11 October 2008

Pastoral Swings

This morning at Glenn's bedside. I knew it couldn't be long. We sang and prayed and commended him again in to the hands of the Savior. "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace..." Then over to Heather and Jon's to pray the rite for blessing of a new mother, and make arrangements for a Baptism on All Saints. While there, word that Glenn had fallen asleep in Jesus. Tonight Nicolette and her newborn twins will be coopted into Christ's kingdom by Baptism. Sorrow. Joy. Joys.

And what accompanies the whole journey is the Lord God speaking His words of promise, of grace, of forgiveness, of love. Life in this fallen world is the great battleground where faith wages its war with despair by clinging to the promises of God; a battle to hold that what we cannot see is mightier and stronger than all the death and sorrow we experience all around us. In this Sunday's Gospel (John 4), the man has to go home with just the promise of Jesus in his pocket (Franzmann). And the promise is what he must use to fight the despair into which the devil would plunge him. He found out in the end that the promise of Jesus was stronger than the death attacking his son. As we make our journey from cradle to grave may we find the same!

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