, by which we simultaneously bestow and call forth the identity of the one being named, is a mighty power indeed.  And so it is to be used with great care and humility.    

That power of naming stands behind our gospel this morning.  The writer invites the hearers to see and recognize God’s presence and action in the lives of those named in the story, and in our own lives as well.    

Immediately before this morning’s passage, Jesus has crossed the Sea of Galilee in a boat with the disciples and calmed a storm, to the disciples’ salvation and confusion.  Afraid and amazed, they ask one another: “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?”  For Jesus to command the winds and waters from storm to stillness is not merely a cool party trick, a little meteorological sleight-of-hand.  The writer of Luke’s gospel wants us to understand that Jesus’ words “Peace, be still” comes from the same voice of creation spoken over the waters of creation at the beginning of all things, that said “Let there be light.”  To control wind and water is to control the natural forces of chaos and destruction.  This is the work of the Creator, and no one else.   

But the disciples—bless their hearts—just don’t quite get it.    

As this morning’s gospel begins, Jesus and the disciples (who are still amazed and afraid, confused and befuddled) come ashore on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee in Gentile country.  A man possessed by demons meets them.  He screams aloud “at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?’”   

The man himself is naked, uncontrollable, wild; he cannot be kept at home, he is driven by raw diabolical impulse into the wilderness, he lives in the cemetery among the dead.  He is as strange, as frightening, as “Other” as imaginable.  And yet HE KNOWS. 

This man knows who Jesus is, and that alone is enough to set him in contrast to the disciples, who are still confused about the whole thing.  Both the man himself—a Gentile, a stranger, one who is clearly one of “them people” in every possible way—and the demons who have possessed him—know and recognize Jesus for who he is.   

Jesus asks the name of the unclean spirit.  To know the name is to have power.  The name given is not a single name; it is the name of a mob.  Legion.  It is a military term for approximately five thousand foot soldiers.  It is a Latin, Roman term, reminding the hearers then and now of the power of empire to possess and destroy the souls of those under occupation.  It is another word of “otherness”, no proper name for a human being at all. 

Like the disciples, the powers of darkness and corruption are filled with fear.  But it is worse for them; they KNOW who this is, and that in his presence their power is at an end.  “Do not send us back to the abyss; let us go over there into those pigs grazing by the lake.”   

GO, he tells them.  “Get out.”

 

And they go, into a herd of pigs, creatures which are also understood to be unclean, who go mad and plunge down the cliff and into the lake to destruction.  Into the lake, into the water, into the place of chaos and disorder over which Jesus has just moments before demonstrated control and power.  Into the abyss, just as they had feared. 

When the dust settles and the neighbors come to see what all the commotion is about, they find this man whom they have known and feared for years, “from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.”  He has not been in his right mind for as long as anyone can remember—himself least of all.  Sitting at the feet of the teacher is the posture of a student, of a disciple.   This man is now one of Jesus’ followers, by his disposition and body language.   

He is clothed.  We learn at the beginning of the episode that “for a long time he had worn no clothes” and yet he is dressed and sitting calmly with the other disciples. 

Where did he get the clothes? 

It must be from the other disciples.  An undershirt from this one; a belt from that one; a tunic from someone else…together they clothed this new addition to their community.  Together they provided what was necessary to bring him into the place of calm and welcome and restoration.   

This, as much as anything, makes those who see it afraid.  They discern, however imperfectly, that something very strange and very powerful is present, and they back away from it.  Before this the townsfolk would have stayed away from the man who had been possessed by demons out of fear for their own safety; now they keep their distance out of amazement and holy fear.  They don’t know WHAT to make of all this, only that it is even more strange and unsettling than before.  

 

For their own comfort, they ask Jesus to leave.  The man who had been freed from the demons seeks to stay with Jesus—of course he does!  But Jesus tells him “No, I have a job for you.  GO HOME, and tell them all what God has done for you.”  So he goes home—how long he has been away from home!—and tells the people there all that JESUS has done for him.  Note the shift—that it is in Jesus that God’s blessing and healing and sending has been revealed.

