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I'm sharing this journal entry from one of our sheep / shepherds for your encouragement and invite you to share your stories to keep us connected David
Thursday April 2, 2020: A journal entry:
JESUS WEPT.
A Morning mist of low cloud wrapped soft around the hills.
I read John 6 and tried to ponder on Jesus the living bread. But the mist beckoned and drew me outside, quickly enfolding me in its clammy embrace.
There was no pausing to choose direction. I headed straight up the hill blanketed in the foggy stillness, only birdcall echoing the inner certainty – she’s coming to pray.
Pray up the hill. I haven’t prayed up there for a while. I’ve prayed. But not there on God’s hill, my place of retreat.
At the summit, as cloud drifted and lifted, it was my heart that rained out its anguished plea, the cry for help with COVID19: LORD HEAR OUR PRAYER. Help us Jesus.
That was it. No wordy waffle. I perched on the rim of the damp bench, poised in grief and need; heart, mind and spirit turned to God, “Yet still do I praise you Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Living God.”
A lull then settled over me, like a mute button had been pressed to hush the turmoil of my distressed thoughts and wretched emotions concerning the plight of the world’s people. Wait. Be quiet!
Jesus wept. The words from last Sunday’s reading came to mind loud and clear.
33 When Jesus saw her crying, and the Judaeans who had come with her crying, he was deeply stirred in his spirit, and very troubled. 34 ‘Where have you laid him?’ he asked. ‘Master,’ they said, ‘come and see.’ 35 Jesus burst into tears. (John 11:33-35 NTE)
I too burst into tears, and as I wept, there at the top of the hill, I knew he was weeping with me. Weeping with all the world. Weeping for us all.
Turn to me. And I, turning, vision all awash, could see clearly, he was there. Feed my sheep. To this I shook my head, and thought, I’m no pastor. You are a minister of my word. Therefore, speak my word to others. Speak my word to one another. And suddenly understanding dawned. “You aren’t just saying this to me, are you? It’s your call to all of us: Feed your sheep. The responsibility is ours collectively.” And I pictured the scattered sheep, isolated from one another but belonging together and needing creative new ways of being church and speaking grace and hope to one another and others.
I plunged, then, down the hill, not following the worn paths but winding down the steeper slope, weaving through knee high weeds, around rocky mounds and patches of slippery flattened grass, to emerge at the wider base track.
Now is the time to forge new paths. Jesus is still the Way, the “base track” of my faith remains the same. It’s the network of familiar paths that represent how we have lived out our faith, that have fallen away, not God’s word or his kingdom, or his love.
I am thankful for this love that comes to us where we are: scattered sheep weeping in the mist of uncertainty. I’m thankful that Jesus wept and that his way isn’t set in stone. That he comes and calls us to discover a new and living way, today and tomorrow and the next day. Hallelujah! This is a new day! And the Jesus who weeps with us in our distress will renew us and lead us on beyond COVID19.
JESUS WEPT.
The autumn sun filtered a pale ray through the drifting grey. A reminder that the God who weeps, also sheds light as well as tears.
A place of abundance
by Linda Macqueen
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
Praise be to God, who has not … withheld his love from me! (Psalm 66:20)
Read Psalm 66:8–20
This week’s devotion texts have been ping‑ponging us back and forth across the Scriptures, and I’ll admit, I’m feeling a little dizzy. We began with the disciples trembling in the upper room (John). Then we visited the exiled Judeans in their exhaustion (Isaiah), before joining the early church (Acts) as they tried to understand what it meant to follow a crucified and risen Messiah. We bounced off Paul’s encouragement to two young communities learning how to live faithfully within pagan cultures (2 Corinthians and Ephesians). Yesterday, we reflected on how the Old and New Testament covenants meet in our High Priest, Jesus (Hebrews).
How can all these threads possibly belong to one story?
Thankfully, the psalmists often know how to gather scattered strands together, and today’s Psalm 66 does not disappoint. This is a song rising from the far side of trouble. The hearers are not people unfamiliar with suffering. They have known oppression, bewilderment, fear and the long ache of waiting. Yet the psalm is not a lament – it is a testimony. Standing on the other side of trial and testing, they declare that God has brought them ‘to a place of abundance’.
Across all the readings this week, did you notice the same heartbeat? God’s steadfast love for his people, even when their path leads through fire and water. His protection covered them, whether or not they could feel it. His refining work, his preserving hand, his refusal to abandon those who call on him.