 

My brothers and sisters, we are ourselves plagued by the powers of darkness and evil.  We know what it is to wander in the tombs, to be driven into desert and wilderness.  Whether by anxiety or fear, depression or grief for ourselves, for loved ones, or for the world in which we live, we know something of that man’s struggle.  Perhaps we have known ourselves cut off from one another, as if we alone had to battle and batter against shackles and chains. 

Into the midst of all of this—in the deepest darkness, into the place of hurt and rage and despair, Jesus comes to us.  Calls to us, names us with the name which is our truest, most complete self, and turning to the powers of darkness orders them GO—GET OUT.  You shall not have this one, these many, for they are my beloveds. 

For that is who we are, dear ones.  Beloved of God, made in the image and likeness of God, called as brothers and sisters of Christ Jesus, in whom (as the letter to the Galatians says this morning) “there is neither Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ.”  Children of the promise made to Abraham and his offspring.  Blessed, in order to be a blessing. 

As the newly-freed man in the gospel was clothed by the other disciples,

to go home and tell what had been done for him by God revealed in Jesus,

            so in our baptism we are set free;

            the powers of darkness are dead and drowned in the waters of new life;

            and we are clothed in Christ,

            to go and tell what God has done, is doing, and yet shall do through

Christ, for and in us.   

What God calls us to do, God gives the gifts to accomplish.  As the letter to the Hebrews says: “Glory to God, whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.”  It is God’s power, not our own, at work.  All we have to do is say yes. 

May that yes be our word, our answer to God’s call, this day and all our days. 

 

4 Pentecost, Year C, June 16, 2013

1 Kings 21:1-10, 15-21A; Psalm 5:1-8; Galatians 2:15-21; Luke 7:36—8:3

Preached by Ian Lasch

 

          Our epistle reading today, much like both the Bible and Christianity itself, begins with the law. The giving of the law on Mount Sinai was a transformative event in the history of a people who only then became a nation. It was a moment which would come to define them, and us, even millennia later. And while Paul has some very interesting things to say about the law, we ought to delve a bit into the background of the law itself before we get to his points about it.

          There is a tendency, particularly among us as Christians, to think only of the Decalogue (meaning “ten words”), or the “Ten Commandments” as we know them, when speaking of the law. The Decalogue is very important, but an article I read recently about it by Leon Kass referred to it as the preamble for the law, which seems like an apt description. The Decalogue gives a framework for the law; an idea of what the law entails. The first four commandments concern how we should relate to God and the last six are about how we should relate to our fellow human beings. But the Decalogue is just a bird’s eye view. The full Law of Moses contains some 613 separate commandments and is spread out within four different books. I promise I won’t go into too much detail, but I want to highlight just a couple of parts of the Decalogue, not because they’re any more important than the rest, but because they give us an idea about the intent of the law.

          The fourth commandment or word is to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy; as it’s given to us in Exodus it explicitly parallels creation, which wasn’t finished until God desisted, and admired the whole of creation, and saw that it was good. But that article by Kass brings up the point that it also echoes their experience with manna in the wilderness during the exodus from Egypt. During this time God provided for them when they feared they would starve, by raining food on them from heaven, but only for six days out of the week. Every day, they’re to gather only what they need, except for the sixth, when they should gather enough for two days, so that they can keep the Sabbath. This shows Israel, and us, that this world in which we live is not a world of scarcity, but a world of plenty… that God will provide sufficiently for our needs, and that we shouldn’t work endlessly to try to accumulate more than we need… that we cannot be grateful if we’re always worried about getting more.

          The tenth commandment or word says, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” This as much as tells us that those desires we have to accumulate or possess, to be consumers, are often contrary to God’s plan. Just as we are told to stop struggling and working for one day out of the week, we find out that we shouldn’t be as enamored of stuff as we are.

          These two commandments, again, don’t represent the whole of the law. But they give us at least a small idea of what the law intends. It’s important to have at least a little bit of the background of the law, because it is such a major part of who Paul is. It’s a law that he spent his life pursuing, up until the time of his conversion, and he knew it inside and out. Even at the time of writing this letter, he continued to try to live by it, so it’s all the more surprising when he says that a person is not justified, or rectified, or made righteous by the works of the law. That always seemed a bit counterintuitive to me. It never seemed to make much sense. I mean, how could someone not be righteous, if they follow the law? But God isn’t concerned only with how we behave. He also cares how we think and feel. Is it compassionate to refrain from murder because it's against the law? Is it charitable to pay taxes, even knowing that some of that money will be used to take care of the poor, if we only pay taxes to avoid jail time? Is it faithful to refuse to cheat on a spouse only for fear of the consequences? In these cases, the law is meant to be a minimum standard that all should follow, and if we congratulate ourselves for doing the bare minimum, the only righteousness we get is self-righteousness. That’s why the law cannot make us truly righteous. To be truly righteous depends on our intentions, on our heads and our hearts. And this is what God wants to change.

          Luckily, Paul gives us a solution. While we cannot be made righteous by following the law, we are justified instead through faith in Jesus Christ (or, perhaps more accurately translated, through the faith or faithfulness of Jesus Christ). Paul tried to find righteousness through following the law, and it didn’t come. Through the law he died to the law, because that way did not lead to life. It was by pursuing righteousness through the law that he found out it wasn’t possible. Paul found out, just as we know, that by being crucified with Christ through our baptism, we are set free and made right. As the epistle could alternately be translated, “I have been crucified with Christ and yet I live. But it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” This “I” who no longer lives in Paul is a word familiar to us, thanks to modern psychology. The Greek word is “ego.” By sharing in the crucifixion, Paul has put his ego, his self, his desires and wishes, to death. They no longer live in him, because he has decided to let them die so that Christ may live in him instead. This may seem extreme, but it’s something that Christ himself told us several times. In the Gospel of Mark, he tells us that a house divided cannot stand. No one can plunder a strong man’s house without first tying up the strong man. And we know that our desires are strong. In the Gospel of Matthew, he tells us that no one can serve two masters. We cannot serve both God and Mammon, a Greek word which means “wealth” or “material possessions” or even “greed.” We cannot serve God if we’re trying desperately to get more stuff.

          And so, like Paul, we try to put those earthly desires to death. We strive to submit to God’s will, even knowing that it means subjugating our own. By being baptized into Christ’s crucifixion, so we live. But not us; Christ lives within us. Knowing this, we cannot help but be forever changed. Christ lives in us; in each and every one of us. He lives in me and he lives in you, just as he lives in my neighbor, and in my friend. He lives in my coworker and my acquaintance. He lives in my competitor and my enemy. And this is the intent of the law, for us as Christians. We still try to tithe to God’s church and to keep the Sabbath, but not because we'll feel bad if we don't or we think it's expected of us. We still remain faithful to him, but not because that’s the letter of the law. We still try to love one another as Christ himself loves us, but not out of guilt or obligation. We do it because Christ lives in us, in each and every one of us, and without the gifts we are given by the grace of God, not one of us would have a dime to our name, or breath to draw, or one minute of time on this earth. All that we are and all that we have is because of God, and it is only through him in Christ that we are made righteous.

 

Trinity Sunday, 26 May 2013

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

Preached by Rev. Dr. Jason Haddox 

In the third year of her widowhood, my maternal grandmother began “keeping company” with a widower gentleman in her town.  One evening she went to his house to cook dinner for the two of them, as his housekeeper was away for a family reunion.   

Cooking in someone else’s kitchen is always a dangerous proposition, because you never know what you’re going to find.  What she found was a whole lot of not much.  She reported later that “He didn’t have any onions, he didn’t have any celery, he didn’t have any bell pepper—I couldn’t even get started!”

 

This was a formidable accusation, as any cook from Louisiana or east Texas will tell you.  Equal amounts of chopped onion, celery, and bell pepper form the beginning of many very fine recipes in that part of the world—and in fact, those three ingredients are collectively known as “The Holy Trinity.”  Without them, my grandmother could not proceed.  Nothing could happen in that kitchen without the Holy Trinity.

 

To prepare for many guests, you need a lot of it.  To feed only a few people, you need less.  Sometimes even one onion and one bell pepper would be too much, so you save what is left over for next time.  And there will always be a next time, perhaps even the same day.  The Holy Trinity is always needed; and the Holy Trinity is always available.