Psalm 66 does not offer easy answers, but it does offer a way of seeing: God’s love is not proven by the absence of struggle but by his faithful presence within it. Like the psalmist, Christians today pray in the dark silences; we cry out, we wrestle – and we discover that God has been listening and loving us all along, leading us steadily toward his abundance.
God of all seasons, as I face the world’s turmoil and my own, I cling to this anchor: you are not withholding your love from me. Your ear is open to my cry. Your presence is steady, holding me close. And you are leading me, even now, toward a place of abundance. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.
Once and for all
by Linda Macqueen
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
… he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12a).
Read Hebrews 9:11–15
Today’s text stands at the centre of a long, careful argument (read all of chapter 9 if you have time): Christ is the High Priest who enters not an earthly sanctuary but the very presence of God, offering not the blood of animals but his own life. He has done something no earthly priest could ever do: he has opened the way into God’s presence once and for all. He has secured eternal redemption.
The original hearers – Jewish Christians – knew the staggering weight of this claim. They had grown up with the temple, the priests, the Day of Atonement, the panicked bleating and bellowing of animals aligned for slaughter, and the stomach-churning smell of blood. They also knew about the heavy curtain in the temple that marked the boundary between God’s holiness and human frailty.
For modern readers, the temple system isn’t part of our cultural memory. We don’t feel the awe of a priest stepping behind the curtain, or the solemnity of sacrifice. But we do know what it is to feel unworthy, distant or unsure of our status before God. We know the inner rituals we perform to try to make ourselves ‘clean enough’ or ‘good enough’ – and even then, sometimes, we are still not sure if it’s been enough.
Into our world, the writer of Hebrews still speaks with astonishing clarity: Christ has already crossed the distance. He has already carried the cost. He has already opened the way to God.
Matthew 27:51 gives us the image that makes this truth unforgettable: ‘The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.’ Not from bottom to top – as if we humans had clawed our way toward God – but from top to bottom, God’s own act of opening the way. The barrier rips apart, once and for all. Access is given, once and for all. The Holy of Holies is no longer a place of fear but a place of loving welcome.
We are safe with God. We are home.
Dear Jesus, my High Priest, thank you that your very own blood opened the way to the Father once and for all. Sometimes, I still feel as though I’m standing outside the curtain, trying to be worthy. Help me to step into the astonishing truth that my access to the Holy of Holies has already been given, and that I stand before my God, redeemed, once and for all. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.
New clothes
by Linda Macqueen
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:24).
Read Ephesians 4:17–24
Paul’s words in today’s text (addressed to the Ephesians) replay the same melody we heard in yesterday’s text (addressed to the Corinthians). If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation – and now Paul sketches what that new creation looks like in everyday life. He contrasts it with the old patterns of the Gentile world: darkened understanding, hardened hearts, restless desires that never satisfy. These aren’t merely moral failings; they are symptoms of life lived apart from the One who is Life.
But Paul does not say, ‘Try harder to be different.’ He says, ‘You learnt … Christ.’ You were taught to take off the old self and to put on the new – language that sounds remarkably like baptismal clothing. This is not self-improvement; it is participation in Christ’s own life. The new humanity is something God has already begun in us.
We don’t wake up each morning needing to earn God’s favour by being good. We wake up already claimed, already beloved, already joined to Christ. And because we belong to him, his life begins to reshape ours – often quietly, often gradually. It’s like a slow, steady ripening, a growing up day by day into maturity.
In Ephesians 4, Paul’s long list of examples of Christian living is not a checklist for righteousness but a description of what Christ’s life looks like when it takes root in ordinary people: truthfulness, gentleness, forgiveness, generosity and patience. These are not conditions for salvation; they are the fruit of it.
After dwelling on all this, I’m thinking about our neighbour Warren again, and his ‘What’s new?’ question every Thursday night. Maybe I should pay more attention to that question. Maybe I should ask myself that question every day of my new life in Christ. What’s new today, Linda? What did you and the Holy Spirit drown together yesterday so that something new, something that looks like Jesus, can take root and grow?
Dear Heavenly Father, take me again into the waters of my baptism. Let my old self be drowned. Let Christ clothe me again in my new life. Help me to stay alert to how your Holy Spirit is forming me into the very life of Jesus. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.