Today is Trinity Sunday, the day the Church recalls and gives thanks for THE Holy Trinity—the doctrinal confession of God as simultaneously One-in-Three and Three-in-One.  Much ink has flowed to describe this doctrine; many tears and much blood have been shed in the promotion of (and resistance to) its formularies.  (If you want a taste of some of the controversies, look on page 864 of the Prayer Book, where you will find the Athanasian Creed, a substantial—and complex—statement of Trinitarian theology.)

The early church had to wrestle with the question:  If God is One, as the faith tradition of Israel confesses, then what do we make of Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead, ascended into heaven, who promised to come again to make all things new?  And what of the Spirit of truth, promised by that same Jesus, evident among the followers of Jesus—is this Holy Spirit also part of God’s very self?  And how is it so?

It took five hundred years, and a great deal of partisan political wrangling, to come up with a statement that everyone in the Church could sort of agree on.  And even now it’s still up for discussion and debate.  Even our regularly used faith statements, the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, say somewhat different things about that three-in-one relationship. 

But really that’s the main point—that it is a relationship.  As fine and well-crafted as our words on the subject may ever be, they are exactly that: our words.  We are attempting to describe something beyond words; to say that which is ultimately unsayable, which is Mystery.   

Some of the early Christian writers used a wonderful Greek word for this unsayable mystery:  perichoresis.  From the prefix “peri-”, meaning “nearby, around, in the same vicinity” and “chorein”, from the verb meaning “to move, to make space.”  “To make space nearby; to move around in a certain area.”  Dwight Zscheile, in his book People of the Way: Renewing Episcopal Identity, defines it as “circulating around the neighborhood.”  It’s the word from which we get our English word “carol”, as in Christmas carol.  A carol was a dance—the participants stood in a circle holding hands, a soloist would sing the verses alone, and then everyone would sing the chorus together while they danced the steps appointed.   

You can’t “go caroling” alone.  You have to have others with you.  Perichoresis, the motion, the dance of the Holy Trinity, points to the lively relationship, and the constant movement and energy, present in the Godhead, into which we are invited as the people of God.  So says St. Paul to the Christians in Rome in the epistle reading; so says Jesus to his friends at the dinner table in the gospel reading this morning.   

The Holy Trinity is not something that “happened” long ago in history, or far away in Heaven beyond our reach.  The Dance of Trinity is ongoing, and present even here and now.  God circulating around, over and under and in and out, moving and grooving, hopping and bopping and reaching out to catch hands with those who stand nearby, to call each of us into the dance as well.  To draw us into that lively, energizing, joyous God-life in this place, at this time. 

My grandmother died in 2000, five days after I was ordained.  About a year later, I had a dream about her.  I saw her not as I knew her in life, but a much younger version of herself.  She was seated at a table in a large ballroom, wearing a sparkling light blue party dress.  Seated next to her was my grandfather, who had died many years before; on her other side was Henry, her “gentleman caller” who was my second grandfather in almost everything but legal fact.  The music of Benny Goodman was playing in the background, as they all got up to dance.  Sometimes Gram was dancing with my grandfather, while Henry stood by and bounced and clapped along; sometimes she danced with Henry while my grandfather did the bouncing and clapping. Sometimes Henry and my grandfather danced together, while Gram kept the rhythm going.    

At the time, I took that dream to be one of reassurance, a word of comfort.  “I’m all right, you don’t have to worry about me.”  And I think that is still a right meaning, but there’s more to it. 

I think that dream was a glimpse into the very life of God which we name as Trinity: the ongoing, active, joyous movement of God-in-Godself that creates and sustains and redeems the entire cosmos, and each of us in it.  That reaches out to clasp hands with those who stand nearby, so that we may be drawn into that life and motion.  So that we may reach out, to clasp hands with those who stand near, that they too may be drawn into this life and motion, this holy dancing life-giving energy we call the Trinity. 

My brothers and sisters, may it be so for us.  May it be so among us.

In the name of the Trinity: Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The Day of Pentecost, 19 May 2013

Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-21; John 14: 8-17, 25-27

Preached by Rev. Dr. Jason Haddox

“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all gathered together…”  They were gathered together for the feast, for the celebration, for the remembrance. 

Fifty Days after the Passover, the feast of Pentecost was a spring thanksgiving festival, remembering the giving of the Torah (The Teaching or Instruction, not “Law” in the way we usually mean that word) at Mt. Sinai. God appeared in fire on the mountain, and gave that teaching to Moses, and called the children of Israel as God’s chosen people. 

We see that gift commemorated in our window here nearest the pulpit; the green and purple trumpets of the prophets are lifted to call the people together; to hear the teaching of God for the good of God’s people and God’s creation.  To call them to instruction, symbolized by the scrolls of the Torah there at the base of the window’s icon.  To summon them to repentance (metanoia): to turn from the objects and actions which distract and destroy, to bring them back to their Creator, the giver of Life and all things.  

The Day of Pentecost was already a big day, one of the great pilgrimage occasions, so there were lots of pilgrims in Jerusalem that year; lots of strangers double-booked in overcrowded inns (perhaps some even sleeping in the barn with the animals); a veritable Tower of Babble in the streets. 

Suddenly, into this warm, closely-packed, high-volume scene, with no warning whatsoever: Wind. Fire.  Light and air, motion and sound, even greater than the noise already in the streets.  The disciples have been waiting for something to happen—and happen it does.   

 

Today the Church is sent out from the place where they have waited.  Today the closed doors of the Upper Room are blown off their hinges, and the followers of Jesus are hurled out into those busy, babbling streets to become witnesses of what they themselves have seen of God’s power over the powers of death and destruction, messengers carrying words of hope, forgiveness, and new life into the towns and countries into which they will go.   They are infused with the breath and life and words and power of God, through the gift of the Holy Spirit.  

 

And see—the green and purple trumpets of the prophets are there too.  In our Pentecost window, beneath the descending dove and holy fire, undergirding the whole scene, promising that the teaching, the wisdom, the way of life that God has promised his people is still there.  “In those days” says Peter, quoting the prophet Joel, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all people: young and old, men and women, slave and free.”  Not only for those in Judea and Jerusalem, not only for the inner circle, no.  The Way that leads to the life of God is now available to all people, regardless of who they are or where they are.  Or when.

 

They who have seen and experienced the power, the mercy, and the love of God displayed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, now take that experience with them into the world, to share it with everyone they meet.  It has transformed their lives; now they will be agents and instruments of transformation in the lives of others.    

 

Whoever has seen Jesus, has seen the Father.  In the passage from John’s gospel, Jesus tells the disciples that they too are “in God”, and that they will do the works that they have seen Jesus do, and more.  What have they seen?  Water turned to wine; strangers welcomed and blessed in order to bless their own communities and neighbors; thousands fed with seemingly inadequate resources; the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dead are raised to new life.

 

But they will not—they cannot—do any of these things on their own.  They must be taught and guided by “the Advocate” whom Jesus will send.  “Advocate”= “Helper, comforter”; from the Greek word  Paraclete, from para-, “for the purpose of” or “with”; and kalao, “to call.”  One who comes alongside, to guide and direct.  The disciples must “abide in Christ” (John 15:4) that the life of Christ may be evident in them.  

J. Philip Newell’s Listening For The Heartbeat Of God, our Wisdom Wednesday discussion book recently, made much of the image of listening—paying careful and constant attention to the voice of God present among us and to each of us.  That “still, small voice” is an invitation to trust.  It is an invitation into faith…not faith in a series of propositional statements ABOUT God, but into faith in the continuing presence and guidance OF God, revealed through Scripture, and tradition, and human thought and reflection on experience—listening for the breath of the Holy Spirit, which (as the Gospel of John says earlier) “blows where it will, and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with those who are born of the Spirit.”   

As followers of Jesus we believe that Spirit is given to each of us, and to all of us together.  We remember in our baptism—even if we don’t remember the baptism itself—that we were given gifts for ministry.  Each one of us has a gift, or more than one, for ministry in Christ’s name.  How will we make use of those gifts?  For it is to this that Jesus calls us, this day of Pentecost, in this town of Augusta, in this year 2013.   

From Paul Fromberg, rector of St. Gregory of Nyssa, SF: Pentecost in a single line: Jesus says to us:  “You are my beloved, do as I do, be as I am.” 

My brothers and sisters, may it be so with us.  May it be so among us, today and always.

 

Fourth Sunday of Easter, April 21, 2013, Year C

Acts 9:36-43; Psalm 23; Revelation 7:9-17; John 10:22-30

Preached by Ian Lasch

           My mother has a plaque hanging in her kitchen right by the door that says, "I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much." It's attributed to Mother Teresa, and it’s a wonderful sentiment. The only problem is that, at least in my experience, it isn't entirely true. You see, we live in a world where bad things can and do happen, even to the best of us. We live in a world where the celebration of the end of a marathon in Boston can change in an instant to the horror of three deaths and nearly 200 injuries, dozens of which required amputation, or where a quiet night in a quiet town outside of Waco can turn into the tragedy of a dozen killed and two hundred injured out of a community of just 2,500. We live in a world where, all too often, we’re given more, sometimes much more, than we alone can handle. What comfort do we have in a world like this?

          That is likely the same question that was being asked by the friends and family of Tabitha in our reading from Acts. Tabitha was a disciple of Christ, about whom we know only that "she was devoted to good works and acts of charity." In the midst of doing good things, still she was torn from them. Her friends are consumed with grief. They send for the apostle Peter, but when he gets there, they are still overwhelmed. Unable to understand or to cope, they simply weep. Bad things, it seems, can happen to good people. But in his letter to the Romans, Paul says that just as we were baptized into Christ's death, we are baptized into his resurrection, and we could have no clearer example than Tabitha. Our comfort is that she dies, and then she lives. The resurrection is hers, and it is ours.

          What comfort do we have in a world like this? Well, John wrote us a prophecy that applies just as much in our time as it did in his. This portion of the Revelation is set in the midst of the opening of the seven seals, the part of the book so harrowing that it’s what gave the word apocalyptic its meaning. The four horsemen are unleashed with the first four seals. With the fifth, the souls of those slaughtered for the word of God have cried out for judgment and vengeance... and been told to wait. With the sixth, there is a great earthquake, the sun goes black, the full moon becomes like blood, stars fall to the earth, the sky vanishes, and mountains and islands are moved. Everyone on earth hides in caves, fearing the wrath of the Lord. As John is asked, "Who are these, robed in white?" the seventh seal awaits, which will give seven angels seven trumpets, which will unleash yet more horrors on the world. We know the answer must be important, because it's one of only two or three places in the entire book where the images shown to John are explained. But our answer doesn’t come from John himself; John can’t say. He’s witnessing horror and tragedy, image after image, not unlike the photos from Boston and from West that we’ve seen on TV for the past week. In the midst of all this awfulness and suffering, John gives up. He doesn't know who those robed in white are. In his misery he fails to recognize himself. Just as we, reading these words in the wake of tragedy millennia later, fail to recognize ourselves. You see, it’s us, all of us, who are robed in white. We are the faithful of God who have washed our robes white in the blood of the Lamb, both at the time of our baptism and every week, here, at His table. Our comfort is that this is not some future prophecy that may yet come to pass, but a promise to each and every one of us, for now and forever, that we will hunger and thirst no more. Sun and scorching heat and terror will not strike us. The Lamb will be our shepherd and he will guide us to the springs of the water of life.

          What comfort do we have in a world like this? The comfort of Christ, our Good Shepherd, telling us today that we, his sheep, hear his voice. That he knows us, and not just as some acquaintance. He knows us so thoroughly that he feels, as intimately as we do, our pain and suffering – even in times like these, horrific beyond comprehension. He knows us so thoroughly that he even knows our doubt. We have a savior who understands what it means to cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Knowing our pain and our doubt, he promises that no one and nothing will ever snatch us out of his hand.

Though we may sometimes be given more than we can handle alone, thanks be to God, we don’t have to. You see, our comfort is that we also live in a world where our Good Shepherd is always with us. We live in a world where, even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we need fear no evil. Because we live in a world where when we struggle, and when we suffer, and when we weep... God wipes away every tear from our eyes.